You get the minion you deserve

I have a new minion at work, and when he first got here, he knew hardly anything about my speciality, and even less about Microsoft development in general. Despite this (or perhaps because of it) he's a perfect minion for me.

One of my little foibles (or "faults" if you will) is that I tend to be very good and precise at what I do, and so I expect the same of people working with me. When the person involved tends to "let the little things slide", and "gets there eventually" I can be perceived as arrogant and overly-critical. Because, I know the right way to do it, why oh why don't you just believe me and do it my way? 8)

My new minion not only has a very blank slate (so my way is the only way he knows), but he's also very self-deprecating. When he shows me his solution, and I say, "Well, you could do it like that, or you know..." and explain a better way to do it, he doesn't get mad, and he doesn't argue. He says, "OMG, you are so right. That's just... of course."

It's all good: I'm happy; he's more knowledgeable. Yay. It's not always so clear cut, and remarkably, I'm not always right, but even then, his attitude is "let's work together to solve this, OMG you're so clever".

And the other important thing here is that he's very intelligent in his own right, and smart enough to listen when I talk and takes in what I'm saying and still ends up agreeing with me.