Yehuda and the Mice

From 1979 to 1982 I owned a marketing company that provided marketing and sales services in northern Israel for various manufacturers and importers from all over the country. We had a sizable team of salespeople, a sales manager, a warehouse keeper and so on.

One of the companies we represented back then was P.B.A. Wiesner, known today as Systematic. Among other things, the company makes and sells a line of sophisticated filing and archiving products for offices and large institutions.

One of their more successful products is a set of modular cardboard units you can stack into big walls for archiving old documents (each unit has three drawers that open from the front). The product was called "Deporama," and it's a far better alternative to the usual cardboard boxes (the ones that look like orange crates and sit on metal shelving).

One day I sent one of my sales reps, Yehuda, to try to get this archiving system into the Technion in Haifa, on the assumption that the potential there was practically endless.

Yehuda came back from the Technion and declared it impossible. "They're used to their own archiving method and they're not willing to change."

I took him in my car, and on the way to the Technion I explained that, sure, the Technion wasn't going to wake up one morning and swap its thousands of archive boxes for ours. The approach had to be gradual (the salami method, one slice at a time). We needed to get them to agree to buy a limited quantity, encourage them to archive one specific category of documents in it, and compare which was more convenient and cost-effective, all while working toward adding more and more of those walls down the line.

We got to the Technion, built a great rapport with the archive manager, and at the right moment I said to him, more or less: "We're not suggesting for a second that you replace your whole archive. What we're saying is, buy 12 Deporamas (36 drawers), pick one category, say students' graduation certificates, and archive those using the P.B.A. Wiesner method. Run with it for a month or two and see how it goes.

I'm sure that any equipment you buy in the future will be Deporamas."

The client asked about the price, and once he realized it wasn't a terrible amount, he started asking who would help him put it together...

Without any hesitation I pulled out my order book and announced, "We'll show up here with the first Deporamas and help you assemble them!"

As everyone knows, filling out an order takes a few minutes. I had to fill in the customer details, the product details, quantities, price and so on. While I was busy writing up the order, Yehuda apparently got bored, and I heard him turn to the client, on his own initiative, and ask, "Tell me, do you ever get mice in here?"

The client immediately tensed up and asked, "What exactly are your Deporamas made of?"

"Cardboard," Yehuda replied.

"Then I don't want them!" the client exclaimed. "The mice will eat the cardboard!"

I tried to salvage the situation and said, "You're archiving in cardboard today, too."

"Yes, but they don't eat my cardboard," the client replied, and he refused to sign the order.

We left the place crestfallen, heads hanging. Outside, I tried very hard not to unleash my fury on Yehuda, and asked, "You could see I was writing up an order. What was that business with the mice?"

"He doesn't let you get a word in," Yehuda replied. "What was so important for you to say?" I asked.

"Remember that O&M (organization and methods) course we took at P.B.A. Wiesner?" Yehuda asked. "Yes," I said. "But what does that have to do with mice?"

"Remember how they explained in the O&M course that the Deporama cardboard is held together with a glue whose smell repels mice?" Yehuda asked.

"So?" I asked.

"I wanted to tell him about it, but he doesn't let you get a word in," Yehuda answered...

That same Yehuda (an ultra-Orthodox man) now works, as far as I know, as a kashrut supervisor.

I'm sure there isn't a single mouse in any of the kitchens he supervises!