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Years ago, I received a chain email containing an inspirational story about a man applying for the position of 'office boy' at Microsoft, being rejected for not having an email address, and then going on to be a successful businessman owning a conglomerate of fruit shops. Today, I received another copy as a Linkdein pulse article: A jobless man applied for the position of 'office boy' at Microsoft

"I'm sorry," said the HR manager. "If you don't have an email, that means you do not exist. And we cannot hire persons who do not exist."

[...]

Five years later, the man became one of the biggest food retailers in the U. S.

The story seems absurd to me.

Is this an accurate biographical story of a real person?

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Abhijit
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  • Where's the "considerable citation"? All I see is the normal feel-good bunkum. – Jamiec Dec 03 '14 at 11:55
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    It isn't clear that this is a legitimate claim, rather than an allegory - a fictional story that is meant to explain a complex idea. Why do you think people believe it as a literal story? [Your comments point out as unlikely minor points not essential to the story.] – Oddthinking Dec 03 '14 at 12:17
  • Please clarify the question: what facts are you skeptical about? You give some examples, but your question is way more general. – Sklivvz Dec 03 '14 at 12:32
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    ["And do you mean to say that you've built up this important business and amassed a fortune of thirty thousand pounds without being able to read or write? Good God, man, what would you be now if you had been able to?" "I can tell you that sir," said Mr. Foreman, a little smile on his still aristocratic features. "I'd be verger of St. Peter's, Neville Square."](http://www.sinden.org/verger.html) – ChrisW Dec 03 '14 at 12:53
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    "I received a chain email which..." Generally you can stop right there. – Shadur Dec 03 '14 at 14:16
  • @ChrisW Oh, wow. I remember that story from my english lit class (my teacher that year was fond of irony). – Shadur Dec 03 '14 at 14:17
  • I've heard many variations of the "can't read or write" story, such as that cited by ChrisW, over the years. This story sounds like a very lame attempt to update it from "can't read or write" to "doesn't have an email account". That seems to me a much weaker story all around. Being illiterate is surely much more difficult to overcome than not having an email account: learning to read is an intellectual feat that takes year of education, and which some people find beyond their abilities. Getting an email account requires, what, maybe a half hour of effort? ... – Mark Daniel Johansen Dec 04 '14 at 19:24
  • ... And seriously, if someone applied for a job and didn't have an email account, would the HR person really say, "If you don't have an email account you don't exist"? I suppose it's possible that someone could make such an obviously inane statement, but wow. Wouldn't he be way more likely to say, "Oh, to get this job, you have to have an email account." If he'd just an hour or more interviewing the fellow and wanted to hire him, wouldn't he take the five minutes to explain to him how to get an email account? Maybe log into Yahoo or whatever and sign him up for one on the spot? – Mark Daniel Johansen Dec 04 '14 at 19:27
  • @ChrisW: The question has been re-opened. May I encourage you to post an answer based on your comment, so I/we can vote it up? – Oddthinking Dec 05 '14 at 00:35
  • @Oddthinking I've tried but I don't know whether I succeeded. Please feel free to edit it in any way necessary. – ChrisW Dec 05 '14 at 01:16

1 Answers1

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The story referenced in the OP ends as follows:

The man replied: ' I don't have an email.'

The broker was dumbfounded. "You don't have an email, and yet have succeeded in building an empire. Can you imagine what you could have been if you had an email?," he exclaimed.

The man thought for a while, and replied, "an office boy at Microsoft!"

There's a famous short story called THE VERGER (by W. Somerset Maugham), from much earlier in the century (probably the 1930s), whose ending is as follows:

"You see it's like this, sir, I [didn't learn how to read and write]."

The manager stared at him as though he were a prehistoric monster.

"And do you mean to say that you've built up this important business and amassed a fortune of thirty thousand pounds without being able to read or write? Good God, man, what would you be now if you had been able to?"

"I can tell you that sir," said Mr. Foreman, a little smile on his still aristocratic features. "I'd be verger of St. Peter's, Neville Square."

The stories seem to me similar, in content (creating a retail business empire), and even in their narrative structure (dialog).

The fact that the latter is famous, earlier, and (presumably) fictional doesn't prove that the later story (referenced in the OP) is also fictional; but I think it's fictional (clearly intended to be allegorical or inspirational), and so I present THE VERGER as 'evidence', and let you be the judge of what you think is probable.

I'll add that various details in the referenced story seem to me improbable (e.g. people buying tomatoes, even for tens of dollars let alone thousands of dollars, which are being sold door-to-door by a stranger at two times their supermarket price) ... but I'm no expert at selling tomatoes.

It's some kind of trope: newspaper boy makes a fortune by selling newspapers, ends up owning the newspaper empire. Here you have the guy owning the supermarket chain.

There are true, real-life stories of people (including poor immigrants) who made a living (if not a fortune) by long, hard work and retail sales; but I don't think this is one of them.

ChrisW
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