'I Have a Life Outside the Office.' Hired Anyway. Then He Outperformed Everyone.

A 25-year-old interviewing for a sales role was asked, mid-interview, whether he could work Saturdays. He said no. "Sir, I have a life outside the office," he replied. Pressed on whether that made him lazy, he explained: cricket every Saturday, guitar, family time, and a brother in the US who works a Monday-to-Friday week. The interviewer hired him anyway, half-expecting a slacker. Over the next two quarters the new hire outsold every one of his colleagues while holding the boundary he had drawn on day one. The interviewer later wrote that, in hindsight, "he was the clearest person I had interviewed all year."