Colonel Sidney Sherman at the Battle of San Jacinto, April 1836
T ex was a stereotype of the successful Texas businessman. Except that he lived in Greenwich, Connecticut. His 15 metal working plants dotted New England, and Bernie wanted to manage one of them.
"C'mon over to mah place for a cookout Friday," Tex told him, "an' we'll talk about it."
Bernie arrived to find a full-scale Texas barbeque in the backyard, and Tex himself cooking up masses of pork chops on a huge open grill. "Howdy, Bernie," he called across the lawn. "Grab yourself a drink. An' sit by me at dinner. We'll talk about that spot in New Hampshire." Sitting next to Tex, Bernie tried to present his credentials through a rising volume of chatter, mostly about business and baseball. Boisterous laughter and friendly arguments enveloped the tables. Tex kept an ear on them all and regularly interjected his own comments, usually provoking more laughter. Bernie gave up - later, he told himself - and eyed the last pork chop on the platter. Everybody was too polite to take it.
Then the lights went out - sudden darkness - and three seconds later, a blood-curdling scream. The lights flickered back on to reveal Bernie's fork sunk into the back of Tex's hand surrounding that last chop. "Hey, boy, when ah said ah like mah factory managers lean and hungry, ah didn't mean for you to take it so literally!" he groaned with a weak chuckle, shaking his hand gingerly.
Tex did hire Bernie, who still manages the New Hampshire plant very successfully. But at every annual barbecue, he tells about the time Bernie mistook his hand for a pork chop - and every year the fork gets sharper, the wound deeper and the scream louder.
A social setting, more often than not, is a poor place to have a first interview. You want to minimize distractions and have the interviewer focus on you and your talents. If you have the option, an office Interview is your first choice.
