Your bargain is not necessarily my bargain, Phil
Being, as they say in the North where I was brought up, "as cheap as chips", I am ever alert for a bargain, so I read this from a man called Phil with some interest.
Dear Drayton
We would like to offer DraytonBird Associates Ltd the opportunity to fill any two roles for only £995. With a massive saving of approximately £400 off our single vacancy price can you really afford to miss it?
The answer was "yes"- and I shall explain why - but I thought it was a good e-mail, because the copy mentioned they'd filled 92% of vacancies in the previous month.
I think people are the most important asset for any business, and I would never, if I could possibly help it, let them be supplied by a recruitment firm. I feel pretty much the same about "human resource" people.
(Stop me if you've already heard this).
My then PA at the time, Denise, suggested I could get the perfect girl - a bright 19 year old she had already spotted - from a recruitment agency for a mere £2,000 plus.
Well, the last thing I needed was a bright 19 year old, and I resented paying that much to people who are little more than body-brokers.
So I wrote an ad in 20 minutes which we stuck on Gumtree. It cost us £19, and I got 82 replies in 24 hours, and found nearly twenty likely good people. Choosing the right one was the only problem.
And what was her background? She was running a hamburger restaurant. "I've never been a PA, but believe me, there's nothing you can throw at me that' s as hard as what I do now."
She was fantastic until she went and got pregnant. She even wrote some good copy - though her native language was Brazilian Portuguese. But what recruitment agency would ever have been able to spot she was perfect?
Here's a good one from my pal Glenmore:
Don't spank potatoes in front of The Bitch
Joan Collins was being served dinner in BA business class and one of the potatoes was so hot it burnt her mouth. Ms Collins called over the steward and told him the potato had burnt her mouth.
The camp flight attendant was a little over-excited to be serving the star so took the potato and proceeded to spank it and say "Bad potato! Bad potato!" much to the mirth of fellow passengers. Joan, however, was not amused and made a complaint.
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