Part 26
I imagine that there have been all kinds of methods used in the process of employing a person to work for one. I doubt if there have been many more bizarre than that used by a well-established South African film director and producer in the 1960s and ‘70s.
In 1969, having recently left the relative security of Killarney Films, the largest studio in South Africa at that time, I sought work as a freelance writer/director. I was also willing to take on a production manager’s position and work my way towards achieving my goal of writing and directing feature films.
I was told that Pierre Botha, a prolific producer of Afrikaans (the language of South Africans of primarily Dutch descent) films was looking for a production manager. Despite being unable to speak much Afrikaans, I felt I could cope with that, so I asked a friend of mine to set up a meeting with Pierre.
He did so and told me to meet Pierre at a bar the following night. He added that I should know that Pierre had a unique method of finding out if a person was suitable for employment. I shrugged and said that I was prepared to answer any questions he may throw at me.
My friend laughed. “It’s not the questions he may throw at you, pal. Pierre will have you sit next to him on a bar stool, buy you a couple of drinks and then, when you’re all settled in and relaxed, he’ll throw a punch at you. If he knocks you off your stool, you won’t be hired. If you remain seated and don’t try to punch him back, you’ll probably get the job!”
I thought he was kidding, and anyway, I was in good physical shape still playing rugby and figured that I stood a decent chance of passing the test.
The next evening, as arranged, I met Pierre in a local bar. We sat down. Without asking me what I drank, he ordered me a brandy and Coke. That was pretty much the staple drink of Afrikaner men in the Transvaal Province in the ‘60s.
We spent a convivial hour or so over our drinks, as he told me wild tales of various movies he had made. He even mentioned that his brother was into diamond smuggling and was last seen driving out of Kimberley (the center of diamond mining at the time) at high speed, being chased by the cops. He related how, as his brother drove, he spilled dozens of diamonds onto the dirt road and had none with him by the time the cops caught him. Then he spoke about a film team making a movie in the Kalahari Desert that ran out of whiskey and refused to shoot another foot of film until more whiskey was delivered to the set.
By now, I had a clear idea of the sort of character I was dealing with. Although Pierre seemed to be an amiable character, he was obviously a wild one. Nevertheless, I wanted the job, so I braced myself to receive the blow that would decide my eligibility. But to my surprise he looked at his watch and said, “Hey, we better get moving. I need a shot of the Drakensberg Express tonight. It comes past near here in half an hour. Kom Boet (come brother), you can help me, ja?”
I was almost disappointed, having geared myself up for a sore jaw or black eye. Later I figured that, although Pierre was a typically broad-shouldered and muscular Afrikaner, he was also clearly out of condition, with a large pot belly and double chin. He may have felt that because I was slightly bigger than him and much fitter, he may not have achieved the result he expected. Anyway he still had a surprise in store for me.
We drove at high speed in his large, slightly battered Buick and arrived at a deserted stretch of railway line in good time to film the daily express from Durban. Pierre then instructed me to stand in the middle of the railway track so that he could focus his camera on the spot where the train would pass. Even though there was a full moon, I doubted if Pierre would be able to get a sharp focus on me and thereafter the train.
We could hear the train in the distance, coming towards us with the light on the front of the engine flickering in and out of the trees in the distance. Pierre then told me that I must stay on the track as the train approached and not move until he had the focus he required. I began to get the idea that it would have been preferable to have survived a blow when we were in the bar.
As the train came down the straight towards us, the light shone directly on me. The driver saw me and immediately hooted furiously. A couple of seconds later he started to apply brakes as I had not moved off the track.
Pierre yelled, “Don’t move!”
In that instant I knew in his own twisted way he was testing me. But I had no desire to work for a lunatic and stepped off the tracks. At the end of the day, I never got the job.
Looking back, I can see the degree of misadventure many of us have endured while trying to get to where we wanted to go. Hiring techniques are only a small part of it. All great careers have had to fight in order to experience the benefits for which they were striving. In our daily lives that would most likely translate to tenacity, the basic refusal to ever give up.
The ExoBrain team is marked by tenacity. It achieves that by a high degree of purpose to help mankind and lots of volunteer participation. Peter starts by giving a person a Confidential Technical Briefing on ExoTechnology, where he spends anywhere from two to sometimes ten hours in a one-on-one discussion about what ExoTech is, how it works and what it can do. If, after that, a person wants to participate in this volunteer organization, he or she is supplied with more details of the ExoTech system and with a number of actual training courses designed to bring about an in-depth understanding of why ExoTech computer technology is totally unique and urgently needed.
It’s been quite a relief to be part of this type of team. It values sanity, has a strong sense of ethics, knows where it’s going and has never once threatened to use railroad tracks to get there.
An ExoTech Ltd shareholder, Chris is currently authoring two of the four books to be published the day ExoBrain launches and has helped to create ExoBrain’s introductory video to the Confidential Technical Briefing. Chris has spent his working life in the film and television industry, starting with BBC Television in London, then ATV in Birmingham becoming, at the time, the youngest Studio Manager in Britain.
Later, in South Africa, he wrote and directed film and TV commercials, having four South African entries at the Cannes Advertising Festival. After a number of years of writing and directing or producing documentaries (eight international awards) and corporate videos, he concentrated on writing feature film screenplays (five screened) and television series (seven screened). He has a novel, ”Pursuit of Treachery,” with a literary agent and is currently obtaining finance for an action adventure feature film he has written and is co-producing. He is a published poet and has given many readings.