Itzhak Perlman’s Daughter, I Owe You a Pizza

The worst thing that a manager can do is lie to his employees. And the worst lie a manager can tell is about compensation. If you have ever been lied to as an employee about compensation, you know what it feels like. It’s like being choked, punched in the face, and kicked in the gut all at the same time. Ouch!

I made this mistake over two decades ago during my first management experience. I still feel guilty about it, but I want to repent now. Maybe you can help me.

Summer camp, 1995 in the middle of nowhere Massachusetts. The color wars had begun (cue the Star Wars music). Somehow I had reached the elite level of Captain. My mission was to lead the Red Team Dance Squad to victory. It was an absurd mission given that I had two left feet and no dance experience, but I didn’t care. The only thing that I cared about was victory to help the Red Team defeat the tyrannical Blue Team.

My Dance Squad was a dozen 10-year-old girls with no dance experience and two minute attention spans. The odds were definitely not in my favor, but I was fortunate to find another camper who had experience with dance choreography to give me some direction. More importantly, there was one star performer. I don’t remember her real name. I’ll call her Sarah. Aside from her gracefulness, the only other distinguishing thing that I remember about Sarah is that she was Itzhak Perlman’s daughter.

How could I get my ragtag group of girls to look like a star dance troupe? I came up with ingenious (a.k.a. desperate) plan. I worked with my choreographer to create a dance that showcased our star, Sarah, and put all of the other girls in the background. Great plan, but one big problem, Sarah needed to rehearse for two hours per day to pull this off, and all of the other girls could escape with just one hour of rehearsal.

How was I going to get my superstar to work double time and miss an extra hour of fun camp activities? I did what every great (a.k.a. desperate) manager does. I rewarded (a.k.a. bribed) her. My second stroke of genius was identifying the perfect bribe. Sarah loved pizza, and she had been pizza-deprived for the past seven weeks of camp. She would have done anything for a pizza. She would even rehearse double the time. Anything for some fresh pizza.

One day, after a particularly rigorous rehearsal, Sarah hit me with a knock-out question. “How are you going to get me pizza here at camp? There are no pizza shops here.” Ouch. My little lie was exposed. She had me in the corner, and my response was the moment when I really blew it as a manager. I looked Sarah straight in the eye and said “Sarah, I promise that as soon as I get home, I am going to send you the most gigantic, delicious pizza that you have ever seen.”

So what happened? The Blue Team jerks won again. Red Team came in second. Sarah did a great job, but the rest of my team banged into each other much more than they actually danced. And the pizza? Teenage me forgot about it two seconds after I said goodbye to Sarah for the summer. But adult me still remembers Sarah’s innocent, smiling face and knows that a good manager should never lie to his employees.

So Sarah, if you’re out there. Comment on this article. I want to find you. I owe you a pizza! And Faithful Reader, if you can help me find Sarah, I will be extremely grateful. I promise that I’ll buy you a pizza also (no backsies).