Third Prize: You're Fired

Foreign Policy In Focus - In the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, Alec Baldwin walks into the office of underperforming salesmen and shakes them to their core. He's the guy from the head office, and his motivational speech has a whiff of sulfur to it. The top prize for sales that month, he announces, will be a new Cadillac. The second prize: a set of steak knives. As for the third prize, he informs them with a certain twinkling malice, "You're fired."  One of the salesmen in the audience, Ed Harris, leans back in his chair — he's not buying it. Baldwin takes off his watch, puts it on Harris's desk, and says that it costs more than the Hyundai that Harris drove to work. "I made $970,000 last year," Baldwin practically spits at him. "That's who I am. And you're nothing."  Read more.