Every crowd has at least one tough nut to crack, and it’s often a lost cause trying to convince the ones that don’t want to be converted. After I spoke about Hacking Work here a gentleman who’d been scowling at me from the audience the entire talk waited in line to tell me I was full of crap, and that my ideas were going to get people fired. I thanked him, and he left.

A couple months later, I got an email from that same gentleman telling me he’d worked for the same company for 25 years and was laid off the day after the conference – two weeks before his pension and retirement were due. The company didn’t want to pay it, so they dumped him.

After he’d finished grieving he decided to try some of the things I spoke about in my talk and began networking intensively. When he wrote he was a week away from starting a new job doing work he’d always wanted – but never been allowed at his old job – to do. I can say honestly that it’s this sort of success story that makes it all worthwhile. 🙂