B. U. G. S.

You get frustrated with people seeing how well the Mantra works and then giving you the cow look, going Moo! And going back to chomping the old grass the same way. Welcome to dealing with Pod People.

I thought I might give you a couple of examples from my history in dealing with this, so you will not get the impression that it’s YOU who is nuts.

When I was on Capitol Hill, I was in a discussion with some other senior staffers, and someone said, “Let Bob deal with the secretaries. They’ll do ANYTHING for him!”

This was news to me.

I finally figured it out.

You see, there is a big pecking order on Capitol Hill. Senior staffers treated “secretaries” like peons.

That was dumb in itself, but they treated OFFICE MANAGERS the same way. In fact, they didn’t know the difference.

Courtesy is a routine Southern disease, but there are times when not being courteous is just stupid.

The office manager sits in front of a typewriter like a “secretary.” But she runs the office.

What is the most valuable thing on Capitol Hill?

It is access to the congressman.

The Administrative Assistant is the head of a congressman’s staff. But he has nothing LIKE the personal contact with the Boss that the Office Manager has. She might see him, literally a dozen times a day.

I was very aware of that, and I had assumed others were, too.

They weren’t.

It turned out that, when I needed a quick message gotten to the Boss, the Office Manager just tossed it in the next time, usually within the hour, the next time she saw him. Try getting an AA or a LA to remember yours among the fifty messages people, including other congressman, want delivered to the Boss.

I would explain this to my fellow senior staffers. They nodded. They even smiled at my genius.

But they never DID it.

I told you how my unfunded grassroots organization became national news. They always asked me for the secret. I told them I just listened to what these groups wanted said and wrote THAT in press releases. Press conferences had THEM, not me, up front.

“I ask them what they want and do it.”

No else ever did, before or since.

Our family brick plant was a hobby of my father, who spent his time as the best-known brick-making consultant in the world. So when my brother took it over after his death it was out-of date and tiny. He made it a multimillion dollar business and sold it.

What is your secret, they would ask him.

My brother heard about profit sharing, so he put himself and everybody else at the plant on minimum wage plus a percentage. He explained to the workers what that meant.

South Carolina was even less well known for high wages than it is now. But the plant for several years was the highest wage brick plant in AMERICA. It grew fast.

The only real problem with someone sitting down on the job was to prevent his fellow workers from lynching him.

No one has used that method since.

These are three examples of at least dozens.

I don’t understand why people don’t use what WORKS. I do know that if a GROUP does it, they will roll over the big guys.

As they ask you your Secret, and you tell them about the Mantra AGAIN. They will nod and go back to whatever crap they’ve been using.

But we are not dealing with just me or my brother, a single staffer or a single brick plant. BUGS can use the Secret and the sky’s the limit.

Sic ‘em, gang!