Samsung’s Chairman Told Surgeon “Do Better” During Operation

Marquel, TPVs Times Cardiac correspondent, could not slow down his heart beating reading the following in the New York Times that Samsung’s Chairman Lee Has Cardiac Procedure After Heart Attack, and urges doctors, “you can do better,” during operation.
The head of Samsung insisted on being awake and tried to inspire his surgeons, as he does his Samsung workers, that they could do better. The surgeons say he insisted that they could “do better than Apple’s surgeons,” especially those of Steve Jobs, who recently died.

“There was a lot of repartee,” said one doctor, “he’s a take charge guy. But when he said we could do better than Jobs’ team, I just said, ‘I certainly hope so.’ “

“He was awake the whole time?” I asked.

“Almost.” he said, “As we were doing the first level of sutures all the rest of the team gets to take a breather. When he saw that, even though he was sedated, he halfway sat up and berated us.”

“Do you remember what he said?” I asked.

“Word for word, because I remembered reading the same words in an article recently about his  management style.” He said confidently.

“Do you still remember them?” I asked.

“Sure,” the surgeon assured me. “He said, ‘As we move forward, we must resist complacency and thoughts of being good enough, as these will prevent us from becoming better.’ “

“And that was meant to motivate you?” I asked

“I suppose so but we certainly didn’t need it. We were afraid he’d get out of bed and walk out of the operating theatre.”

“So they were wasted words?” I asked.

“Sure because we always work at our best. You don’t operate with anything else.” He asserted.

“I believe it,” I said. “I wonder why he didn’t.”

“He was really concerned with the competition.” The surgeon sighed.

“Meaning?” I asked.

“Don’t know,” he said. “Except for his comments about Jobs and Apple. He didn’t want the scar to be ordinary. He said it should be sleek with rounded corners. But then his patent attorney said he thought Apple had that locked up “

“How do you know?” I asked.

“He was right there. Ever since Apple sued he goes nowhere without patent counsel. We had to wait while they researched the issue.”

“How long did that all take?” I asked.

“It’s hard to say. It’s high pressure and time either stands still or speeds by. You don’t get a good sense. But when we were done,” he said “we had to start almost all over.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“He made another speech. He said,  “change everything but your wife and children.’ We took that to mean we should have to restart.”

“How did that work?” I asked.

“The scars are squarer than Jobs’ or Apples, if you prefer, and we put in a new Samsung battery that doesn’t need charging, a camera which outperforms Apple‘s, and complex interconnection to the internet and other doctors.”

“So,” I said, “I assume he’s happy.”

“Yes and no,” he said. “This morning he said we are clearly more advanced technologically but Jobs’ operation seemed to have an edge from a design standpoint.”

“What’d you tell him?” I asked.

“That the important thing was that it works better. He was very pleased ours is more user friendly. Jobs couldn’t touch his operation but Lee can go back in on his own and change almost every setting on his pacemaker.” The surgeon explained. “He said that was Samsung‘s strength and again said we shouldn’t stay still but move forward. Especially in design.”

“Well at least it’s over.” I said.

“Not by a long shot. As soon as we left the operating theater, we were all served with papers from Apple.” He said.

“That’s amazing” I said.

“Not really.” He countered. “Samsung‘s counsel was completely prepared. For every paper they served on us, he had papers ready to serve on them.”

“It doesn’t stop,” I said, “does it?”

“Actually, I think Samsung won this round,” he said.

“How’s that?” I asked.

“Lee is making commercials. He’s showing them how the Samsung operation is more user friendly. He adjusts his pacemaker on screen and he slowed up, talking like a gorilla on Ambien, then he speeds up and ends up talking like Donald Duck.” The surgeon said.

“Wow,” I said. “That’s pretty extreme.”

“We refused to be in it. Ethics you know,” said the surgeon, “But he’s got a great ending. A big banner says, ‘User friendly,’ as he fiddles with the controls, adjusts some music, and takes a few photos. Then there a still shot of Steve Jobs’ corpse, or maybe a lookalike, and the banner says simply, ‘Not.’ “

“That should sell a lot of… something, I guess,” I said.

“We’ll see,” he said, “it goes on next year’s Super Bowl Week.”

“I think I’ll do something else that week,” I said. He looked at me. “Maybe an operation.” He shook his head understandingly.

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BY MARQUEL

Samsung’s Chairman Told Surgeon “Don’t Be Complacent” during Operation