Episode 26 - The Nose Job

The Plot:   There were three different plots in this episode. The first involved George thinking that his new girlfriend Audrey was beautiful except for her huge, ugly nose. In his usual, careless disregard for manners (he is, after all, a pod) Kramer actually says that to her and deadpans that she is as pretty as anyone and all she needs is a nose job.  This leads to a discussion about whether or not she should get it done.  Exhibiting his usual shallowness, George not so subtly encourages her to go for the procedure. Audrey ultimately decides to have the surgery and after several days, gathers the group for the big unveiling.  Not surprisingly, the surgery has gone horrible wrong and while everyone is trying to delicately tell her that it looks OK, Kramer sums it up beautifully by telling her she “got butchered.”  Once again, George goes swimming in the shallow end and dumps Audrey because he can’t stand looking at her nose.   Not to interfere with a happy ending, Kramer ends up recommending a doctor that can fix her up.  The second surgery is a huge success and she shows up at Monks looking stunning.  She caps off the reversal by walking out the door on a date with Kramer.

The second storyline involved Jerry and his latest girlfriend (Tawny Kitaen of Bachelor Party, Whitesnake and Chuck Finley fame) (for those of you too young to remember any of those references, they are an easy Google search.  Especially the Chuck Finley story where she was arrested for beating up her all-star baseball pitcher of a husband with her high heeled shoe), whom he met in an elevator. She’s hot and does wild things in bed, but she’s also really stupid — which leads to some really dumb scenes of Jerry’s brain playing chess with his penis. Again, not surprisingly, his mind is on a nearly unblemished losing streak, until at last he can no longer handle her insipid conversations and the brain scores a huge upset victory.

The third storyline involved Kramer wanting Elaine’s help to recover the now infamous jacket that his mother’s boyfriend took back from Kramer in Episode 24. Kramer says he needs the jacket because it has magical powers in its ability to attract women. He gets the jacket and Audrey, thereby seemingly proving his point.

Fun Facts:

• The first episode to feature Kramer’s alter-ego character, Dr. Van Nostrand.
• In almost every episode that talks about it, George and his parents live in Queens, but in this episode, he claims to be from Long Island.
• We learn that Kramer’s mother is named Babs.

 Favorite Quote:   Too hard to just choose one.

George: Where'd you meet her?
Jerry: I met her on an elevator.
George: On an elevator? You met a woman on an elevator?
Jerry: Impossible, right?
George: You got less than 60 seconds. It's like dismantling a time bomb.

Jerry: Isabel? She is the most despicable woman I have ever met in my life. I have never been so repulsed by someone mentally and so attracted to them physically at the same time.  It's like my brain is facing my penis in a chess game. And I'm letting him win.

George: You're not letting him win. He wins 'till you're forty.
Jerry: Then what?
George: He still wins but it's not a blowout.

Jerry: You got something in your teeth there.

George: What?

Jerry: It's green.

George: Oh, man, it's spinach! I've been walking around like this all afternoon.

Jerry: Did you bump into anybody you knew?

George: I had a job interview.

Favorite Scene:   I don’t know why I love the scene when Jerry and Isabella (Kitaen) are rehearsing some stupid play.  It just cracks me up every time.

Isabel: Ever since you came back from the Army, you've changed. I swear Nelson, I don't even know who you are anymore.

Jerry: I'm Nelson!

Isabel: That's not the line, Jerry.

Jerry: Alright, alright, I'm sorry. Nothing's changed, Alma, I just need more time.

Isabel: I swear, Nelson, sometimes at night, when you're not around, I just go crazy thinking about you.

Jerry: Well, you just need to relax. Maybe a hobby, bowling is fun.

Isabel: Yeah, bowling's good if you're really gross and ugly.

Jerry (to himself): Uh oh. My organs are playing chess again.

The Lesson:  I was really tempted to use the organs playing chess aspect of this episode as the lesson.  Startups are constantly faced with similar dilemmas.  There are aspects of their business that they find unpleasant, but they generate significant revenue or customers or press coverage, and how do they balance those competing emotions.  Who wins the game of chess?  However,  that is not really a lesson, but a value judgment.

No, the lesson from this episode is the old, “be careful what you wish for.”  I see so many entrepreneurs who are on the path to building a profitable and sustainable business.  They are very attractive to their customers, to their investors and to their employees.  They seem to have so much going for them.  But the founder seems unsatisfied with just a high level of success and wants to be “the next Facebook.”  Not satisfied with hitting a triple, he/she disrupts the entire flow of the company in an effort to try and hit the Grand Slam.  The Nose Job is a perfect example of what can happen next.  In many cases, the first attempt to knock it out of the park ends up in disaster.  The company loses its focus, it loses its commitment to its customers and it loses the very essence of what made it successful in the first place, resulting in a business that needs a rhinoplasty.  Occasionally this is not a fatal mistake.  Getting a second surgery can correct the mistakes of the first and result in a company that is a worldwide brand.  But it can also be a tragic error that permanently alters the path of the company for the worst.

Please don’t misunderstand.  I am not suggesting that you should be complacent and not swing for the fences.  Quite the contrary.  I believe the lesson here is that you should take those calculated risks, knowing that things can go wrong, and pay careful attention at all times and pivot course at the first sign that your business is getting “butchered”.