The other day CJ responded to this question:

What have you learned from someone you don’t like?

I rather liked the question and it got me to thinking.

Not very hard, of course, but right off the bat I came up with a couple things.

Back when I was living in State College, I worked for a time with a fellow named Ben Gold (we’ll be getting to that job very shortly as I muddle my way through my autobiography). 

I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t stand him, but as he was the foreman of the mailroom, we had to put up with him. Given some of the disagreeable people I’ve worked with since then, actually Ben doesn’t seem so bad anymore.

Anyway, this was in the early 1970s when Pennsylvania was just beginning its lottery, and Ben made the comment:

“Well, that’s one tax that I won’t have to pay.” 

As I had no plans to buy any lottery tickets, I thought that was a pretty smart way to look at it, and I ended up using that line myself from time to time.

Many years later when I was in Philadelphia and working at DPSC (it’ll be awhile until I muddle through my autobiography to that point at the rate I’m going), I was giving some training classes when a fellow (Jeff something-or-other) offered me some advice. Jeff was a big fan of Ollie North (this was during the Iran-Contra hearings), so clearly he and I didn’t see eye to eye on much, if anything. Thus, I was all set to ignore any advice that he gave me.

But this is what he told me.

He recalled his days in the Army when he had been giving training classes, and he had been advised to 1) tell the class what you’re planning to explain to them, then 2) explain it to them, and finally 3) review what you just went over with them.

Gee, that made an awful lot of sense.

I realized that I kinda, sorta did that in an informal sort of way but not with any consistency.

Ever since then, whenever I taught a class I made sure I did those 1-2-3 things in a more formal way.

It goes to show you can learn something useful even from those people that you don’t like.

If I thought a bit harder, I could probably come up with a couple more examples, but that’s enough for right now.