DEDICATION
For Jen Gates and Emily Griffin:
without you there is no me
EPIGRAPH
This book, being about work, is, by its very nature, about violence—to the spirit as well as to the body. . . . To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking wounded among the great many of us.
—From the Introduction to Working, Studs Terkel, 1972
Employees are not to be treated the same as family.
—Miss Manners
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Part I: Punching In Chapter 1: Rosalita Guerrero, Chief of Human Resources, Executive Vice President
Chapter 2: Robert Hirsch, Associate Director, Recruiting & Training
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5: Lucinda Bender, Vice President, Communications & Policy
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8: Rosalita Guerrero, Chief of Human Resources, Executive Vice President
Chapter 9
Chapter 10: Leonard Smalls, Vice President, Employee Benefits
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13: Kenneth Verville, Senior Manager, Compensation
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Part II: Lunch Truck Chapter 17: Robert Hirsch, in Transition
Chapter 18
Chapter 19: Rosalita Guerrero, Chief of Human Resources, Executive Vice President
Part III: Punching Out Chapter 20: Kenneth Verville, Senior Manager, Compensation & Operations
Chapter 21: Leonard Smalls, Vice President, Employee Benefits
Chapter 22
Chapter 23: Rosalita Guerrero, Chief of Human Resources, Executive Vice President
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26: Lucinda Bender, Chief of Human Resources, Senior Vice President
Chapter 27
Chapter 28: Robert Hirsch, Candidate for Director of Training, JPMorgan Chase
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Jillian Medoff
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Part I
PUNCHING IN
1
ROSALITA GUERRERO, CHIEF OF HUMAN RESOURCES, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
NOVEMBER 2009
HR had hit bottom. Ever since last year’s crash, when Rosa’s department shrank from twenty-two to sixteen to thirteen, her people had been terrified. Briefly, manic laughter punctuated their fears (This cannot go on!), but resentment followed, then bitterness. Now the group was down to eleven, and despair had set in. Still, Rosa was optimistic. Business is cyclical, she told her husband. Everything rises, eventually. “In a year, we’ll be on our way back up.” She paused. “Or am I deluding myself?”
Howard didn’t reply, so Rosa answered for him. “Sure you are, Rosie. But what are you gonna do? Retire? Can’t see that happening, kiddo; not yet, anyway.”
The apartment was quiet. Rosa’s home was her sanctuary in the sky, a co-op on the forty-fourth floor, with sweeping city views. Unfortunately, she rarely had time to enjoy them. This morning, for instance, she was rushing to a conference at the Hilton.
Her phone rang. Seeing it was Leo, she sighed. Still, she said “Good morning, Leo” with warmth and affection.
Leo jumped right in. “Sorry to call so early, but since you’ll be out of pocket all day with Rob—”
“I’ll be in after lunch. I have a meeting with Rutherford at four.”
“Oh? It’s not on your calendar.” He paused, awaiting details, but none were forthcoming. After a beat, he exhaled. “Well, okay . . . the new large claims report came in. Have you seen it?”
“Not yet. Read me the highlights.”
Every three weeks, Cigna, their health benefits administrator, sent over a list of employee medical claims that exceeded twenty-five grand. Rosa and Leo, her VP of benefits, scrutinized the claims for anomalies before e-mailing the list to Rutherford Beaumont (the CEO, her boss), along with ideas for future benefit cuts. As Leo started to tick off the list, he gasped. “Holy shit, Rosa. Check this out: ‘Charges related to bariatric procedure’—that’s gotta be Doug LaSalle’s gastric bypass, right?—ninety-six thousand dollars!”
“Stop, Leo! That’s confidential.” Still, she couldn’t help picturing the fastidious CPA, who over the past decade had quietly ballooned up to 488.5 pounds (46.6-inch waist, 47 BMI). Knowing Doug’s biometrics down to the decimal was Rosa’s job; last year, when Cigna declined his surgery, he’d come to her, the HR chief, to help him submit an appeal. “It’s also unkind.”
“It’s just us,” Leo said defensively. “And I’m not judging him—I don’t like being fat either—but that’s what Rutherford will say when he sees this claim. From a cost-benefit standpoint, Doug should’ve joined Weight Watchers for a small weekly fee—or learned to find joy as a large man—instead of having a six-figure surgery on Ellery’s dime.”
Instead of replying, Rosa opened her bag and took inventory: wallet, sunglasses—she touched her face, regular glasses—flip phone, company BlackBerry, mints, business cards, Advil, the works. She tossed in a Valium (just in case) and then turned to the mirror, applied another coat of Chanel Rouge Noir, and adjusted her St. John knit suit.
As chief, Rosa’s appearance was critical. She was a Warm Autumn, so her signature colors were tomato red and blood orange (“vivid” and “commanding,” per the makeup girl at Bloomingdale’s). Rosa’s biggest priority was her honey-gold hair, which she had blown out every third day, highlighted once a month, and deep-conditioned every six weeks. She also had an abiding faith in facials, which left her olive skin smooth and dewy. So despite the featherweight lines at her temple and soft folds around her neck, most people believed she was still in her fifties.
“You know what, Rosa?” Leo was saying. “You should give Rutherford a heads-up about this report before he sees it, just to soften the blow. Also? You need to call Greg in—”
Rosa cut him off. “Fetch the car, James,” she said using her drollest, driest uptown accent. “I have a board meeting at noon.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means stop bossing me around. I’m chief, remember? I know how to do my job.”
“I apologize.” Leo sounded contrite. “Just making sure nothing slips through the cracks.” His voice softened. “It’s November tenth, Rosa; I figured you had other things on your mind.”
This choked her up. Not only the reminder of the anniversary, but the fact that Leo had remembered. “Excuse me, Leo.” Rosa’s voice broke. “I should go.” As she hung up, tears stung her eyes. “Hear that, Howard?” she said aloud. “It’s November tenth.”
Howard had been dead five years—to the day—but Rosa still talked to him. Not all the time, not like a nutty person talking to walls, just a playful, bereaved wife who felt the need to say “I haven’t forgotten you, kiddo” every once in a while.
Rosa missed her husband terribly. When they met, she was forty-seven and had long given up on love. Then Howard Rothman appeared: older, wiser, and married before; a thickset, bearded man who favored bespoke suits; spoke in low, measured tones; and always knew what he wanted. “Life is more than just punching a time clock,” he told her after only a handful of dates. “Marry me.” Rosa was skeptical, but as a woman in business, she was used to long odds. Plus, she’d forgotten how delicious it felt to have fun, to look forward to the workday ending. Howard was a corporate attorney, so he understood the demands of a big job, but he took himse
lf less seriously. He found Rosa’s bossiness endearing, but only up to a point. When she went too far—shouting at him to set the table, it’s almost eight!—he reined her right in. “Fetch the car, James,” he’d mutter as he pulled plates off shelves, forks from drawers. “I have a board meeting at noon.” As far as he was concerned, Rosa Guerrero could be chief all day, but she wasn’t chief here, in their home; rather, she wasn’t his chief. Here, she was Rosie Rothman, a good-natured kid from the hard side of town who loved soft pretzels, fat franks, the Yankees—and him.
“One thing’s for sure,” Rosa mused aloud. “Morale won’t improve until we restore confidence.” With Howard gone, Rosa didn’t have many people to talk to, not executive-to-executive, not about issues that made her churn at three in the morning. She knew he wouldn’t respond (don’t be ridiculous), but voicing her concerns helped her tease out a strategy.
Rosie, Howard would’ve said, stop winding yourself up. It’s just a job.
This used to infuriate her. HR chief wasn’t “just a job.” Not at a self-insured midsize company, not in a goddamn recession. Being chief at Ellery in 2009 was like running air traffic control during a typhoon. It was up to Rosa not only to guide each pilot to safety but also to protect the people on the ground and maintain the airport’s profitability. How could anyone call this “just a job”?
Ellery Consumer Research was among a glut of boutique research firms that had flourished during the tech boom and were now fighting for market share. Using cutting-edge technology and enormous data sets, Ellery provided clients like Walmart and GM with insights into customer purchasing preferences. Theirs was numbers-driven soft-science work, the projects so brainy (cross-media tracking, digital optimization) that only the researchers and (some of) the salesmen grasped the nuances. For Rosa, though, the details of Ellery’s work product were critical. As HR chief, she oversaw the entire employee experience from recruiting through separation, along with comp, training, benefits, communications, and policy. She didn’t just order printer paper and track service anniversaries; she made sure obese CPAs didn’t develop type 2 diabetes, go blind, and lose their jobs. (Leo’s cost-benefit analysis was wrong, by the way. Shelling out six figures for gastric bypass now would save Ellery half a million in disability payments later.) As chief, Rosa kept the whole fucking enterprise afloat.
Last night, Rutherford had caught her off guard. He’d stopped by her office, ostensibly to talk about revenue and head count. Instead, he asked, “How’s Rob Hirsch doing?”
Rosa glanced up. Twenty-five years before, she and Rutherford had worked together at Sony USA. She was North America division head of HR; he was a cocky young buck on the rise. As part of his executive training, she was assigned as his mentor. Now they were both at Ellery, but the young buck was CEO, and she reported to him. Funny, but when Rosa looked at his face, instead of a craggy, middle-aged man with a graying buzz cut, she often saw a shaggy southern boy, hair too long, drawl too thick, with a lot yet to learn. While she found much of their reversal wonderful, miraculous even, she wondered how it had happened so quickly.
“What about Rob?” she wanted to know.
“Just curious how he’s faring. Seems to have a lot on his plate.”
“Everyone does, Rutherford. But Rob’s just fine; thanks for your concern.”
The CEO had paused. “You can’t save them all, Rosa,” he warned.
Watch me, Rosa thought now, twisting her scarf. Eleven years before, she’d hired Rob to ramp up Ellery’s internal training programs. He had a warm, easygoing personality, and though she sensed he was aimless and (possibly) (very) lazy, she had a lot of experience helping immature men find direction. Besides, as a family man, Rob wasn’t a bad bet. But the ensuing years were rough, for Rob and for Ellery. When the economy dipped in 2002, and they had to cut staff, she asked him to add recruiting to his training duties and oversee both disciplines. Of course he complained—they all did—but he stepped up, impressing her and, for a time, the CEO. Recently, though, Rosa had noticed a marked shift in Rob’s attitude. Could be messiness at home, could be boredom, burnout, could be a lot of things, but he came in late, skipped out early, left his assignments half-finished and wanting. As his supervisor, it was up to her to keep him on task, so she’d asked him to accompany her to today’s conference, where she planned to sit him down and set him straight.
This could hurt, she’ll say, point-blank. So brace yourself. Rob, people are talking.
Rosa didn’t blame Rutherford for his concerns, especially about head count. They both got the same reports; she knew business was lousy, despite all the corrective measures they’d put in place last year. The market collapsed in September; by November, the executive committee had suspended capital expenditures, frozen raises, gouged budgets, and vetoed all discretionary spending. Two hundred people were let go, and those left behind were shell-shocked. But the following June, when the board nudged Rosa to announce the end of layoffs, she balked. “It’s never over, Rutherford,” she reminded him, “not even when it’s over.” Now look—another downsizing was headed their way like an out-of-control train; and this time, the numbers were so bad that anyone could be pushed onto the tracks, not just erratic performers like Rob but hotshots with long tenures and rich salaries—like herself. Ellery itself was a target, too. The company could be spun off, sold for parts, gobbled up by a behemoth like Nielsen. No one knew what was next, which was why she preferred to mete out information strategically, rather than offer hollow reassurances only to contradict herself six months later, blindside the troops, and lose any credibility.
As an HR executive, Rosa had to model smart behavior for other managers to follow. Her primary challenge was keeping her group engaged while simultaneously assessing each one’s value as a performer, team member, and long-term investment. A business unit was not a family—period. Yet what fueled an employee’s success, and in turn, the company’s, were the very qualities that bound a family: loyalty, diligence, humor, grace. As chief, Rosa knew who among her staff she could depend on, as well as who’d love to stab her in the back. But during times of uncertainty, people stepped out of character (usually to their detriment), which is why, once word got out that more cuts were coming, she had to be the voice of clarity and calm. Her team had to know that if the layoff train was en route, she would derail it—even if that meant leaping in front of it.
Down on the street, Rosa signaled a taxi. Sliding into the backseat, she ran through her ever-growing to-dos: Rob, head count, engagement survey, large claims. (Christ, a hundred grand for bypass surgery; how could she spin that? ) On top of everything else, it was November 10. Oh, Howard, I miss you, kiddo.
“You say something?” the cabbie asked, turning around.
Rosa rolled down her window. The fall air was crisp. She smelled burning leaves, the earthy tang of a policeman’s horse. From somewhere far off, she heard the fading howl of a siren. “The Hilton, please.” She fished out her phone and speed-dialed Leo. “Leo?” Competing with the wind, Rosa was forced to shout. “Leo! You there?”
2
ROBERT HIRSCH, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, RECRUITING & TRAINING
DECEMBER 2009
For once, Rob was eager to go to work. Grabbing his keys, coins, and wallet, he pocketed his BlackBerry and hustled down the hall. When he stepped into the kitchen, Maddy smiled. “Look who’s up early,” she said before returning to the paper.
“Not so early.” The table was littered with signs of their daughters, Alison (thirteen) and Jessie (nine): half-eaten waffles, sticky forks, frayed yarn bracelets, two copies of The Hunger Games. “Girls gone?” Rob swiped at a puddle of syrup, then sucked on his pinkie. “They didn’t say good-bye.”
“You were in the shower.” Maddy studied his face. “You’re in a good mood today.”
“I am, yes.” Why was that such a surprise? Turning to the cabinet, Rob found his OBER mug and poured himself coffee. (A gift from Allie one long-ago Father’s Day, the mug was badly chippe
d, and the R and T had since flaked off, but Rob would sooner sever his thumbs than throw it out.) “Big day, Maddy.”
Maddy put down the paper. “At work?” Her voice sang of worry: What now?
That her husband was unhappy at Ellery was no secret. (Recently, Rob had learned Ellery was unhappy with him, too, though he had yet to disclose this to Maddy. These days, mention your job and your wife gets the shakes. If 2008 was a rollicking roller coaster of pink-slip parties and ex-banker bacchanals, then 2009 was the head-splitting hangover, the global economy splayed on the couch, wired, tired, too broken to move.)
“Yes, big day at work—but it’s all good.” Rob shook out a bowlful of Fiber One twigs, which he ate over the sink. “So remember last month,” he said between mouthfuls, “when Rosa took me to lunch? We went to that conference at the Hilton? Today we have a follow-up.”
“Well, that explains the coat and tie. You look great, by the way.”
“Actually, I dressed up for you, so you’ll think I’m a play-uh.” Pivoting on his heel, Rob stumbled, but his disco move made Maddy laugh, and he glowed in triumph. If he could do nothing else, if this whole loan idea fell through, at least he and Maddy had fun together, which, given all the hard-luck stories they’d heard about middle-age marriages, was saying something. Still, his wife was right about the sport coat and tie: he had dressed up for Rosa, his boss.
Two more bites of Fiber One, a final swallow of coffee, and then Rob set his milky bowl in the sink and bent to kiss Maddy’s neck. “You smell delicious.” Fourteen years of marriage, and it still thrilled him to look at her. Padded in all the right places—ass, thighs, tits, belly—Maddy was generous in body as well as in spirit. Her hair was thick and black, her eyes smoky, her skin silky. To Rob, Maddy was magnificent, even as she faced forty-two, with silver strands woven through her curls and a bit of sag and wobble beneath her chin. As for himself, a forty-three-year-old slacker in baggy Dockers and brown sweater-vest, he harbored no such illusions. Rob had been balding and soft as far back as his teens, and even though his face had gained character and he could fill out a jacket, he’d forever feel like a runty sidekick, grateful for any girl’s attention.
This Could Hurt Page 1