Michael Holden's All ears

It was All Ears' good fortune to be in New York last week, feeding bread into a rotary toaster at a breakfast buffet, when two young lions of the leisure industry – all shirts and laptops – joined the queue behind me. Man 1 (clearly in awe of his subject) "We have quarterly meetings, and he's nothing but questions." Man 2 (of the same opinion) "That's why these guys are who they are. He was an account manager at Morgan Stanley. They see things we don't see." Man 1 "He's way down in the weeds. We were meeting and he starts asking how the chambermaids know when the room is checked out." Man 2 "Shit!" Man 1 "That's what I'm talking about. He doesn't have to worry about that." Man 2 "But he does!" Man 1 "Exactly. These guys are spinning stuff around and we don't even feel the motion." Man 2 (rightly puzzled) What do you mean?" Man 1 "They're way out there." Man 2 (like that helped) "Right." Man 1 "You can't learn that shit. It's instinctive." Man 2 "The success instinct." Man 1 "Damn right." Man 2 "So what did you say?" Man 2 "About the chambermaids." Man 1 "Oh right. Well how the fuck would I know? I said I'd get back to him." Man 2 "So how do they know?" Man 1 "I don't know. I haven't asked yet." Man 2 "Don't they just knock on the door, or phone the desk?" Man 1 "No. I'm guessing there's computers involved."