Bolt for freedom the bottom line

Chatting about the heady subject of man’s inhumanity to man during the lunch break at a business conference recently, I was delighted at this story told by one of the delegates.

Jeremy Frimmington-Thripp, he said,  had everything going for him. Well, almost everything. A good-looking chap with enormous potential for sweeping damsels off their feet, a formidable IQ, and the latent ability to achieve wondrous things at virtually any sport involving a ball. The only blight in the life of this almost perfect human being was a big titanium bolt in his belly button.

Now, it wasn’t too much of a problem in his formative years. Yes, the other kids used to point at him and snigger whenever he frequented the municipal swimming pool and he got a reputation as something of a namby pamby when he showered with his back to his mates in the rugby locker room. But he could live with that.

Not that he got to play much rugby. His father was so obsessed with the youngster’s embarrassingly freak navel,  he spent days, months and years, taking young Jeremy out of school and off the playing field, into one medical specialist’s consulting room after another. That, Jeremy battled to live with. All he wanted to do, bolt or no bolt, was be with his friends. But dad wouldn’t have it.

The best years of the poor little fellow’s life were spent reading 25-year-old magazines in waiting rooms. Strangely enough though, it was in these, and not from the hordes of mystified medical men, that Jeremy found succour. An ad for a faith healer who dwelt not upon a lofty peak in the Himalayas but in a two berth caravan in a roads department camp outside Brakpan.

Jeremy and his father hotfooted it for the East Rand and were delighted beyond their wildest imaginings when the faith healer took one look at the youngster and pronounced himself a veritable expert in the removal of belly button bolts. He gave Jeremy a shifting spanner sprayed with glitter and ensconced in an old Bata Toughees shoe box.

“Go home and rest, young man,” he said, “and when you awake, do not move but just gaze at the ceiling for a full five minutes. Think beautiful thoughts, have faith and then apply this spanner to the bolt.”

The youngster couldn’t wait. Next morning, despite a racing pulse, he managed the full five minutes staring at the ceiling bit. He grabbed the spanner with sweaty palms, fitted it to the bolt and with half a dozen deft turns, the bolt eased out of his navel as if by magic.

What joy! What indescribable relief! What euphoria! Hallelujah, yelled father and son in unison!

Then he got out of bed, and his bottom fell on to the floor.

Now, what on earth has this to do with man’s inhumanity to man or business strategy, which after all, was why we had gathered at the conference?

Well, we were told, it had plenty to do with both. For example, how many chief executives and managers turn out to be just like Jeremy’s dad when it comes to their underlings, becoming obsessed with the weaknesses of the people below them to the point where they completely forget their strengths?

How many careers have been ruined, how much self-esteem has been shattered, because bosses can’t see the wood for the trees? Can’t see all that potential in a person because they are blinded by one or two irritating little quirks?

Not only that, but how much time is wasted trying to correct an often inconsequential fault in employees instead of developing their strengths? Probably more man-hours than all the world’s industrial action.

Worst of all are those who simply cannot bring themselves to employ the sightless, the deaf, the crippled; those whose perverted sense of order blinds them to the tremendous contribution the physically disadvantaged can make to any organisation.

And it stretches way beyond business. Anyone who has served on a church or charity committee will have experienced precisely this phenomenon to a lesser or greater degree.

In just about every walk of life there are people who just can’t seem to see the Jeremys of the world as people who can excel — all they see is titanium bolts in belly buttons.

What about that bit about Jeremy’s bottom falling on the floor? What underlying message is there in that? None at all, we were told. It was just put in to keep our attention. And a wonderful example of why God created humour.