"The longer I live in the white light, the more I am convinced that people of any kind are capable of arranging Armageddon. And the more desolate the wasteland, the more Armageddon Armageddon.

by Andrei Cterhov. From the book “Being a Dragon.”


“Style Syndrome”

It was long ago. Almost fifteen years ago.
There was one commercial office, thousands of which were in Russia. Well, as an office, not to be very large, but not a little bubble. Stores, shops and your own fleet. Three founders in equal shares, each has their own separate business, but all adequately, even family friends. Profit is not any, but not three pennies, for yachts and villas is not enough, but for a year for an apartment in Moscow for everyone, quite. The company practically did not interfere in the work, relying reasonably on the director.
And office workers are not so many, a standard set. Wholesale department, retail, accounting, personnel department, marketing, IT, in the last two to one person total. The director himself. The group is approximately half male/female.

The office is not that "Ah", but an entire floor with a separate entrance to the office center. Storage and car park right on the territory is convenient. The office has a kitchen with a chef and a small dining room (one room) for their own, with delicious and free (!) The Lunch.
Only here, the toilet in the office was one, without division into male-female.
Previously, questions and dissatisfaction with this fact did not arise, but somehow a delegation from the female half of the office came to the director. Headed by the office manager and in conjunction with the wife of one of the founders (it is boring to see if she sits at home). There is a problem with the toilet. The director, a man already young, but experienced and smart manager, tried to translate a little bit of everything into a joke:
Is our cleaner cleaning badly? Or do our boys not raise the chair or use the erchic to learn? I will put them! But it wasn’t a joke, it turned out to be a lot more serious.)
The cleanliness in the toilet and order, and the boys, as for selection, clean - in the right place get, and the stool is used, and the chair is raised, but here is the showdown - back they do not drop it! And women themselves to drop before the process is unpleasant - they whisper.
- She cries, hmm... Like a corporate in a cafe, a young carrier in a polluted toilet can suck and then stand with cancer, holding his hands to the toilet, but from the youthful expressive and massive enthusiasm still rhythmically touching a drunk moustache in a damned glass without a cover... - the director thought intelligently about himself, focusing a bad look on the office manager, the thirty-year-old blonde Irina, but broke down the unworthy thoughts for the right manager and said:
Okay, I’ll talk to the guys... but it wasn’t here. This delegation desires necessarily and urgently that the corresponding order be issued by it.
- Oh, and in the register we will still register, and in the folder with the founding documents we will put, so that the laughing stomachs of the inspectors will explode... More than that. I solve this issue, go work... - added in a firm voice and opened the door of the office.

Many think that the job of the director of a trading company is only strategic and marketing plans to build, sales tactics to brush, financial reports to analyze and the like, but often fifty percent of the time is spent by the manager on such questions and little things in the life of the organization.

He gathered the male part of the team after work, to clarify the situation. He immediately wiped out the indignation and discontent:
Only when you drop the chair, you also drop the cover. They had to raise them anyway. And to not forget, remember such a sign or belief - such as that after a long open toilet, at home or in the office - no matter, financial well-being flows... - the idea was accepted even with some enthusiasm. A good leader is first and foremost a wise person. Formally and literally fulfilled the request of the female half of the team and at the same time did not offend the men, showing that he was entirely on their side in this female capricious.

But not here it was... A few days later a delegation of female deputies in the same composition appeared to him again:
- You tell them not to drop the cover along with the chair! “How did you get me,” thought the director, looking at the founder’s wife.
Can you say it yourself? Do you think I have nothing more to do? Only your nonsense to have fun... And tomorrow you will think that you have gotten the eardrum in your hands to take and let the Light after you clean the toilet, after every relief... - has seriously raised the voice.
Semenova and you too. At your department, the sales plan burns in a blue flame, and you only think of the toilet... and every day without five and six is already at a low start. March to work! And so that I personally don't get off the phone... - a good break in time so helps to switch attention...

Irina concealed a wicked outrage, but her husband did not complain, she understood that he would go away from such a question or would send far and deep because of the vicious male solidarity. But she began to drop slowly on her husband's brains, blowing up every problem or lack to universal scales. Everyone knows about the night cat.
And soon this founder raised the question: Star mol (50th was not yet) and tired like our Nikolaich. They no longer catch mice. Indicators are growing, but somehow sluggish and weak and the plan is not always executed. We would need a new director, young, ambitious and literate, with a diploma of the Top University and necessarily with an MBA (Master of Business Administration) course, a super-popper advanced, successful manager, and that all in the science of American commerce, advanced business and business.

We found that, of course. They were fascinated simply, and how beautifully he "song"..., what a cool manager he is and how he can organize everything correctly, and how he raised the previous company from his knees...
- And your lift... - the founders looked confused, turned out to be on their knees. Even words through one highly intelligent and advanced drive: sales promotion, duo-diligence, styling, benchmarking,..., and with a cool English pronunciation... Then it was quite new - the founders were far from stupid, and here ears hanged and listened, mouths opened.
In short, he had twice as much money as Nicholas had.

And now we are not employees, but business units. And not bonuses and bonuses, but KPIs, and they were always pronounced in full: "Key Performance Indicators." Not customers, but leaders and distributors, not planners in sales departments, but brainsales, not a staff member, but a coach partner and so on...

The first time the results really rose, especially in the wholesale department, salespeople, scared of the new meth, worked the second month for all 110%. And the net profit of the company increased, primarily due to a decrease in the salary fund (bonuses and premiums cut), cost reductions (revised boundaries and regulations for return of goods and warranty repairs), debit decreased (retrobonuses for customers for default delay began to be cancelled), free lunches cancelled and the like. The founders were pleased and what we used to...

And then it went worse and worse. The new director, although super smart, but stupid, and also active. I did not understand that any company relies, first of all, on time-tested personnel and dedicated customers, and not only on built-up business processes, regulations and motivation systems. In America it may be so, but “This is Russia, baby.”
The new director was absolutely unable to build relationships with people, and arrogance across the border, retailers, drivers and freighters in general held for the swallow. In the end, the key employees were fired or they themselves began to be fired. The same Semenov with a thunderstorm kicked out, as not knowing how to properly (according to the textbook) organize a sales wreck. Oh, and you try in our circumstances according to the letter of this multi-minded work from the Nobel laureate to do something normal...
One of the leading sellers went to the competitors and managed to take away a key customer, who was just about 10% of all wholesale sales. Or he himself offended when his personal discount was cut, for a delayed (first time!) Payment for 2 days.
The flow among the lower staff also broke, the salary then suddenly became very and very average in the market. Mostly the best specialists left. For more or less acceptable selection of new candidates, the staff of the staff department had to be doubled. Another Aitishnikov recruited, they wrote him a new and very voluminous SRM (Customer Relationship Management), the old why did not arrange. Probably the course of the Mongolian Tugrik did not take into account...))

Planners and meetings (something common he did) turned into a multi-hour show of a self-loving teterev, who does not hear anyone but himself. He was so overlooked and first nicknamed "Teterov", and then "Trend" (his favorite word) was fixed. Isn’t this the root of the word “trending”?
And I began to spend more and more time "in the fields", trying under all sorts of noble pretexts to skip such meetings, so it became boring there, listening for hours to these new-fashioned words, probably generally correct, but in excessively general and unconcrete reasoning. Immediately I arose, then meetings with tenants, then important negotiations in the bank on pricing for invoicing, then unplanned selective accounting in the store together with the manager... And I also understood and decided for myself that it was necessary to roll, although it is offensive - I worked for many years, and achieved and created a lot. And here was the reason...

I went somehow to the warehouse in the office of the head of the transport and warehouse department, we started working with him from the very foundation of the company. He asked for help, demanded from him Trend reports weekly in XL, yes, difficult, and with graphs clever to reflect there, and loads of machines, and calls of unloading points, and distance, and fuel consumption on each, and flight hours, and shoulders of logistics... And Vitaly in computer literacy, gently to say, was not very, and about the shoulders in general hears for the first time. But he dragged a crazy amount of work and held a very diverse and diverse collective in the iron fist: drivers, loaders and warehouses. And the routes were made, and the repair of the machines was organized, the reception of goods and shipments, the board and the road sheets were led and the warehouse records were conducted, the cleaning of the territory was also responsible, a lot of things... Better at least three positions combined.

He has one of the new айтишников in the office behind the comp, a low and full-heavy guy, and somehow he is unpleasant and outwardly unclean, with long planted hair, gathered on the back of the head in a bumpy bunch. And he had another ugly feature - he constantly bursting under his nose, but clearly enough that everyone heard.
- Cracked, stupid users... They have already got their debility... It’s just how you can be so stupid...
Do you tolerate it? I am already in Vitaly. He, as I realized, took something wrong on the compass in the park. He became red, his teeth crushed, but he remained silent.
– And I won’t... Let’s go, computer genius, with me... Here is not far... – with these words I took the aithishnik behind the not very clean neck and squeezed it tightly with my fingers, bending them like cloves. He whispered that it was you, but immediately gave up and I took him out.
He was scared not for a joke, he decided that it would not be childish to bite him now.
As in the immortal "Twelve Chairs" of Ilf and Petrov: "Here Pasha Emilievitch, who possessed a supernatural sensation, realized that now he would be beaten, even with his legs...", and I only, going out on the street, pointed to him, standing next to the warehouse, "Gazel".
Do you see the ashes?
I can’t hear!! Stronger and fingers stronger.
and y-jo...
He does not want to enter. You have 15 minutes to determine the cause. The keys to the castle... time has passed! I will be next door.

What does it mean that you do not know and do not know? stupid is it? Al Luther is stunned. Give me something as an excuse...
I pointed my hand to the office... He knows and knows, and a lot more, and something that you never dreamed in your worst dream. And if you are better at something, in your own, highly specialized - it does not mean that you are the smartest here, and the rest are fools... rather the opposite. Because others have much broader knowledge, skills, experience and tasks. And if I, again... or someone else... hear from you about stupid users... did you understand?
I understand... very quiet. We cried louder...
I can’t hear!!! to
I understand, I understand!

He understood nothing, and immediately ran to cry to Trend, I, you see, insulted him with his action. Oh, if I really wanted to hurt you, even by almost inaction, you would have run out now on the crackers, calling my mom and getting confused in the soples... Oh, in the army you would have learned how there are knockers...
Called into the office of Trend, I entered already with a written statement, what to listen to here and so everything is clear.
A week later, Vitaly resigned.

It is clear that there are no irreplaceable people and constantly recruited new employees, but it seems like the same and similar "doers" and "hand of drivers", and the company was gradually entering the scale, wholesale and retail revenue dropped significantly, almost half of the stores suddenly felt the bottom, somehow very easily passing down the "point of no loss". Expenditures on the fund for some reason increased by almost 15% (mainly at the expense of "non-producing" and administrative employees), but there were significant delays in payment to all. Naturally, "the people ran away", theft in warehouses, shortages in retail...
After some time, the founders finally grabbed, and after understanding it, they grabbed their heads... - and Trend with the scandal were expelled. Probably now somewhere again the company "raises off the knees"...)
What was successfully built over the years and brought profit, in less than six months went into a deep minus and began to literally collapse in front of the eyes. They tried to correct the situation, even more than a year, a whole group of steep anti-crisis managers (directors) happened, but the train seemed to have left.
Even between them the founders seriously fought up, up to the murder and threats to "wrap", it is understandable, one thing is to put profits in the pocket or develop new directions and projects, quite another - to calculate losses, constantly investing, like a black hole, from other sources.

The outcome is sad, but it turns out that the catastrophe started with nothing, with some ordinary and banal question about the rules of using the toilet! Like a snow lava with a small snowflake!

And I have had a very figurative, tangible and meaningful expression in my lexicon since then - "Stolchak Syndrome".