Secret de Carrière : Apprendre à se taire

Hello, friends. Many of you are still writing to me about your adventures in your company on this WhatsApp number. And there is something that comes up very often I see people who are loudmouths and who pay dearly for it. They feel like they are paying for their loudmouths. It means that they are going to be marginalized, that they are going to be put in a closet. If there's a cart and we have to get rid of people, they will be among the first to leave. If there are raises, they will be passed over. If there are promotions, they will not be there. If there are congratulations or anything, they will not be there. Sometimes there is even a company trip. Well, in the end you are there, but there is only this place. You stay in everything. So what is the problem with loudmouths? Very often it comes from people who are ethical, who have very strong ethics, who are passionate about justice, who have a sense of justice, who have a deep sense of a job well done, and then open their mouths when they see something wrong. When they see, for example, that a project is being ruined, when they see the company losing a huge client, they can't keep quiet. They say to themselves, but here the company's interests are not being respected and the company is going to lose money. The company is going to lose a client. And I can't keep quiet. And I'm going to tell everyone about it. So I'd like to tell you something. We live in an extremely cynical world. The people who work around you, and this is important. If you understand this, if you understand this reality, you will understand everything about the business world today. And you won't solve one problem. You'll solve 1000. People who work in a company don't work for the company. They work for themselves. They work for their own sake. That's the first point. When you understand that, you'll understand the rest. Secondly, when you open up and say, yeah, we lost, damn it, did you see the project of such and such a company, let's say a C40 company, it doesn't matter which one, it's going under. But who made these irrational decisions? Who did that? That's monumental. It should never have happened. Well, what you're doing is defending the company, that's true. But are you defending the personal interests of those who made the bad decisions?

No.

Those who made the bad decisions are typically people who are quite high up in the hierarchy. If they made decisions, it means they are decision makers. It means they have power. And then what you are doing, as they say about cats, you are putting their noses in their poop. So, okay, from a company perspective, you are right. But from a people perspective, well, you, you are wrong. See what I mean? That is the problem. So that is why they are going to target you, that they are not going to appreciate what you are doing. And I will even add something to you. You know, in many companies we are not really there to make money. Especially in startups, in medium sized companies, we are not really there to make money. That is to say, take a company like WeWork. I will tell you about it on my other channel. Extraordinary story. WeWork was losing $5,000 per new customer. That means if you lose a customer, you'll become richer. The goal of many companies goes beyond what you see. You work for the company, you feel like you work in a grocery store. You feel like the more people come to the grocery store, the more people buy, the more they leave with full bags, the more money the store will make. It's not always like that in the modern world. In the modern world, sometimes we have companies that just want to exist, exist, grow, do marketing and advertise until they get bought out. They'll be bought out by other companies and it'll be billions and that's it. And then stock options will be vested, as they say, and then people will take millions and leave party with champagne. So that's already the first goal for many companies, right? They don't really have an extraordinary interest in selling to make money because that's not the goal.

Okay?

Or they want to go public for those who want to go public. So they're not particularly looking to make as much money as possible, especially to make bling bling, to make artificially inflated figures and all that. So they're not. That's why if you think down to earth and all that, you don't see these realities. So you always have to look beyond reality. The company doesn't always exist for what you think, okay? There are sometimes other things that you don't see that's important to understand. Now what I'm saying is that you have to learn to shut your mouth, okay? You tell yourself something. This isn't your father's company, okay? It's not your father's company money. If you lose a big client, huh? If you lose, I don't know, you lose a mega, mega client, what the hell do you care? The money will come out of your pocket.

No. Okay?

So just shut up. That's all. Because if you talk, you're going to offend. You're going to Offend decision makers and then the money will come out of your pocket because when there's a bonus, it won't fall on you. When there's a promotion, it'll go to you. Yeah. Then you'll start losing money. They're not going to lose money. You know, I'll tell you something. There are plenty of companies where people, I've seen them with my own eyes, lose millions to the company after cashing in millions in stock options and leaving with a champagne party and congratulations from the jury, okay? While you open your mouth about them. Well, you're the one who'll end up getting crushed, okay? Unfortunately, that's the mystery of the forces of money. Things aren't always what they seem, okay? So be very careful. Be careful when you open your mouth. I'll give you an example here. I'll give you a very specific example. I remember I worked in a big company and we had a manager and a team that got promoted. Classic. You have a manager, you have a team and then a promotion is in the air. Personally, I wanted this promotion. That means I considered, in my opinion and in the lives of many people that I was entitled to this promotion. At one point I saw her approaching a guy, an Indian guy. I think his name was Parmander or something like that. Lets say Parmander. I don't think his name was Parmander. But I grabbed him. I could see that he was too close to him. Too close in the bad sense of the word. I don't know, there was something in between. I don't really know what it was, but there was something. I spoke to this Indian woman who I really didn't like, who didn't like her very much. I didn't like her very much, to be fair. But from time to time we changed a little bit, man to man. And at one point he told me that yes, he would have liked to get this promotion because what he wants is to leave the company because he's fed up with being here, but that ideally he would like to leave with a promotion. He told me because if I leave with a promotion, well, my value will be higher on the market if I manage to get the title. He told me that ideally I would get the title and then I would leave. So if I were part of the vermin, what I would have done is I would have stabbed him in the back at that moment. That means I would have directly reported this hot potato to the manager and told her, you know, leave at the restaurant. He told me that he wants to be promoted and if he gets promoted, he'll leave immediately, okay? So I kept my mouth shut, even though it was against my interest to talk, because if I had spoken, I had opened my mouth, I would have gotten the promotion myself. But I don't eat that kind of bread. So despite the impression that I sometimes give off in these videos of coldness and everything, why am I cold when I talk about these things? I would like to convey this meaning to you. Don't put your heart into these things. You have to understand that you are in a hostile environment. And then you have to be a fighter. Develop a fighter's mindset, develop a killer's mindset. Don't go into those places with your ass or your heart. You're going to make money, you're going to make a living. So think about it now and stop thinking with your emotions, with your gut, okay? It's very important. So the guy with those abilities, at some point the promotion arrives, and who do you think gets it? Well, it's him, of course. He's the one who's going to find out. So the promotion falls on his face. He's super happy, everyone celebrates him. The applause. Three months later, bam. He puts his resignation on the table. Of course, I knew it. Well, he puts his resignation on the table and then he's going to work for three or four weeks, which is his period, of his period. I don't know what you call it. If you say it in English, I don't know what you say it in French. So he's going to work during that time. At that time, this department manager wanted to buy a switch, a network switch for the lab. We had a lab. So this lab, just to tell you, was in a data center. Sometimes this lab, honestly, sometimes it happened to crash. One time there were technicians who removed cables. They had electrical cables, they had to put them back. It was crashed for, I think, 15 days before someone realized, when they saw that it wasn't pinging, someone realized that the lab was down, that the lab wasn't working. Just to give you the importance of this lab, it means it's a lab that was hardly used. We needed a network switch. So if you want the cheapest solution for this type of lab, you can go on eBay for €30 and you can get a switch. If you don't want to buy old stuff, especially from a big company and all that, you can't go on ebay to buy stuff and all that. You're not an individual either, you know? So you contact a partner, you ask them for A Cisco switch that's not too expensive. And then if they're nice, you offer one for €900 there mean they offer you one for €2,000. But basically that's where we are. They'll send you the switch in its box and everything. And that's more than enough. What does she do? She's going to ask this guy, this guy who was working on his notice period. There you go. He was working on his notice period. And she's going to see him and she's going to ask him what kind of suite to buy. It's quite shocking because he didn't have any specific knowledge of networking. While I have two Cisco CCNA certifications and two Cisco ccnp, among other certifications. These are fairly high certifications. She doesn't even ask. She doesn't even ask me the question. AAGA will recommend a switch to her. And this is what he recommends. We received the switch. It was the short. Everyone was going to see it in the apit. But what the hell did she do? What the hell did she do? We received a switch for €60,000. Let me tell you something, at €60,000 it wasn't working yet. Do you know why? Because he recommended a switch that is used in telecom companies. It looks like a kind of big fridge, a kind of big box in which there are switches that fit like blades. These are big switches that you slide in like this and that you plug in inside. So it's a multi functional box. That means we buy the box for €60,000 and inside the box we slide switches, routers, storage equipment, whatever we want. There are lots of blades, lots of modules. It's very modular that we can add in there. She bought this box with a platinum support contract. I don't know what, for €60,000, which was the maximum she could actually approve at her level. Beyond that she would have had to have more. But she bought the maximum she could afford without consulting anyone. Worse still, this switch didn't work. And why didn't it work? Because there were no blades inside. Because what she bought for €60,000, she only bought the box if she still wanted the modules. She would have had to pay €1,520,000 per module, depending on what it was. And that was just for a lab that wasn't even running. So I bought that and when we opened it, we were in shock. It's not possible. The guys called me back, I went to see, I said, but she wants to open a telecommuting company. I contacted the company, the partner, to tell Them, no, I'll refund it. It's because I wanted it. The partner said, no, the sale is final. I can't take it back. We had discussed it. I had sent you the specifications, I had sent you a po. We had done everything. We gave you a discount and everything. There was no way we couldn't take it back. It was the right switch. It worked. If it didn't work, we. We'd replace it. But we couldn't just refund you because there was no money back guarantee under those conditions. She was in deep. Especially since at one point, someone in the company realized that there was an expense of €60,000. So even if €60,000 was in her authorization line, it's still a pretty high figure. It started to cause a stir. They investigated, they summoned her, they wrapped her on the knuckles. And at one point, in a meeting, this is what she told us. We were in a meeting. He told us, yes, there were problems. This week, there's an investigation. Things aren't going well because of this damn switch. All because we, as we know, bought a switch that was too expensive and that's not the kind of thing that's suitable for a lab. And I stopped it. I said, what's the we? It's a we of majesty. I'll say the first thing. Why ask advice from someone who is leaving, someone who is in the process of giving notice, who has already signed a contract with another employer? It means that he has to make a decision that involves us all, while he won't be affected by this decision, because if he leaves, he won't have the repercussions. That's the first point. And I said, there's no we. Why the we? I said, we weren't consulted.

Okay.

So there you have it. I opened my mouth. I was seen as the on duty to tell you later. Well, the story died down. The switch was left to rot in this lab. We never bought any AM for this switch. It just stayed there. And that's it. You know, It's a waste, as I've seen. That's nothing. A waste of €60,000 is nothing at all. I've seen millions of dollars wasted in my life, in the company. And in fact, what happened is that this girl, later on, she was promoted, okay? She was promoted. And I had to leave the company because quite simply, the more stupid things she did, the more power she gained. The more stupid things she did, the more gallantry she gained. And then I opened my mouth every time. Well, in the end, I was the weak link somewhere. So I had to leave the company in the end. You see, in retrospect, if I look back, the 60,000 Euros didn't come out of my pocket.

Okay?

It's the company for €60,000. What do I have to do? Is that what they want? It's me. I don't like to waste, I don't like to lose. But in the end, it's not lost for everyone. In the end, you know, probably. Probably the partner who sold the switch was probably in cahoots with this guy. He, because he recommended the switch, he advised the partner, he brought him business. €60,000 on the couch. There may have been overbilling. He may have taken money in the process. So the money is not lost for everyone. But by wanting to act like a vigilante, I end up being the bad guy.

Okay?

Yeah. So I know that there are a lot of people listening to me who are also on the other side, who are business leaders, who are investors, who are listening to this. What I would like to tell you is that I am not against you. I am not trying to act against you. But the problem is that the situation is extremely shitty inside companies. And often we have companies where everyone is smiling, everyone is everyone's family. There is this joy and all that. We are in companies where half of us feel sick, half of us throw up before coming in, half of us don't care at all. Half of us pretend to work, half of us have a computer connected to a personal Internet, they are running a personal business or playing an online game, and so on. So really, that is the situation. But these are the truths. Look, I'm opening my mouth right now on YouTube. I'm lecturing people to shut up. Look what I'm doing, I'm doing the opposite of what I should be doing, okay? And that's it, unfortunately. Thanks for watching this video so far.