在
42街上，走在我身边的那个女子前一秒钟还活着，后一秒钟就死了。一辆计程车冲上了人行道，撞倒了她。事故发生在我到HBO电视台上班的第一天，要么就是第二天。我用公用电话拨打了911急救电话（在1994年8月，街边还有公用电话），然后就不得不离开了。那个女人死了。而我必须得去上班。
我爱HBO，就像爱我的父母一样。我希望父母对我感到满意，希望他们在我晚上睡觉前轻吻我的额头。
HBO电视台近期的一部作品。
如果你今天得到了聘用，那么请记住以下八条原则：
第一条：热爱公司的产品。你必须要热爱你的公司生产的产品或者所从事的业务。如果你在HBO工作，就要喜欢它的节目。每一个节目都要看，没有任何藉口可以推托。如果你在WD-40防锈润滑剂公司工作，就要了解WD-40产品的所有用途，而且还要再想出几种别人从来都没有想到过的用处。如果你在高盛集团(Goldman Sachs)工作，就要仔细研究他们做过的每一笔交易（而且还要知道公司首席执行长劳尔德•贝兰克梵(Lloyd Blankfein)的爱好）。你必须要像安德列•阿加西(Andre Agassi)喜欢打网球和德瑞克•基特(Derek Jeter)喜欢打棒球那样，喜欢自己公司的产品。
当我刚进入HBO工作的时候，每天都会从台里的图书馆借录影带看。我看了HBO十年来的所有节目。在空闲的时候，我会看到很晚才睡。我会看所有喜剧节目，甚至还看了令HBO声名鹊起的拳击比赛。这帮助我做到了以下这一条……
第二条：了解公司的历史。当我工作的第一家公司Reset被一家名为Xceed的公司收购的时候，我了解了Xceed的前身——一家小型企业集团——的历史。该集团旗下的公司之一是一家面向企业的旅行社，我去加州拜访了这家公司。还有一家特效烫伤膏公司。我去实地访问并见到了该公司的所有高管，了解了发明这种药膏的技术细节。另外还有一家企业激励公司。我与这家公司的负责人见面，为的是考察他们的一些客户能否成为我的客户。
在HBO电视台，我了解到迈克尔•福斯（Michael Fuchs，时任HBO体育部主任，后来担任HBO首席执行长）在1975年如何通过卫星播出了第一场拳击比赛，以及杰瑞•莱文（Jerry Levin，时任HBO首席执行长，后来担任时代华纳公司(Time Warner)的首席执行长）如何利用卫星将节目信号发送给有线电视公司。这些都是史无前例的事。特德•特纳(Ted Turner)正是在他们的启发之下，将旗下的地方电视台TBS转变成为了一家全国性电视台，再往后他所做的一切都被载入了史册。
我就是HBO——这就是我的信条。我从来不会说，“我认为如此如此”，我会说，“我们应该如此如此”。HBO和我一起组成“我们”，一个不可分割的整体。在你和你工作的公司产生一种整体感之前，你不会得到提升。
第三条：让你的老板看上去风光。你要希望你的老板得到晋升、加薪，等等等等。记住，你得到的永远不会比你的老板多。他越风光，你越会跟着受益。努力工作，然后把你所有的成绩都算作是他的功劳。你自己不要居一点点功劳。最终，所有人都会知道这些功劳是属于谁的。
第四条：结识所有的秘书。这种说法了无新意，但秘书的确掌控着公司的运作。他们控制着所有的日程，还会分派所有的好处。尽量多和秘书一起吃午饭。不仅是你所在部门的秘书，而且是所有部门的秘书。特别是人力资源部，他们知道所有的小道消息。做到这一点并不是特别困难。在你加入公司的时候，人力资源部会给你提供所有的介绍材料，所以当你安定下来几个星期以后就要邀请那些人去吃午餐。如果有人写了一篇公司的内部通讯，请他吃午餐。邀请你的老板的老板的老板的老板的秘书一起吃午餐。没有人会认为你在越级行事，毕竟你邀请一起吃午饭的人“只是”个秘书。
顺便说一句，“结识你所有的同事”同样重要。在他们需要帮助的时候，要伸出援手。只要你做得到，就要多赞扬他们。他们会拿出十倍的善意作为回报。
第五条：在市场上观察你的价值。要经常这么做。就业市场和其他的所有市场一样，也存在一种供求关系，而你只是这个大市场中的一件商品。每年你都需要去发现自己的价值。有一点很重要，那就是获得加薪和晋升的最佳途径是横向而不是纵向。
当我在HBO电视台工作的时候，我会经常和其他公司的人谈话。我和Showtime电视台的高层一起吃过午餐，时代华纳其他各个分部我都有人认识。我总是会邀请别人共进早餐或午餐。我也会收到外界的工作邀请，比如说银行业。我也试着在HBO的不同部门工作。每当我得到一份新的工作邀请，我就会在HBO得到一次加薪和晋升。有时候加薪的幅度很高，会达到35%。我的老板会因此而对我心怀怨恨，但是请回看“规则第四条”，他们也会经常得到加薪的。
第六条：研究所有的营销活动。1996年，HBO的广告语改成了“这不是电视，而是HBO”(It's not TV. It's HBO)。这一广告语一直用了13年。在那之前的广告语是“就是最好”(Simply the Best)、“特别节目正在上演”(Something Special's On)。当他们在采用“这不是电视”这个新广告语之前，销售部主任埃里克•凯斯勒(Eric Kessler)专门介绍了他们是如何想到这个新口号的。他手下的所有员工都去了会场，再有就是信息技术部的我。本部门同事当中没有一个愿意和我一起去的。
第七条：研究你所在的行业。HBO和Showtime的不同之处在哪里？和Cinemax电影台、免费有线电视或者广播节目的不同又在哪里？我知道这些问题的答案。我读过所有我能找得到的关于电视历史的书籍。我会去第52街的广播电视博物馆(Museum of Radio and Television)听讲座。洁西嘉•赖夫•科恩(Jessica Reif Cohen)当时是美林公司(Merrill)的媒体分析师。那时我对股票一无所知，但是我读了她写的所有文章，而且还会去流览《华尔街日报》(Wall Street Journal)上面提到她的名字的那部分内容。曾经一度，Showtime电视台、时代华纳公司、环球影视公司(Universal)、维亚康姆公司(Viacom)和福克斯体育电视台(Fox Sports)的首席执行长都是HBO电视台的高管，这感觉实在是太神奇了。
天下没有不散的宴席。
在我进入HBO最初的几个月里，没有一件事情是做对了的。我对纽约市很不熟悉，而且根本就不了解公司文化。我曾经一连五天穿着同一套西装，直到发现别的人都不穿西装，我也就再也没有穿过了。我不具备做好工作所必需的技能（他们不得不把我送去上一个电脑程序设计辅导班，尽管我的专业就是程序设计，而且我还是电脑科学专业的研究生。）
我曾经对互联网很是着迷，而那时HBO电视台甚至还没有创建HBO.com网站。我的老板的老板的老板会和我的老板说，“让他离互联网那玩意儿远一点，把心思放到一些实际的工作上。”有一次，我的老板走进我的工作间，不顾邻近的同事都在听着，对我说，“我们希望你在这里取得成功，但是你或多或少要知道那是不现实的。”那实在是太让人尴尬了。在接下来的大约几个星期内周围没有人愿意正眼看我。我简直成了行尸走肉。
但是，我挺过来了，而且从那以后的每一天我都挺过来了。
James Altucher
（詹姆斯•阿图彻(James Altucher)是Financial Adviser博客的撰稿人、另类资产管理公司Formula Capital合伙人及投资策略方面的作家。阿图彻为自己的帐户买卖投资工具，他在文章中会如实披露他本人是否在文中提及的公司和行业里担任职务。）
（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
The woman right next to me, on 42nd Street, was alive one second, and dead the next. A taxi had come up on the sidewalk, hit her and veered off. It was the first or second day of work for me at HBO. I tried to call 911 in the payphone (there were still payphones in August, 1994) , and then I had to go.
The woman was dead. And I had to go to work.
I loved HBO like I would love a parent. I wanted them to approve of me. And kiss me as I went to sleep at night.
Before I got the job offer I would watch HBO all day long. My friend Peter and I would watch HBO or MTV for 10 hours straight. I'd go over his house around 1:00 in the afternoon and by 10:00 at night we would look at each other and say, 'What the hell did we just do?' Everything from the 'the Larry Sanders Show' on HBO to 'Beavis & Butthead' on MTV. We couldn't stop. I loved it. I wanted to work there.
8 Rules If You Are Hired Today:
Rule #1: Love the product. You have to love what your company makes or does. If you work at HBO, love the shows. Watch every single one. No excuses. If you work at WD-40, know every use of WD-40 and make up a few more that nobody ever thought of. If you work at Goldman Sachs, study every deal they've done (and know Lloyd Blankfein's favorite hobbies). You have to love the product the way Andre Agassi loves playing tennis or Derek Jeter loves playing baseball.
When I started at HBO I would every day borrow VHS tapes from their library. I watched every show going ten years back. In my spare time I'd stay late and watch. I'd watch all the comedians. I even watched the boxing matches that initially made HBO famous. Which leads me to…
Rule #2: Know the History. When my first company, Reset, was acquired by a company called Xceed, I learned the history of the mini-conglomerate that Xceed was created out of. There was a travel agency for corporations. I visited them in California. There was a burn gel company. I visited them and met all the executives and learned the technical details how the gel was invented. There was a corporate incentives company. I met with them to see if any of their clients could become my clients.
At HBO, I learned how Michael Fuchs (the head of HBO Sports at the time. Later CEO of HBO) in 1975 aired the first boxing match that went out on satellite. And how Jerry Levin (the CEO of HBO, later CEO of Time Warner) used satellites to send the signal out to the cable providers. The first time that had ever happened. Ted Turner had been so inspired by that he turned his local TV affiliate, TBS, into a national TV station, and the rest became history.
I WAS HBO. That was my mantra. I never said, 'I think this,' I said, 'We should do this'. HBO and I were a 'we,' inseparable. Until you have that feeling of unity with the company you work for, you can't rise up.
Rule #3: Make your boss look good. You want your boss to get promotions, raises, etc. Remember, you can never make more than your boss. The better he does, the better you will do. Work hard, give him full credit for everything you do. Don't take an ounce of credit. At the end of the day, everyone knows where credit belongs.
Rule #4: Know all the secretaries. It's a cliché, but the secretaries really do run the company. They control all of the schedules. They dish out all of the favors. Take as many out to lunch as possible. Not just in your department but in every department. Particularly HR, which knows all of the gossip. It's not so hard to do this. HR gives you all of your intro material when you join the company, so ask those people out to lunch after you've settled in for a few weeks. If someone writes an internal company newsletter, ask that person to lunch. Ask your boss's boss's boss's boss's secretary out to lunch. Nobody will think you are going over their head. You're asking to lunch 'just' a secretary.
By the way, the same is true to 'know all of your colleagues'. Help them out whenever they need help. Give them credit whenever you can. They will return the favor tenfold.
Rule #5: Test your value on the market. Do this constantly. The job market is like any other market. There's supply and demand. And you're just an item for sale at the great bazaar. Every year you need to find out what your value is. For one thing, the best way to get an increase in salary and status is to move horizontally, not vertically.
When I was at HBO I was constantly talking to people at other companies. I had lunch with top people at Showtime. I knew people from all the other divisions of Time Warner. I was always asking people to breakfast or lunch. I would get offers from outside, from the banking industry. I also would try to work within different divisions of HBO. Everytime I got another offer, I got another raise and promotion at HBO. Sometimes substantial, up to 35%. My bosses would resent me for it, but then go back to 'Rule #4' and often they would get raises also.
Rule #6: Study all the marketing campaigns. In 1996 they switched their slogan to 'It's not TV. It's HBO'. That slogan lasted for 13 years. Before that it was 'Simply the Best', then 'Something Special's On'. When they switched to 'It's not TV', Eric Kessler, the head of marketing, gave a talk on how they came up with the slogan. All his employees were in the auditorium. And me from the IT department. Nobody else would go with me.
Rule #7: Study the industry. What made HBO different from Showtime? From Cinemax? From non-pay cable? From broadcasting? I knew the answers to those questions. I read every book about the history of TV I could find. I would go to lectures at the Museum of Radio and Television on 52nd Street. Jessica Reif Cohen was the Merrill analyst covering media. I knew nothing about stocks. But I read everything she wrote and would scan the Wall Street Journal for mentions of her name. It was fascinating to me that, at one point, the CEOs of Showtime, Time Warner, Universal, Viacom and Fox Sports were all former executives at HBO.
Rule #8. LEAVE. All good things must come to an end. From the day you start, you need to plan your exit. This is different from Rule #6. This isn't knowing your value. It means you're going to say goodbye. If you master Rules #1-9 at a company, then you'll know enough about the company and industry to start your own company. To either become a competitor or a service provider. And you will have built-in customers because your Rolodex will be filled with people from the industry. If you think like an entrepreneur from the instant you walk into your cubicle on day one, then you will constantly looking for those missing gaps you can fill. This is how you jump into the abyss. You make sure the abyss has a customer waiting for you.
I did everything wrong my first few months at HBO. I didn't know NYC. I didn't know corporate culture at all. I wore the same suit five days in a row until I realized nobody else was wearing a suit and I never wore one again. I didn't have the requisite skill set to survive at my job (they had to send me to a remedial programming school despite the fact that I had majored in programming AND went to graduate school for computer science).
I was obsessed with the Internet and HBO didn't even own HBO.com at the time. My boss's boss's boss would say to my boss, 'Get him away from that Internet stuff and onto some real work.' One time, my boss came into my cubicle and with everyone listening from every other cubicle said to me, 'We want you to succeed here, but you need to know more or else it's not going to work out.' It was very embarrassing and nobody around me would meet my eyes for the next week or so. I was the walking dead.
But I survived then. And I've survived every day since.
James Altucher
(James Altucher is a contributor to the Financial Adviser blog. He is a managing partner of Formula Capital, an alternative asset management firm, and an author on investment strategies. Mr. Altucher buys and sells investment instruments for his own account, and will disclose if he holds a position in a company or industry he writes about.)
http://cn.wsj.com/gb/20110509/bog080007_ENversion.shtml
The woman was dead. And I had to go to work.
I loved HBO like I would love a parent. I wanted them to approve of me. And kiss me as I went to sleep at night.
Before I got the job offer I would watch HBO all day long. My friend Peter and I would watch HBO or MTV for 10 hours straight. I'd go over his house around 1:00 in the afternoon and by 10:00 at night we would look at each other and say, 'What the hell did we just do?' Everything from the 'the Larry Sanders Show' on HBO to 'Beavis & Butthead' on MTV. We couldn't stop. I loved it. I wanted to work there.
8 Rules If You Are Hired Today:
Rule #1: Love the product. You have to love what your company makes or does. If you work at HBO, love the shows. Watch every single one. No excuses. If you work at WD-40, know every use of WD-40 and make up a few more that nobody ever thought of. If you work at Goldman Sachs, study every deal they've done (and know Lloyd Blankfein's favorite hobbies). You have to love the product the way Andre Agassi loves playing tennis or Derek Jeter loves playing baseball.
When I started at HBO I would every day borrow VHS tapes from their library. I watched every show going ten years back. In my spare time I'd stay late and watch. I'd watch all the comedians. I even watched the boxing matches that initially made HBO famous. Which leads me to…
Rule #2: Know the History. When my first company, Reset, was acquired by a company called Xceed, I learned the history of the mini-conglomerate that Xceed was created out of. There was a travel agency for corporations. I visited them in California. There was a burn gel company. I visited them and met all the executives and learned the technical details how the gel was invented. There was a corporate incentives company. I met with them to see if any of their clients could become my clients.
At HBO, I learned how Michael Fuchs (the head of HBO Sports at the time. Later CEO of HBO) in 1975 aired the first boxing match that went out on satellite. And how Jerry Levin (the CEO of HBO, later CEO of Time Warner) used satellites to send the signal out to the cable providers. The first time that had ever happened. Ted Turner had been so inspired by that he turned his local TV affiliate, TBS, into a national TV station, and the rest became history.
I WAS HBO. That was my mantra. I never said, 'I think this,' I said, 'We should do this'. HBO and I were a 'we,' inseparable. Until you have that feeling of unity with the company you work for, you can't rise up.
Rule #3: Make your boss look good. You want your boss to get promotions, raises, etc. Remember, you can never make more than your boss. The better he does, the better you will do. Work hard, give him full credit for everything you do. Don't take an ounce of credit. At the end of the day, everyone knows where credit belongs.
Rule #4: Know all the secretaries. It's a cliché, but the secretaries really do run the company. They control all of the schedules. They dish out all of the favors. Take as many out to lunch as possible. Not just in your department but in every department. Particularly HR, which knows all of the gossip. It's not so hard to do this. HR gives you all of your intro material when you join the company, so ask those people out to lunch after you've settled in for a few weeks. If someone writes an internal company newsletter, ask that person to lunch. Ask your boss's boss's boss's boss's secretary out to lunch. Nobody will think you are going over their head. You're asking to lunch 'just' a secretary.
By the way, the same is true to 'know all of your colleagues'. Help them out whenever they need help. Give them credit whenever you can. They will return the favor tenfold.
Rule #5: Test your value on the market. Do this constantly. The job market is like any other market. There's supply and demand. And you're just an item for sale at the great bazaar. Every year you need to find out what your value is. For one thing, the best way to get an increase in salary and status is to move horizontally, not vertically.
When I was at HBO I was constantly talking to people at other companies. I had lunch with top people at Showtime. I knew people from all the other divisions of Time Warner. I was always asking people to breakfast or lunch. I would get offers from outside, from the banking industry. I also would try to work within different divisions of HBO. Everytime I got another offer, I got another raise and promotion at HBO. Sometimes substantial, up to 35%. My bosses would resent me for it, but then go back to 'Rule #4' and often they would get raises also.
Rule #6: Study all the marketing campaigns. In 1996 they switched their slogan to 'It's not TV. It's HBO'. That slogan lasted for 13 years. Before that it was 'Simply the Best', then 'Something Special's On'. When they switched to 'It's not TV', Eric Kessler, the head of marketing, gave a talk on how they came up with the slogan. All his employees were in the auditorium. And me from the IT department. Nobody else would go with me.
Rule #7: Study the industry. What made HBO different from Showtime? From Cinemax? From non-pay cable? From broadcasting? I knew the answers to those questions. I read every book about the history of TV I could find. I would go to lectures at the Museum of Radio and Television on 52nd Street. Jessica Reif Cohen was the Merrill analyst covering media. I knew nothing about stocks. But I read everything she wrote and would scan the Wall Street Journal for mentions of her name. It was fascinating to me that, at one point, the CEOs of Showtime, Time Warner, Universal, Viacom and Fox Sports were all former executives at HBO.
Rule #8. LEAVE. All good things must come to an end. From the day you start, you need to plan your exit. This is different from Rule #6. This isn't knowing your value. It means you're going to say goodbye. If you master Rules #1-9 at a company, then you'll know enough about the company and industry to start your own company. To either become a competitor or a service provider. And you will have built-in customers because your Rolodex will be filled with people from the industry. If you think like an entrepreneur from the instant you walk into your cubicle on day one, then you will constantly looking for those missing gaps you can fill. This is how you jump into the abyss. You make sure the abyss has a customer waiting for you.
I did everything wrong my first few months at HBO. I didn't know NYC. I didn't know corporate culture at all. I wore the same suit five days in a row until I realized nobody else was wearing a suit and I never wore one again. I didn't have the requisite skill set to survive at my job (they had to send me to a remedial programming school despite the fact that I had majored in programming AND went to graduate school for computer science).
I was obsessed with the Internet and HBO didn't even own HBO.com at the time. My boss's boss's boss would say to my boss, 'Get him away from that Internet stuff and onto some real work.' One time, my boss came into my cubicle and with everyone listening from every other cubicle said to me, 'We want you to succeed here, but you need to know more or else it's not going to work out.' It was very embarrassing and nobody around me would meet my eyes for the next week or so. I was the walking dead.
But I survived then. And I've survived every day since.
James Altucher
(James Altucher is a contributor to the Financial Adviser blog. He is a managing partner of Formula Capital, an alternative asset management firm, and an author on investment strategies. Mr. Altucher buys and sells investment instruments for his own account, and will disclose if he holds a position in a company or industry he writes about.)
http://cn.wsj.com/gb/20110509/bog080007_ENversion.shtml
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