Robert X Cringely, in his book Accidental Empires, tells about the early days of Apple. In the late 1970’s, Apple had grown beyond the point that all the employees knew each other on sight. So, it was decided that, like grown-up companies, they should all have name badges.

As is the corporate way, it was deemed that these badges should be numbered and, as corporate lore decrees, the number assigned would be based on the order in which employees had joined the company.

Cringely writes:

Steve Wozniak was declared employee number 1. Steve Jobs was number 2, and so on. Jobs didn’t want to be number 2. He didn’t want to be second in anything. Jobs argued that he, rather than Woz, should have the sacred number one since they were co-founders of the company and J came before W in the alphabet. When that plan was rejected. he argued that the number 0 was still unassigned, and since 0 came before 1, Jobs would be happy to take that number. He got it.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Jesus watched as guests took chairs around a dinner table. Each had tried to elbow into the place of honor, and so he said, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him” (Luke 14:7-8).