Bait and Switch

Packed powder, blue skies, sunshine in January. Ingredients for a great day on the mountain (earlier this week). Athletic ski stance, working on my turns, and finally using my poles right. Planting them correctly--just a little flick on the snow as I make my next turn, loose arms, shoulders straight and staying focused on the fall line. The intense rays made the snow just soft enough to get good turns in and spray a little powder.

After a late lunch and realizing tight quads would make me not as "aggressive" for the afternoon portion of the day (and Judd had an hour of "bump shack" duty--required of all ski patrollers), I snuggled into a blue window seat in the patrol lodge to finish Barbara Ehrenriech's latest book of investigative journalism, Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream.

Some of my favorite parts:
"As the best-seller Who Moved My Cheese advises, dislocated professionals must learn to adapt to new flavors of cheese as the old ones are taken away. But when skilled and experienced people routinely find their skills unwanted and their experience discounted, then something has happened that cuts deep into the very social contract that holds us together." - page 217

- a passage she quoted from Lucy Kellaway's article, "Companies Don't Need Brainy People" (Financial Times, 11/22/2004): "Think what characterises the really intelligent person. They can think for themselves. They love abstract ideas. They can look dispassionately at the facts. Humbug is their enemy. Dissent comes easily to them, as does complexity. These are traits that are not only unnecessary for most business jobs, they are actually a handicap when it comes to rising through the ranks of large companies." - p. 228-229
. . . Ehrenreich goes on to comment that, "It is a strange team in which everyone is equally good-natured, agreeable, and not too threateningly bright . . . it seems counterproductive to bar diversity in personality . . . [an employee] risks being dismissed for failing to be a sufficiently compliant 'team player'."

When I working as a "project manager/techincal writer" I heard these comments and feedback from my "co-managers", sometimes directly and sometimes through others' comments:

1. It was suggested that maybe I didn't "fit in" with the rest of the managers because I asked too many questions - and therefore, I wasn't a "team player". . . (this started after I questioned the intent/purposes for a "communications workshop" which was really a PhD student's research study, who was a friend of the boss/owner). It's important to note that the there were 6 other managers, plus myself and the owner. The number of other employees? 5 (at that time) - most of them sarcastically commented that while the managers had their hour-long monthly meetings, they were the ones doing all the work. (Oh, and sometimes the owner's husband also sat in on these meetings, though he didn't have any managerial duties, didn't oversee any employees or area, only occasionally helped with sales and marketing tasks, some admin. tasks, and janitorial tasks around the office.)

Really, it didn't take 8 people to manage 5 employees and do all the work. Everyone was over 49, except for the boss's son (appointed as "Marketing Director" - no completed college-degree, no prior marketing experience), the Ops Manager (see #2 below), and myself. I once told the owner that I didn't want to attend the manager meetings because it interferred with my primary job duties, didn't feel like my comments were sincerely heard or valued.

(Therefore, it felt like a waste of time to me. If others wanted to make rash business decisions and get emotional about issues that was fine, but I didn't want to witness the incompetency and asked for my thoughts but then discounted in response every time; I had better things to do with my time at work.)

I also proposed that the group be called the "Leadership Team" or something like that, because only 2 of us (me included) were actually responsible for directly supervising workers. And the general manager managed everybody, when he was in the office. (He usually only worked about 20 hrs a week sometimes, and would sometimes be out of town for days at a time.) The others managed their "area" or "department", such as marketing or billing, therefore they were considered an essential part of the decision-making team. Unfortunately, the loudest (and rudest) often were the ones talking most (and usually without sound sense or logic). I commented privately to the owner (who I'll now call "Sally") that it seemed like she was being disrespected by a certain 2 "managers" (who I'll refer to as "Fay" and "Jill") because they talked over her, interrupted, and generally didn't allow her to facilitate the meeting. Sally excused their behavior, calling them "strong-willed women." But really, they were just bitches. There IS a difference. However, she agreed it was getting out of hand and talked to the guilty, after which behavior improved somewhat. (Sally was also learning to stop the behavior from continuing in the meeting by raising a palm, and saying, "Wait, I'm still talking." It was interesting how Fay didn't have basic communications skills suitable for the workplace. Jill was better, she had a college degree and more work experience.)

2. Because I was college-educated, I acted like I was better than others. - This was a common critique of anyone in the office who had a college degree, or even took college classes. Because Sally and the General Manager did not have bachelor's degrees, they felt threatened even by the Operations Manager, "Keri", who had PhD work (albeit in anthropology). A worker taking accounting classes finishing up her AA was even pushed out of her new bookkeeping duties because she started questioning some of the billing and financial practicies and mistakes of the company and the former bookkeeper Fay, who was now the "office manager". Fay only's qualifications were her on-the-job experience, but she becomes the bookkeeper again. Fay couldn't even do cash flow analysis reports or create a budget, and refused to learn how and the software to assist with it (claiming it was too difficult, frustrated her, and she didn't have time for it--because she worked part-time hours.) So Keri, putting aside her other job duties, taught herself how to do it, using college accounting textbooks and Excel software.

I would like to write an insider's view article about what it was like working for a small business, who ran like a "family business" where the owner and her husband have a wheelchair decal on their rearview mirror and park in the disabled spots even though both are walking without any aids and go on frequent vacations (Hawaii, Las Vegas, etc.). Where the oldest son, who gets laid off from his pastor job, is now the "Marketing Director" (were we hiring one?), yet he fails to bring in substantial profitable new clients which leads to greater cash flow problems--and he signs up for expensive out-of-state marketing conferences, then whines about having to attend them. The owner's husband (an outspoken homophobic/racist) is the highest paid salary employee, yet is described by the owner/wife as being "computer illiterate...give him easy tasks...he can make copies, prepare folders, whatever you need done." He made too-light copies, emptied the trash bins, answered phones but directed calls inaccurately and couldn't correctly tell someone who was on the line and what it was regarding--resulting in numerous unnecessary disruptions. And the company paid for the owner's rental house on a lake, SUV lease, gas, food, Starbucks, Nordstroms Rack, Toys-R-Us, $100 dinners for 2 (called "marketing event"), a fishing trip to Alaska with two employees (called a "marketing conference" in the expense report), and over $500 in tickets to a major league baseball game (another "marketing event"). Some of these may be fine and well, but then to threaten to "lay off" some people to get out of the hole and shove work onto others isn't the responsible business solution.

I hope I don't sound bitter, because I'm not. It was facinating lesson in human psychology and disorganized leadership. I'm much happier not working there anymore, and not having to see Fay ever again...well, that is priceless. Once I realized the limits to being able to utilize my brain and skills in that environment, that change was slow, that efficiency and education were not real values, that incompetent and unprofessional (even rude) people would stay in their positions despite numerous mistakes and inadequacies just because they were "friends" with the owner, I saw no prudence in staying. My friend in "Organizational Leadership and Development" advised: Get out of there as soon as you (and make sure you're fairly compensated while you're still there).

It's actually hilarious to be able to step back and ruminate on the incompetence and at times unethical behavior of Sally, especially one who liked to talk about her faith and "trust in God". Her and her "strong Christian family" makes me shake my head. I wish my friends still there could leave and be better respected for their work and intelligence. Fear of loss of income, health insurance, and the question of "where else could I get paid this much to work part-time" keeps them there. And the illusion that they can "make a difference." (Which I'm not sure can be aptly used when working with a for-profit business, especially one documented to line the owner's pockets and promote high turnover/layoffs among the ones who do the direct labor work for clients.) Sadly, one former employee lost her job when she had to go out of state to take care of a tragically ill parent. Because a small business is exempt from the "Family Medical Leave Act", she had no job security. So though she was a very strong employee, loyal and willing to telecommute (and was even offered this plan by the owner), the offer was retracted and the employee was simply told over the phone by Fay (when calling to finalize things with Sally), "Oh, you don't work here anymore."

As a public service: To all you in Washington state, you wonder how you can get health insurance without an employee group plan or state assistance, go to: www.asuris.com And I'm sure there are other companies that offer similar plans for individuals. As Ehrenreich points out, since white-collar workers will have numerous jobs throughout a lifetime, employer-provided health benefits should not be counted. Having your own health insurance assures that you will be covered no matter what happens, free you to make the best job choices, and not be grouped together with older and unhealthy co-workers on a group plan that may be dropped or whose co-premiums may rise drastically. If I get a job that provides insurance, I'll ask for compensation to cover my individual plan--which will actually save the company money since my plan (which is just as good, no doubt) is half the total of the company per-person premuim.

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...on a related note (to skiing), someone recently made me aware of this: Indoor snow skiing. They do it in Dubai.