For the love of money, some people will kill their own brother.
For the love of money, some people will rob their own mother.
—The O’Jays
For the love of money, some people will rob their own mother.
—The O’Jays
People love to separate; we love to pick sides. We’ll group up by race, religion, gender, income, age; you name it... anything to feel part of something greater than ourselves. Anything for a sense of purpose or meaning.
But I’ve seen a type of division in business that goes way beyond “who likes who” and who fits in where. I’m talking about caste warfare. It’s about white-collar vs. blue-collar. Management vs. Employees. Offices vs. Cubicles. Them vs. Us. And no matter who “them” is, no matter who “us” is, the rule’s the same: They’re the enemy and we better get “them” before they get “us.” It’s the cold war gone corporate.
For example: Back in 2003, Don Carty, then CEO of AMR (American Airlines’ parent company) tried to snake some $41 million in salaries and golden parachutes for himself and some high-level execs while asking American Airline’s unknowing mechanics, pilots, and flight attendants to take pay cuts in order to keep the company out of bankruptcy. Once the loot made the press all hell broke loose and Don resigned. (He still got paid, though.) All Don & Co. saw was “us.” Had they seen “we,” things would’ve gone down a lot differently.
I meet folks in different industries from all over and to hear them tell it, lots of workers are suffering from caste warfare. The secretaries and IT folks have one set of rules; the managers and supervisors have another. The MBAs get more respect than those with just BAs or high school diplomas. Depending on what group you’re in, somebody in another group is either screwing you or benefiting at your expense.
Jay, Crew
Jay was among the coolest managers I’ve known. He ran our “super-duper new media” department. (I forgot their official title.) They developed websites, interactive media… whatever high-tech stuff clients wanted, they did.
Jay’s team was small, maybe 6 deep, but they worked like demons knocking out job after job. You should’ve seen their timesheets—100-hour weeks were common. I mean, legit Sunday-to-Sunday, 100-hour workweeks. They’d go 12 hours straight; play Wolfenstein or something to break up the monotony; nap in a conference room, wake up and order a pizza, then go back to work for another 6 or 7 hours. They were highly gifted, highly disturbed individuals.
And once more, no matter how much work came their way, no matter how much everyone else took them for granted, as long as Jay was there, they were just fine. You see, it’s like this: Some folks work at companies; some folks work for companies… But these guys: They worked for Jay. I figured out why the first time I met him.
One day I’m in this meeting with a bunch of account execs, creative folks, promotion folks, etc. We’re all going over this big assignment. The lead AE says the client wants a high-end website with all sorts of bells and whistles up in something like 3 weeks. She adds that she’s already told the client that we’d do it and do it cheap. The purpose of this meeting was to “make good” on her promise. So she looks at Jay and says, “So when can we see something?”
“You can’t. No.” He says.
“What do you mean ‘no’?”
“I said ‘no’... What you’re asking for, in the timeframe you want is not possible.”
“But I told the client—”
“I didn’t tell the client anything.”
Everyone gets quiet, except the AE—she blows a fuse and gets all loud, but not Jay. Jay stays calm and cool. He leans back in his chair, never raises his voice above a one-on-one tone and just explains...
He starts by highlighting the sheer stupidity of promising to do something without knowing if it’s even doable. Next he lays out realistic costs based on reasonable man-hours and a logical timetable for meeting the client’s needs. He goes on about how this project will require ‘dedicated servers,’ ‘passwords,’ ‘splash pages,’ ‘extra bandwidth,’ ‘running test pages’ and all kinds of web stuff that was over my head. And once Jay finished and made sure everyone knew what was really good, he politely smiles, stands up and says, “Lemme know if you need anything else.” and walks out leaving the AE looking like the unprepared fool that she was. It was beautiful.
Near as I could see, Jay’s goal on every project was to do it right. That meant getting proper instructions, planning, timelines, etc. He didn’t care about brown-nosing or CYAing. And whenever possible, he never let anyone push him or his guys around. And that’s why they worked for him. That’s also what got him screwed.
Several months later, the company went thru an internal re-org and a fresh VP slot was created—VP of Hi-Tech Cyber Stuff. (You get the idea.) This slot had Jay’s name written all over it. He was a vet. Had leadership skills. Got results. And when they were smart enough (or desperate enough) to listen to him, the company made money. That fresh IKEAfied office was his, right?
Wrong.
They gave it to an outsider—some Banana Republic-looking marketing geek who happened to be tight with one of the higher higher-ups. He was awful. And though he was their boss, that guy still saw Jay’s crew as “them.” He helped the company milk those boys dry. He had ‘em chasing their tales and jumping thru hoops whenever the phone rang. They started working harder, longer, and under tighter deadlines than ever before. And when their quality of work started to suffer, everyone simply blamed them. It was Caste Warfare 101.
When it first happened I told a couple VPs I felt Jay got screwed and we’d all suffer for it. I was basically told to mind my own business. But “Terri,” one of the VPs who’d recently quit to make a life change (blew town to get married) let me in on a little secret:
They screwed Jay on purpose.
Over a few beers during her send-off party, Terri said the reason Jay lost the VP gig was because he wasn’t one of “them.” Sure Jay was qualified and deserving, everyone knew that. But some of the higher ups didn’t like Jay personally. (Execs can be a little clique-ish.) But more importantly, they didn’t trust Jay to keep his mouth shut about impending layoffs and budget cuts. In the end, Jay was one of “them” and the execs wanted one of “us.” So Jay lost out.
Sad part is, Jay got off easy. For years I’ve witnessed or heard about too many people’s careers getting hurt over this crap. It’s straight childish, not to mention bad business.
But I’ve seen a type of division in business that goes way beyond “who likes who” and who fits in where. I’m talking about caste warfare. It’s about white-collar vs. blue-collar. Management vs. Employees. Offices vs. Cubicles. Them vs. Us. And no matter who “them” is, no matter who “us” is, the rule’s the same: They’re the enemy and we better get “them” before they get “us.” It’s the cold war gone corporate.
For example: Back in 2003, Don Carty, then CEO of AMR (American Airlines’ parent company) tried to snake some $41 million in salaries and golden parachutes for himself and some high-level execs while asking American Airline’s unknowing mechanics, pilots, and flight attendants to take pay cuts in order to keep the company out of bankruptcy. Once the loot made the press all hell broke loose and Don resigned. (He still got paid, though.) All Don & Co. saw was “us.” Had they seen “we,” things would’ve gone down a lot differently.
I meet folks in different industries from all over and to hear them tell it, lots of workers are suffering from caste warfare. The secretaries and IT folks have one set of rules; the managers and supervisors have another. The MBAs get more respect than those with just BAs or high school diplomas. Depending on what group you’re in, somebody in another group is either screwing you or benefiting at your expense.
Jay was among the coolest managers I’ve known. He ran our “super-duper new media” department. (I forgot their official title.) They developed websites, interactive media… whatever high-tech stuff clients wanted, they did.
Jay’s team was small, maybe 6 deep, but they worked like demons knocking out job after job. You should’ve seen their timesheets—100-hour weeks were common. I mean, legit Sunday-to-Sunday, 100-hour workweeks. They’d go 12 hours straight; play Wolfenstein or something to break up the monotony; nap in a conference room, wake up and order a pizza, then go back to work for another 6 or 7 hours. They were highly gifted, highly disturbed individuals.
And once more, no matter how much work came their way, no matter how much everyone else took them for granted, as long as Jay was there, they were just fine. You see, it’s like this: Some folks work at companies; some folks work for companies… But these guys: They worked for Jay. I figured out why the first time I met him.
One day I’m in this meeting with a bunch of account execs, creative folks, promotion folks, etc. We’re all going over this big assignment. The lead AE says the client wants a high-end website with all sorts of bells and whistles up in something like 3 weeks. She adds that she’s already told the client that we’d do it and do it cheap. The purpose of this meeting was to “make good” on her promise. So she looks at Jay and says, “So when can we see something?”
“You can’t. No.” He says.
“What do you mean ‘no’?”
“I said ‘no’... What you’re asking for, in the timeframe you want is not possible.”
“But I told the client—”
“I didn’t tell the client anything.”
Everyone gets quiet, except the AE—she blows a fuse and gets all loud, but not Jay. Jay stays calm and cool. He leans back in his chair, never raises his voice above a one-on-one tone and just explains...
He starts by highlighting the sheer stupidity of promising to do something without knowing if it’s even doable. Next he lays out realistic costs based on reasonable man-hours and a logical timetable for meeting the client’s needs. He goes on about how this project will require ‘dedicated servers,’ ‘passwords,’ ‘splash pages,’ ‘extra bandwidth,’ ‘running test pages’ and all kinds of web stuff that was over my head. And once Jay finished and made sure everyone knew what was really good, he politely smiles, stands up and says, “Lemme know if you need anything else.” and walks out leaving the AE looking like the unprepared fool that she was. It was beautiful.
Near as I could see, Jay’s goal on every project was to do it right. That meant getting proper instructions, planning, timelines, etc. He didn’t care about brown-nosing or CYAing. And whenever possible, he never let anyone push him or his guys around. And that’s why they worked for him. That’s also what got him screwed.
Several months later, the company went thru an internal re-org and a fresh VP slot was created—VP of Hi-Tech Cyber Stuff. (You get the idea.) This slot had Jay’s name written all over it. He was a vet. Had leadership skills. Got results. And when they were smart enough (or desperate enough) to listen to him, the company made money. That fresh IKEAfied office was his, right?
Wrong.
They gave it to an outsider—some Banana Republic-looking marketing geek who happened to be tight with one of the higher higher-ups. He was awful. And though he was their boss, that guy still saw Jay’s crew as “them.” He helped the company milk those boys dry. He had ‘em chasing their tales and jumping thru hoops whenever the phone rang. They started working harder, longer, and under tighter deadlines than ever before. And when their quality of work started to suffer, everyone simply blamed them. It was Caste Warfare 101.
When it first happened I told a couple VPs I felt Jay got screwed and we’d all suffer for it. I was basically told to mind my own business. But “Terri,” one of the VPs who’d recently quit to make a life change (blew town to get married) let me in on a little secret:
They screwed Jay on purpose.
Over a few beers during her send-off party, Terri said the reason Jay lost the VP gig was because he wasn’t one of “them.” Sure Jay was qualified and deserving, everyone knew that. But some of the higher ups didn’t like Jay personally. (Execs can be a little clique-ish.) But more importantly, they didn’t trust Jay to keep his mouth shut about impending layoffs and budget cuts. In the end, Jay was one of “them” and the execs wanted one of “us.” So Jay lost out.
Sad part is, Jay got off easy. For years I’ve witnessed or heard about too many people’s careers getting hurt over this crap. It’s straight childish, not to mention bad business.
