Our Operations Lead, Mark Thorington, employee # 42219, proud Stanford graduate, avid cyclist (complete with ridiculously tight racing jersey and clickity-clacking cycling shoes he insists on wearing in the office despite the fact our concrete floors reverberate that awful sound to the degree it resembles a fusillade of 50-caliber bullets raining down on Nazi armor during the Battle of the Bulge every time he gets up to make another Nespresso), and loving parent of two very creepy iguanas, gave what we deemed a both fascinating and disturbing report during our quarterly offsite meeting at Donut World.
Mark claimed that there’s a preponderance of evidence that suggests we’re all controlled by good-looking people. Specifically the really good-looking ones. With the perfectly coiffed hair. And the tight-in-all-the-right places clothes. And the teeth suitable to project a drive-in double feature upon.
Yep, he really teed off. In fact, we think his vehemence upset the other Donut World patrons, but it was hard to tell those who were gravely irritated from those in diabetic comas.
Mark’s point was that while it’s common in modern Thought Leadership Parlance to point out that loud, confident, charming, or straight-up mean people tend to hold sway over a group that’s gathered to decide on Such-And-Such Very Important Issue—and that successful outcomes usually result by this same group’s absolute to-the-death commitment to preventing this groupthink/authority bias from holding sway—the part that modern Thought Leaders are totally missing the boat on is the influence of the hot ones.
Then he went so far as to provide actual evidence through what amounts to the 21st century equivalent of unequivocal facts: anecdotes.
The Trouble With Fashion
Our favorite of which was the rollicking story of Mark’s time at a former Fortune 500 company we don’t want to name for fear of a legal dispute but we will anyway it’s Nordstrom.
Mark claims he was operations lead for a troubled Nordstrom internal marketing team under the ultimate jurisdiction of (of all people) a CPA, who was obviously not attractive. This team, dubbed “CCG” as an homage to the corporate industrial complex’s addiction to alienating acronyms, was tasked with flooding the non-digital mailboxes (that’s how long ago this transpired) of unwary Nordstrom customers with hideous postcard-sized sales promotions, designer releases, and other fashionable nonsense.
Which explains that while “Team CCG” consisted of average to above average-looking sexy men and women because they technically worked in fashion, all of them were universally depressed, downtrodden, and swimming in regret, for being a creator of junk mail eventually removes all vestiges of hope, optimism, and ultimately any sense of self-worth in human beings, as proven by decades-worth of relentless testing on monkeys who eventually became communists and ran the local city council for several years.
But does not in any way explain why Lisa Blackburn—the extremely good-looking Managing Director of Team CCG who we shall not name for fear of generating a legal dispute—walked into the perpetually beige, cubical-laden and ironically not fashionable CCG office one foggy Monday morning and told Mark she got arrested with her husband in a Walmart parking lot over the weekend.
Parking Lot Probation
Turns out Lisa likes to party—which was no secret to the greater, depressed collective given her behavior when they frequented the local sushi restaurant’s happy hour roughly 4.5 days a week, a true boon to the longevity of not only Kudedon Chirashi Bowl Restaurant but also by proxy all sushi restaurants across the continental United States, despite the inherent internal conflict created by drinking heroic amounts of Cosmopolitans and eating raw fish mid-week.
But nobody new how hard Lisa—with the perfectly coiffed hair, tight-in-all-the-right places clothes, and teeth suitable to project a drive-in double feature upon—and (as it turns out) her husband Earl truly liked to party. Well, nobody but the King County Sheriff in conjunction with the local branch of the DEA.
As the story goes, Lisa and Earl (of indeterminate attractiveness) pulled into and extra-roomy official Walmart parking space located conveniently next to a cart barn on Saturday, April 29, 2000, at 8:44 a.m. in likely anticipation of purchasing large volumes of Pall Malls. Within moments of almost dinging the door of their black-on-black Cadillac Escalade on said cart barn railing, King County Sheriff and DEA officers swarmed the vehicle—complete with guns drawn and lots of hollering.
Lisa recounted to Mark that she stumbled out in horror, wondering if last night’s ecstasy binge at the local Cinerama was causing some sort of psycho-sexual hallucination, but eventually realizing she was tragically sober given the sound of Earl’s grunts as he was pinned to the hood of the Escalade, handcuffed, and whisked off to some unnamed prison for fake-rich white people.
The cops/federales apparently found enough cocaine to fuel several local law firms, plus methamphetamine, a cache of fully automatic rifles, and a black Nordstrom tote filled with $90,000 in cash, stashed under the panel of the Escalade’s rear cargo area. And while she feigned ignorance, Lisa too was arrested but later released on bail and eventually sentenced to an indeterminate probationary period where if caught within 5,000 feet of a Walmart or 250 feet of a cart barn she can be imprisoned for 882 days.
Story = Fact, Fact = Story
Which brought Mark to his anecdotal fact: only really good-looking people can get arrested on felony weapons/narcotics charges and keep their job at a Fortune 500 company. Which Lisa certainly did, as she continued to manage/direct CCG for several more years, attend regular sushi happy hours, and if hungover berate any staff caught wearing denim in the office.
So indeed, we became convinced that Mark was right: the hot ones are untouchable, and subsequently control everything. Our only hope is that modern Thought Leaders add the perils of attractiveness to their rails against loud, confident, charming, or straight-up mean who try to hold sway over a group that’s gathered to decide on Such-And-Such Very Important Issue.
Or maybe it’s up to the individuals within that very group to prevent this groupthink/authority bias from holding sway. Sure, it’s a lot to ask for a paycheck. But it sounds way more effective. And if you look at it from the proper perspective, a lot more fun.
Want to join our club? Sorry, we’re full. But you can share this article to maybe get on the waiting list. We’ll see. We’re pretty busy.