Elegant Solutions

Anyway, Standard Oil kept track of all the
employees in their credit department to see how accurate their judgements were
in approving or denying credit to these large commercial accounts. You know who
the most precise person of all was? Me. Why? Because I never went to Dunn &
Bradstreet's school and I never learned to use any of their formulas.

So how was I able to figure it out? It was quite
simple. At the bottom of each D&B report, there was a paragraph titled
"Summary". These Summaries could read something like this:

Summary

ABC Corp. is well managed, has a positive cash
flow, and low debt. Its employee turnover is remarkably low. Demand for their
product and services is steady and increasing. Overall, they look like a solid
company with a good future.

That's all
I would read. In that scenario, I would stamp "approved" on ABC
Corp.'s credit application.

On the other hand, sometimes a company's Summary
could read along these lines:

Summary

XYZ Inc. is poorly managed, overburdened with
excessive debt and lacks the inventory to fill their current and previous
orders. There are 14 pending lawsuits against them and their CEO has just been
indicted for sodomizing a farm animal.

When I read something like that, I'd stamp the
application "rejected".

Think about it: I had the highest accuracy rating
of all employees... yet... I didn't even understand how to read, analyze or
interpret D&B's credit reports. All I did was read the Summaries which
provided me with a ten-second capsule of what Dunn & Bradstreet themselves
thought about any particular company. And that, my friend, is another example of
an "Elegant Solution".

Let's try one more: Years ago, a black man worked
in a factory located in the Northeastern United States. He was a janitor whose
tools were a broom, dustpan, mop, rags and cleaning fluids. As time passed, he
needed more money.