When outsourcing goes bad, part 11 of 16
Like a punch to the face
At the restaurant, there was a guy sitting to my immediate right. He was hard to figure out. He was wearing cowboy boots and a baseball cap, on backwards even though that had become such a tired cliche that most people now avoided it. There was something about his manner that made me think he understood social cues, and so I guessed that his decision to wear the backwards baseball cap was done, not in ignorance of its status as a cliche, but in deliberate defiance of that status. His button-down shirt was undone on the top three buttons, as if we were at a beach resort and he was trying to get a tan. He did not eat, but he ordered several beers, always an IPA.
Lawrence: You like IPA?
Gorki: I prefer whiskey over beer, but if I'm going to drink beer, I want the strongest hops I can get. You should want that hop flavor to hit you directly, like a punch to the face. I never drink stout. I never drink wheat beers. I never drink lite beers. Beer is about hops, and everything else is a fraud. If you have to drink beer, you might as well dive in, and confront the hops.
What was odd was that he didn't say any of this in a friendly or jovial way. You'd think such an ostentatious attitude towards beer would at least be delivered in a joking manner.
Lawrence: So, what do you do at AndersonRiskAssessment?
Gorki: I help Arwin with a few things.
I thought perhaps he was in sales. I've known sales guys who mostly talked about beer and sports, almost obsessively. But there was something off about his manner. Most of the sales guys I know are great extroverts, always talking, and always friendly, at least on the surface, at least at work. Outside of work, who knows, maybe they go home and yell at their children, but at work most sales people are upbeat and inviting. This guy was none of that. He was pinched off, almost hostile, full of judgement.
Lawrence: You help Arwin, how? You tell others about our software?
Gorki: You know, I do sometimes tell other people about our software.
Then he scanned me over, not the way a gay guy would, but I think more looking for status signifiers: was my shirt expensive? Did I have any tattoos? Did I wear jewelry? Were my shoes expensive? But I did not wear jewelry, I had no tattoos, and my shirt was ordinary. Whatever he saw, it seemed to make him more angry.
Gorki: What do you drink?
Lawrence: Nothing tonight.
Gorki: In general.
Lawrence: Whiskey.
Gorki: What whiskey? You drink Maker's Mark? Jim Beam? Southern Comfort?
This felt like bait, like he wanted me to admit "I only drink the worst whiskey, the cheapest whiskey I can find." Or he felt that I was pretending know a lot about whiskey, and he wanted to prove me wrong. I was no expert on whiskey, but now I found myself in this odd competition, and I did not want to come across as completely ignorant.
Lawrence: Bushmill's is good. Their Black Bush is especially good. And sometimes, when traveling, you can run into regional brands that are good. I was just out in Michigan and my friends introduced me to Johnny Smoking Gun. Their distillery is in Detroit. It was pretty good.
Gorki: So you just drink whatever you find while traveling?
Lawrence: I wouldn't say that.
Gorki: Well, what do you drink, when you can find the thing you want?
Lawrence: Eagle Rare Bourbon, on the rocks, with a lemon twist. When I can find it.
Apparently this answer took him off-guard.
Gorki: That's actually a good answer!
After this he was slightly less hostile, slightly more open.
Gorki: I don't like Vodka. It's just plain alcohol, really. They often brag about it being "triple distilled." Why would anyone brag about that? They take everything away from it, there is nothing left to enjoy. It's a vulgar drink, it only makes sense when you mix it with something else that disguises its lack of character. Vodka can never surprise. At no point in my life have I tried a vodka and thought, "So interesting, this is not what I was expecting!" But the great whiskeys, the great bourbons, they have character. They can surprise. Don't you think?
Lawrence: I've often thought that, yes.
Gorki: I don't mean the top-shelf stuff. I don't mean Pappy Van Winkle. I'm not saying Pappy is bad, don't take me wrong, but I am saying that it didn't live up to what I was expecting, given all that I'd heard about it. It was fine, but it wasn't the masterpiece I'd been lead to expect. Sometimes the top-shelf brands disappoint. But the mid-shelf? That is where all the surprises are. You buy a bottle for $100 so you're not expecting too much and then it just ambushes you with its strength and subtlety. You mention Eagle Rare, that's a good example, I wasn't expecting much, and then I was surprised. Eagle Rare offers much more than even some brands that are ten times more expensive.
Lawrence: You know a lot about whiskey.
Gorki: I've made a study of whiskey. I've traveled the world to learn about whiskey. I've personally visited perhaps 100 distilleries, all over the world. There are experts who know more than I do, but I at least understand whiskey.
Lawrence: Do you have any recommendations?
Gorki: One recommendation I would make to you is that you should not drink something like Eagle Rare on the rocks. The ice melts and dilutes the flavor. You should want the force of that strong flavor to hit you straight, like a punch to the face.
Lawrence: That's not bad advice. I'll try it neat next time.
A moment later, he left suddenly. He did not say goodbye to anyone. Was this rude? What was clear was that he held us in such contempt that he did not care if we thought he was rude. He was the least friendly sales guy that I had ever met.
I looked at Arwin. Arwin saw me look at him, and then he looked away and he asked Walter who was going to pay for all of this food. Obviously Arwin was going to pay for all of this, using the corporate card, but Arwin decided to turn it into a bit of a joke. Walter explained they had two options, AndersonRiskAssessment could pay for it, or we could all run to our cars, without paying, and hopefully escape before the police arrived. Arwin continued the joke by acting like this was a serious choice and he had to weight the pros and cons, before he finally pulled out a credit card. I wasn't sure if Arwin had planned to make that elaborate joke or if he'd spontaneously done it to avoid talking about Gorki. Then he got up to leave.
Read the whole series:
1. But what do these glib little bullet points mean?
2. When the CTO does not trust their own team
3. Everyone is under pressure, everyone is too busy to help
4. They lie. They lie flagrantly. They lie all of the time, about everything.
5. That place is a total sweatshop!
7. I am very, very proud of you. The work you are doing is amazing.
8. I blame you. You suck. You are the problem.
9. We just got $10,000 dollars!!!!
10. The Taj Mahal was built with blood
12. Where are my story points, Gujurat?
13. We are the best people to help him, so why doesn't he want our help?
14. Should a toilet be listed as an amenity?
15. I am simply telling you how things work in India
16. Too big to fail: when you've no option but to brazen it out