Short Stories From 10 Years Ago – March 24, 2004
Turf Wars & Interviews
Short Stories From 10 Years Ago – March 24, 2004 – Don’t worry, I’m not talking about problems in the hood or gang related, drive-by shootings. Although they seem to be regular occurrences these days in Toronto The Good. Today, I was wondering what to write about and I recalled two very funny incidents from my days in the corporate world.
I worked for a big American multi-national corporation in the 80’s and as you already know from my ‘Most Embarrassing Moments’, I took my job there very seriously. From time to time, I had to take my customers and dealer contacts out to our head office for seminars and product-training sessions. During one of these occasions, a group of people was standing in the lobby on a coffee break, and I was chatting about the professionalism of my company and the superiority of our product support.
Without warning two of our Senior Vice-Presidents (who shall remain nameless) came tearing down the corridor, yelling at one another. I didn’t have time to usher my guests back into the seminar room, so they witnessed this diatribe at its heated best. This was not just a little dis-agreement; but a full throttle, red-faced, spittle flying, down and out yelling about to become fisticuffs display of super-charged male testosterone run amok.
The receptionist was stunned. She tried to intervene and point out to them that there were guests in the lobby. They told her in no uncertain and rather rude terms to shut up and mind her own business. I suggested to my customers that we go back into the conference room and wait for our afternoon session to reconvene. Thankfully they agreed. Everyone smiled politely and sat down at the table. About ten minutes later, I went back out to the lobby, ostensibly to ask our receptionist to organize some ice water and fresh coffee, but really because I was dying to know what these two gentlemen (and I use the term lightly) had been arguing about.
Our receptionist – was an elegant, smart, refined woman who was so polished and professional that she made most office personnel seem like amateurs – still didn’t have the dirt, but she assured me that she would let me know by day’s end. The rest of the afternoon went by without incident and my guests left at the end of the day.
I stopped in the lobby to chat with Rose – our receptionist – and she told me that she had been forced to call the President out of a meeting to separate Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum. They had been unceremoniously sent to their offices and told to cool down. The storey made the rounds of our various Toronto offices and I’m sure it was magnified in the re-telling, but I was there when it happened and got to experience it firsthand.
These two men were on the same management level, that of Senior Vice-President, and one had found out that the other’s office was a foot longer than his. Now call me crazy, but in retrospect, if I’d been the President, I’d have turfed them both! However, this was during “the corporate world is good” phase of my life, and I allowed them a lot of latitude.
I imagined that they had enormous responsibilities and were under an inordinate amount of stress. Can you imagine? What a couple of immature cry babies! This may well have been the start of my disillusionment with “pro-fessional big business”. We eventually parted company – the corporate world and I – but many of the lessons I learned in that milieu, about how “not” to behave, have served me well over the years.
About two years into my tenure in the environment of “big business”, I got to thinking that perhaps I was just with the wrong company – the fit wasn’t right. I stared to put out feelers with people I knew, about other business and sales opportunities. As luck would have it, an interview came up with another even bigger, more prestigious company, and I started on a series of interviews. I think I went to four meetings in all and then my fifth and final meeting was with the chief poo-bah, who reported directly to the President.
I had already been interviewed by the janitor, the area manager, the regional manager, the head of Human Resources – what a scary title and a lowly pretend Vice-President. I liked the janitor best. It rained on the day of my last meeting. I was not prepared for this ill-timed unleashing of the weather god’s wrath and was without my trusty umbrella. I made a mad dash across the parking lot to the front door, but on arrival I wasn’t a pretty sight. To say that I looked like a drowned rat would be an understatement. I knocked at the hallowed door of the chief poo-bah on time, but certainly not looking like a prime candidate.
I made the best of a bad situation and desperately tried to find some common ground with this corporate guru. He suggested that we sit on the leather sofa at the far end of his office. Maybe he didn’t want me to drip rain water all over his Persian carpet. I sat down on this huge couch and immediately thought of Lily Tomlin sitting in her giant rocking chair on Laugh-In. My suit was wet, my hair was hanging in my eyes and my feet didn’t touch the floor. I was a sight for sore eyes.
He asked me some inane questions about my work experience and where I wanted to be in five years. I once answered “alive” in another interview – but that is a whole other story and also the wrong answer. This man was completely uninterested in my replies and actually yawned a couple of times as I was talking. He kept checking his watch and looking out the window. It was very hot in his office and I asked him if he could turn up the air conditioning a bit as I was feeling a bit faint. To his credit he asked me if I wanted some water.
He looked around his office for a control switch and found none. He called his secretary in and asked her where the climate control was. She had no idea. I had absolutely blown this interview. I was not going to be hired, but he was impolite and I decided to have a bit of childish fun with him. I said in my sweetest voice, “This seems unusual, because when I was in Mary’s office (the head of Human Resources) for my interview last week, I noticed that she had her own climate control gauge. 
Boys and their corporate toys – during the rest of this ill-fated meeting he walked around his office looking behind pictures and bookshelves for a thermostat. As he ushered me out the door, I heard him ask his secretary to get maintenance on the phone to find out why he didn’t have his own thermostat. Not one to be dismissed easily, I turned around and said, “Mary’s plants are also taller than yours”. Is it any wonder that my days in Corporate Canada were numbered.
Over the years I’ve been in panel interviews (awful), been asked to move empty box around a room (refused and told that was the right answer – but still didn’t get the government job), and been hired on the spot as though I was some sort of saviour. This is always a bit worrisome. However my best ever comment from an interviewer was as follows – and this was simply a placement agency who was going to try to find me a job.
This woman was about 14 months pregnant and I’ve often wondered if her hormones were in over-drive. I was dressed to kill in an awesome silk suit with my favourite London Fog trench coat slung over my shoulder, and a black fedora pulled over one eye at a rakish angle. Her parting shot to me was – “Your credentials are excellent, however I’m not going to take you on as a client as I find you – crisp, rude and far too trendy”. I’m aware of my faults, I’ve been known to be direct and definite, I might well have been crisp and trendy – but I’m never rude – well hardly ever!
Alas, I wasn’t destined to remain in big business, and my real estate career has turned out to be a really good fit for my temperament. I don’t have an array of irksome managers to report to and I treat my clients as I like to be treated in a business transaction – fairly and with respect. But sometimes I wonder, had I scaled the dizzying heights of the Canadian business scene – where oh where might I be today? Oh – by the way – I never wonder for very long!
