The $5,000 Bullet

If you know me, you know I love stand-up comedy. And the darker, the better.

Because dark comedy is usually just truth wrapped in laughter. And life’s too short for only polite chuckles…

We could all do with a good belly-laugh.

This last weekend, feet up on the balcony at my house near the beach in Avalon, iPad in hand, I was rewatching an old Chris Rock stand-up. One of the greats.

In the special, he was talking about gun violence. And his hilarious solution is not gun control. It’s Bullet control.

His idea: What if bullets cost $5,000 each. Suddenly, people would think twice before shooting.

No more innocent bystanders. If you got riddled with 10 shots, Rock jokes, “You must have done something to deserve it!”

And if someone fired off a stray bullet? You’d see them running after it just to get their money back. 🤣

I was mid-laugh, and I had a fun thought: What if employee questions worked the same way?

The Real Cost of “Got a Minute, Boss?”

Most staff treat their boss like Google: Instant. Free. Easy.

Picture a quiet Tuesday morning. You finally carve out some time to focus. Then comes the knock on the door:

“Hey boss, got a minute?”

“Sure,” you think, “that’s what I’m here for…”

One quick question turns into a five-minute detour. Five minutes turns into twenty. And before you know it, the whole day’s gone. Death by a thousand interruptions.

All from a seemingly innocent “got a minute?”

But what if every interruption had a price?

Every “got a minute?” now costs the asker $100.

Suddenly, before knocking, people would think twice.

If the question wasn’t truly important, they’d try to figure it out themselves first and save themselves a few bucks.

Just like Rock’s joke, when something has a cost, people become more thoughtful about using it.

The Hard Knock Rule

When I ran the driving school, I was a victim of this. An innocent bystander taking so many stray *“got a minute” *bullets, it felt like target practice.

I was bullet-riddled!

Banning questions outright wasn’t going to work—because that’s how you get actual fires started in your business.

So I introduced one simple rule.

Before bringing a problem to me, you must:

• Write the problem down.

• Write down two possible solutions. (make them think twice!)

That’s it. If you can’t do those two things? You’re not allowed to knock.

At first, people thought it was ridiculous. “It’s just a quick question, boss!” But the result was magical. ✨

→ They’d start writing down the problem… → Halfway through, they’d pause. → Then they’d go: “Wait. Never mind, I’ve already got it sorted.”

The Payoff: A Smarter, More Self-Sufficient Team

The first time I introduced this, the office went eerily silent. Firstly due to disbelief, but then because it worked.

I remember looking up as Megan started walking toward my desk…

then she paused… and started turning back.

“Yes..?” I asked

Megan: “Never mind, I figured it out.”

It was beautiful.

It was poetry.

It was peaceful. No more interruptions.

The Takeaway

You probably don’t have a team problem. Like I did, you likely have a thinking problem.

Interruptions aren’t just annoying. They’re costly. But when you put the cost on the asker instead of the answerer, things get better..

So, next time someone asks, “Got a minute?” … just smile and say:

“Sure, that’ll be $100.”

To your future free from useless interruptions,

Stephen ‘Think Twice’ O’Sullivan