Our resident corporate Agony Uncle, CEO Ken Cheng, tackles business challenges – so you don’t have to
Q. Have you had any near death experiences? What did you learn from them? – Penelope, Bristol
A. Yes. I’ve had exactly 17. And they have all made me a better man.
One time I and one of my team were the only ones working late in the office on an eerie Friday night.
The one thing you should know about my office is that you need keycards to get through any corridor.
As we were leaving to get to the elevator, the whole floor’s power went off. We were trapped.
Let me tell you, it was one of the hardest experiences of my life. There is nothing worse than being stuck in the office and unable to do productive work.
Over time, we started to lose our minds. The walls started to close in, and I started to hallucinate out of hunger. My blood sugar level was getting dangerously low.
It felt like we had been there for several hours and I started to feel woozy. Eventually, I started looking at my employee, Gerald, and I asked him if he remembered the small print in his contract.
One of the terms in the employee contract is that in the exact situation we are stuck alone with each other with no food, I was allowed to eat him.
I didn’t want to morally, but a contract is a contract.
I started putting on a bib and got my special cutlery set out, while Gerald feared for his life.
Suddenly, I remembered something: I was on a low-carb diet at the time and humans are very high in carbohydrates. I couldn’t eat Gerald or my whole eating routine would be off.
Soon after this realisation, the power came back on. It turned out we had only been stuck for about 15 minutes, even though it felt like 3 days.
It’s funny what a little hunger does to a normal man.
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