Obama Shows Game

I think we just had the first seminal event in the presidential election. Today McCain recommended postponing the first debate so he, of infinite wisdom, could rush to DC and save the economy. I guess his eight years of pushing government deregulation of the financial sector wasn’t working well. My first reaction was Obama had no choice but to agree or else he would come across as a crass politician. He blew of my advice and said no way John Boy, we are debating; if you can’t multitask it’s not my problem. He showed conviction and leadership, not backing down to an idle threat. This is the man to solve our economic crisis and global image problem. Because he showed spine.

This morning I was interviewing a 20 something person for a mid level position in PR (who actually had no experience in PR). He wasn’t the worst candidate I have ever interviewed but he shared a common trait with 90% of them. Zero questions. Nothing. I even prompted him several times. What are you looking for in an agency? Where do you want to be in two years? Even the
lob of all lobs; do you have any questions? Nothing besides the usual “I read your web site and it all makes sense.” Nothing sells like curiosity, whether you want a job or want to be my friend. Even if he, after looking at my frightening number of Lance pictures had said “so you like Lance” I would have been impressed.

I really have never had any competitors in running or triathlons. I am mostly competing against laziness or against the clock. But these inanimate goals, while they do provide motivation, don’t provide the primal emotional spur that a living, breathing human does. Problem is I don’t really know anyone who is close to my level since for some reason I am not friends with any serious endurance athletes. Not that I am serious but most of the people I know who run or tri have an actual life so don’t take train as much as me. Which is why I am friends with them. If I met someone like me they would bore me to death. So I need to identify people who I can compete against who have no idea I exist or that we are in competition. Like the boyfriend of a coworker. We are both running the California International Marathon and according to www.athlinks.com have similar half marathon times. Dude is going down. Even if he doesn’t know or care.