Who is the best recruiter in the world? Would you believe it’s Joshua Brady, a 26-year-old Virginia man, who lives with his mom, grandmother, and young brother, and used to play a whole lot of EverQuest until he got caught stealing virtual money.
No way, you say. Yeah, well, before you shoot that down, hear this. Brady, posing as a CIA operative, recruited not one but two ordinary, otherwise law-abiding folks to rob banks.
Brady, or Theo as he identified himself, never met the two 20-somethings. All his recruiting was done over the phone, yet he managed to get the man and woman to rob, or attempt to rob, several banks, even convincing friends and relatives of the two that this was indeed all in the interests of national security.
They all got caught, though it looks like everyone except Brady is getting off, and he’ll probably only get probation.
Granted, the robberies were all botched. But you know how hard it is to find skilled talent these days. Read the entire, amazing story here on Businessweek.
Now This Is Branding
You willing to get your company’s logo tattooed on you somewhere if it meant a 15 percent bump in pay? So far, 40 employees of Anthony Lolli’s Rapid Realty have.
You can put the logo of the New York City firm anywhere on your body. One worker got the tattoo behind her ear; others got tattooed on their arm. No word about those other places people like to have tattooed.
Lolli says the credit for coming up with the idea belongs to an employee who got a tattoo out of loyalty. Lolli decided getting a modern-day brand was an idea worth promoting, which is how the pay raise came to be.
If you watch the video, you can skip the article. But by all means you have got to check out Lolli’s personal website. That’s where I found out he’s a self-made millionaire who grew up in a one bedroom shack in Brooklyn. One look at the website and you will perfectly understand the whole tattoo for pay thing.
PS: Rapid Realty isn’t the first company to have employees with logo tats. An employee of Rackspace, a place where fanatical is a company slogan and a strait-jacket a reward for employee of the month, got one three years ago.