Epilogue

Are You Still Here?

So, did I survive my first year of punishment in the corporate world? Yes.

After nearly a year riding airplanes every day, I returned to the home office to demand a better job. My personal record of plane rides was 22 in an 8-day period (lots of short hops and before the days of tight airport security). When I returned home from this exhausting week, I sat sideways on a chair, leaning into the corner of the kitchen...only to wake up there 9 hours later. It was time for a change.

I walked into my manager’s office prepared to issue an ultimatum: Another assignment or I was history. My travel time had allowed me to check out market opportunities, so I realized that I did have value elsewhere if the company was no longer interested in me. I didn’t even have to raise the issue.

He greeted me warmly, as if I were a returning war hero and offered me a new assignment along with a nice promotion. This made me feel very confident in myself. Oh, was I still very naive.

I assumed that my retention and promotion were due to the great job I was doing—that my management finally realized the attributes I brought to the job. Perhaps I was also forgiven for whatever transgressions I may have been guilty of when I started (transgressions such as telling the truth). Was I ever wrong? You bet.

Unbeknown to me, an important customer, our largest customer in California, had written the CEO extolling my virtues and mentioning that she would not buy any product unless it had my personal approval. When I visited with her to examine a product-quality problem, I had told her to toss out all of her inventory because much of it appeared to have been damaged in some way. Then, I yelled at people in the plant to have new product shipped out immediately.

The reason for my promotion was explained to me on a trip to a business meeting a few months later. It was while traveling with a senior vice president that he explained my real employment situation. The customer letter was the reason for my success. Period. In a way, it was because of my hard work, but hard work that was valued by a customer. My management was another matter. He told me that I had really pissed off my local management and that I was never likely to have their support again.

He could see that I felt a little deflated. However, what I had done, he went on to explain, was to draw a line in the sand, and on one side I put the best interests of the company. I then refused to cross it even at the risk of my employment. This had impressed senior management, and I was placed on a list of people who were considered to be “corporate promotable”—people who senior managers mentored as potential candidates for future leadership positions. This was not a guarantee of future success, but it gave me a positive perspective of the company.

I might have lost the confidence of immediate management on the way out the door, but I walked back in with the confidence of our customers, the most valuable commodity in any business.

My new assignment was to work on a new product. The difference this time was that I was assigned at the beginning of the development cycle and not at the end. This would give me a chance to work through the entire product development process. I was very excited.

The product manager called a meeting for the next morning. When I walked into the room, I was greeted by a familiar voice, one I had not heard in almost a year.

“Are you still here? I thought I told you to leave,” snorted the manufacturing superintendent, without even looking up from his coffee.

Without saying a word, I turned and left the room. But I did not leave the company...just the assignment.