That is why it is good to never act condescending or disrespectful towards anyone. That kid that you made fun of during the interview for not knowing some obscure feature from C could be buying your company in 10 years and you could end up working for him.
This is even more true in a relatively niche markets with a limited number of companies. Eventually everyones ends up knowing everyone, perhaps by meeting at trade shows or just word of mouth, and reputation and networking becomes very important.
The same goodwill goes for customers as well. Our company is loved because we go out of our way to please the customer. Even the customers that are fussy, mean and ignorant. We work weekends and evening on site to get them up and they always put in a good word for us. Aside from having a good product that is the only reason we've been around for 17+ years.
> That kid that you made fun of during the interview for not knowing some obscure feature from C could be buying your company in 10 years and you could end up working for him.
That actually more or less happened to me, my former boss worked for me for a bit. Great guy by the way, so it wasn't that he made fun of me, and as a boss he was pretty good too. I hope I was just as good a boss to him as he was for me.
The reverse also happened to me, a former employee struck it big and I did some contract work for him.
It really is a much smaller world than most people think and if you burn your bridges behind you or are nasty to people it will definitely come back to you. It may take a while, but it always does.
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That is why it is good to never act condescending or disrespectful towards anyone. That kid that you made fun of during the interview for not knowing some obscure feature from C could be buying your company in 10 years and you could end up working for him.
This is even more true in a relatively niche markets with a limited number of companies. Eventually everyones ends up knowing everyone, perhaps by meeting at trade shows or just word of mouth, and reputation and networking becomes very important.
The same goodwill goes for customers as well. Our company is loved because we go out of our way to please the customer. Even the customers that are fussy, mean and ignorant. We work weekends and evening on site to get them up and they always put in a good word for us. Aside from having a good product that is the only reason we've been around for 17+ years.
> That kid that you made fun of during the interview for not knowing some obscure feature from C could be buying your company in 10 years and you could end up working for him.
That actually more or less happened to me, my former boss worked for me for a bit. Great guy by the way, so it wasn't that he made fun of me, and as a boss he was pretty good too. I hope I was just as good a boss to him as he was for me.
The reverse also happened to me, a former employee struck it big and I did some contract work for him.
It really is a much smaller world than most people think and if you burn your bridges behind you or are nasty to people it will definitely come back to you. It may take a while, but it always does.