Chapter 9 • 1990 • Going Solo

Being fired has a certain air of finality. Friday afternoon was the end of one life; Monday morning was the beginning of another. In between, I had reorganized the little room I used for my home office and prepared to test the job market. Despite my best intentions to think before I took any precipitous actions, old habits die hard. In the past, when I was out of a job, I had to find another one immediately. This time, I could afford to take a break, but I had not yet made the mental adjustment to my new reality.

As I thumbed through my Rolodex, I had doubts. One was that no one would remember me; the other was, to find a job at my level, someone would have to die. No one I knew was going to quit a perfectly good job unless they found an even better one, and I doubted there were many of them out there.

I made three discoveries almost immediately. People did remember me, very well in fact. I had been cloistered for ten years. I was amazed at how my peers out in the communications community had kept up with my career. More than one could recite my resume. The second discovery was that while there was a dearth of jobs, there were plenty of freelance projects just waiting for the right writers. Several people told me they would be thrilled to hire me as a freelancer whenever I was ready to start. I had been buried in the corporate catacombs for a long time, which to my mind was akin to being invisible. Not so, it seemed. An aha moment for me—the first of many.

The biggest realization of all was that there was a thriving freelance network functioning just below the radar, and the writers in that network were earning good money! I had been oblivious, but now a whole new set of possibilities presented themselves. What if I couldn’t find a job or decided not to continue looking for a job? Could I earn a living as a full-time, independently employed writer? I had no idea, but since I wasn’t getting anywhere with the job-hunting, freelancing seemed worth investigating.

I put on my researcher’s hat and changed my approach. I asked corporate communications and public relations executives if they hired freelancers and what kind of projects they were outsourcing. I asked writers if they were finding work, who was hiring them, and what was the going hourly rate. It was an eye-opening exercise.

I have a foolproof process for making decisions. I learned it years ago from a book called Psychocybernetics by Matthew Maltz. The short version is to consciously review every detail of the subject—pro and con—until I am on information overload. Maltz called this “feeding the computer” (the subconscious mind) long before computers became part of our daily lives. The key is not to beat the computer to the answer by thinking myself blue in the face, but rather to just walk away and forget about the problem. In the beginning, that was very hard to do.

Now that we know more about how computers work, the process makes more sense than it did in 1970 when I first read about it. Then, it was more an act of faith. What matters is that it works … every time. In the middle of thinking, or not thinking, about what to do with the rest of my life, I tested the theory by taking a vacation. It was out of character, under the circumstances, but when I got home, my decision had made itself. I was going to start my own freelance business.

I had no idea what it meant to “start a business.” I figured I would need an accountant and was lucky to find a wonderful guy who had only recently hung out his own shingle. He taught me the basics: open a separate checking account, keep track of time, income, and expenses, file all receipts, decide on an hourly rate, send out invoices, get everything in writing, save for taxes. Some I absorbed; some went right over my head. But at the end of every month, I turned in my numbers, and he did whatever accountants do and met with me to be sure I was on track.

The tough part of freelancing is supposed to be finding work. Rule number one is always fill the pipeline, so that when you finish a project, another one is waiting in the wings. For a long time through very little effort on my part, the jobs kept coming. I worked on an assignment, finished it, and received my lofty fee of $60 an hour. Then, another job would fall in my lap. So, I had work; I made money; I did all the things my accountant told me do; and I was happy as a clam, oblivious to what it meant to be “in business.”

Sidebar

“A good manager wears many hats: innovator, leader, planner, organizer, liaison between staff and higher levels of management, steward of resources, productivity booster, and developer of people. The latter two roles are the foundation of proficient management, which is, by definition, the ability to meet organization goals through and in concert with others. Over the years, tens of thousands of words have been written about the best methods and techniques for increasing productivity. Management literature has explored everything from the militaristic model to quality circles and self-managing teams. But recent literature has focused more and more on the importance of helping employees grow and develop on the job.”

1992 • Trainer’s Workshop

Years later that I read another little book called The E-Myth Revisited, I understood my mistake. I had what the author David E. Gerber called an “entrepreneurial seizure.” I assumed if I could write for someone else who would pay me, I could write for myself. That is the E Myth. The most important message in the book was this: Running a successful small business takes three people, or one person who can wear three hats: a technician, who creates something; a manager, who runs the office; and a marketer, who has big ideas and grows the business. I was a writer—a technician. Either I had to become a manager and a marketer or hire them. But I didn’t know that then, and even if I had, I had neither time nor money to fill the other two crucial roles.

If I had it to do again, I would sign up for a business course. Instead, I just kept on being a technician, never suspecting there was a better way. Somehow, I did OK for several years—OK meaning grossing about $50,000 a year in writing fees—sometimes less, sometimes more. Those were the good years; there were some not-very-good years in there.

When I glance across my office at the five shelves of binders filled with writing samples, I am amazed at the variety and volume of work I did during those first few years. Corporations were hiring freelance writers for anything that contained words—newsletters, articles, brochures, annual reports, training manuals, corporate identity, executive speeches, audio-visual training, employee benefits programs, and later Internet and intranet websites—a virtual candy store full of tempting assignments.

I didn’t know this wasn’t the way to run proper business. Whatever I was doing seemed to be working fine. Once again, I was meeting and interviewing executives. I was learning about industries as diverse as oil refining, hospitals, machine manufacturing, paperboard packaging, and industrial real estate. I was hiring photographers and designers and acting as liaison between them and company management.

Sometimes, the jobs dried up and disappeared. Corporations with huge magazine budgets moved to other cities, pulled the work inside, or decided they no longer needed magazines at all. Large training or advertising projects were completed and didn’t lead to follow up work. Managers changed jobs and brought in their own people. With each change, I adjusted and reinvented myself, like an actor who had to keep auditioning for and learning new roles.

Sidebar

“What do the waistline and the bottom line share? You may be surprised to learn that both are affected by what and how much your employees eat. Chronic health problems, such as high blood pressure and loss of muscular flexibility, can drive up lost-time and medical costs not only for older workers but for younger ones, as well. The reason is obesity. A recent study by the Rand Corporation indicates that obesity can significantly raise health care and medication costs for overweight people, as well as costs for other health problems, such as smoking. The study notes that some younger people are showing sings of premature aging because they are carrying excess weight that has the same effect as an additional 20 years on the their lives. In fact, the problems usually associated with aging are caused by the body working harder to perform its usual functions. A wellness program could help your workers achieve and maintain healthy weights and improve their overall lifestyles.”

Winter 2003 • Health & Safety News

Two major corporations remained my best clients for many years. For one, I wrote award brochures, training manuals, and a long-running safety newsletter. For the other, I wrote speeches for three CEOs and various other executives, a mission statement and new strategic direction, annual reports, and marketing materials for various divisions. In this best of all possible worlds, I was an insider, an ex-officio member of the senior management team. I knew what was happening behind closed doors long before most managers and employees did.

My unique position allowed me to witness the end of an era. The executive management team was on the verge of announcing a major change in the company’s operational philosophy. It was big, it was important, and it was gutsy. Our team had been working on the rollout for months. Less than a week before the official event, I was called in to a management meeting in the CEO’s office. Everyone looked as if they were about to attend a funeral. Something had died. That was obvious. In a heartbeat, everything we had been planning was off the table. The company the CEO had hoped to create would never come to be.

Some changes take place gradually; others blow people away with no warning. This was the latter kind. According to that morning’s Wall Street Journal, the company had entered into “merger talks.” Those two words—merger talks—hit the team like a bomb, upending plans, wrecking careers, and sending those of us in the room into a state of shock and grief. I was no longer a member of the inner circle. There was no inner circle, anymore.

Chapter 8 • 1972-200 • AMA, The Biggest Break

I believe in luck. For so much of my career, serendipity was the only explanation for the next big opportunity. Two such lucky breaks occurred while I was still working at the training company. The first was a one-time event. I dreamt of writing for a national magazine, though I had done nothing to pursue that goal. My philosophy at the time was on the order of if you dream it, it will happen. Had I only known what power that idea held, I might have written The Secret and become a best selling author. What did happen was on a slightly smaller scale.

One day, my phone rang, and a woman announced, “Hi, my name is Suzie. I’m the editor of Sky, Delta’s in-flight magazine, and you have been referred to us as writer in St. Louis. I would like to talk to you about doing an article for us if you’re interested. “Yes,” I replied with an academy-award performance in cool, “I’m quite interested.”

The article was a business profile on the CEO of one of the largest, multinational corporations in St. Louis. Strangely, this person was one of the few business leaders I had never interviewed during my magazine days. Sky’s editorial policy was to feature prominent CEOs in diverse industries and cities, illustrate each article with an oil painting of the executive, and award the portrait to its subject as a gift. It was a first-class operation and a truly plumb assignment.

I researched this executive until I knew more about him than his peers in the business world. Ironically, as well regarded and respected as he was, no one, including his fellow CEOs, seemed to know much about his life. He was, they all told me, a very private individual. The experience of interviewing him was exhilarating. Despite everything I had heard, he was charming, warm, forthcoming, and candid, sharing business philosophy and personal information willingly. This was the first time I had ever taped an interview, but I didn’t want to miss a word.

I had the strangest sensation while we were talking. It was the sense—the absolute certainty—that this is was exactly what I would be doing for the rest of my working life: sitting in executive offices, interviewing heads of companies, and writing about them for prestigious publications. That scenario actually played out many times in the years to come.

I had done so much research, and the interview had gone so well, that the article practically tumbled onto the paper. It was one of the best profiles I had ever written, and both the editor and the CEO were complimentary. The CEO even sent me a personal thank you note, an unusual gesture in my experience. The story was published in the December 1982 issue of Sky
magazine, and I enjoyed my 15 minutes of fame among those who flew the friendly skies of Delta during that month.

Sidebar

“It is precisely ten years since he assumed the top slot at Monsanto, an appropriate time to reflect on his role as CEO of one of the largest, most significant employers in the St. Louis region and, in fact, in many parts of the world. He sees that role in terms of responsibilities—“obligations” is his preferred word—to a whole range of constituencies. His message is simple and one that has honed and polished over the years. It is the foundation upon which Monsanto’s management operates and is clearly articulated in the company’s most recent annual report. ‘When one recognizes that the purpose of business is to supply products and services to the public, one must also recognize that it cannot be done alone.’”

1982 • Sky

The second break was quite the opposite of the first. It was not something I had hoped for or even known about; it was not an isolated event. In fact, it was the beginning of an ongoing relationship with the American Management Association (AMA) and, most important, it made me an author.

A coworker at the training company had been moonlighting for the AMA for years. He was involved in various projects and had agreed to write a series of six little books. I stress the word “little” because each one was fifty-to-sixty pages long and measured four-by-seven inches. Currently, he told me, he was “extremely busy with other projects” and needed help. Would I write three of the books, under my own byline, of course? He would recommend me to the editor.

As usual, I was beset by doubts. Could I do this? When would I do it? How could I possibly make a three-month deadline when I would have to research and write these books on my own time? This was my pattern with every big challenge that came my way. I had a friend who used to say I had to go up in a pile of feathers for forty-eight hours before I took on any new project.

So, forty-eight hours later, I did some arithmetic. There were three books of and three months in which to research and write them. That meant I would have to write one book a month or from twelve to fifteen pages a week. That didn’t sound unachievable at all. The books, intended for young people who were just entering the working world, were on meetings, resumes, and professional image. They were small but mighty in my mind. If I could write a feature article, I reasoned, I could write a little book. And if I could write a little book, I could write a bigger book. It all came down to having a process. By the time I completed my first assignment, I had figured out the process and established a small foothold with AMA.

The next thing that happened was comical. A man named John called from New York and said, “I’m an editor with AMA’s Extension Division. I just read your book on meetings, and I love it!” Was he kidding? How could anyone love a 50-page book on meetings? John wanted me to come to New York to meet with him. On my list of pipe dreams, meeting with an editor in New York held the top spot.

Back to the subject of luck. My employer, who wouldn’t even send me to a lunch meeting of a local trade organization, sent me to New York for a week. The reason was a training conference where I would have a chance to meet and schmooze with editors of national training and human resources magazines. This had never happened in the company’s history, but once again, the stars aligned. There I was, in New York, having lunch with John, who was proposing that I write a self-study manual on How to Plan and Run Productive Meetings. I had never written or even read a self-study manual, but I said, “Sure, I can do that” (secretly allowing for my 48-hour meltdown once I was back home).

The difference between a little book for eighteen-to-twenty-two-year-olds and a serious textbook for adults already working in the business world was profound—so profound, in fact, I couldn’t even allow myself to think about it. The book finished had 193 pages filled with information about every aspect of meetings, instructional programming, charts, checklists, a bibliography, additional readings, a practice case, and two exams.

AMA is a complex organization with several divisions. After the self-study program went to press, John introduced me to Mary, who was in charge of audio/visual training, another area about which I knew nothing. I was beginning to feel that knowing nothing was not the disadvantage I had always thought it to be. There were always basic rules to follow for formatting the copy, and the rest I was free to make up as I went along. I began with one or two 60-minute audiocassettes on distinct topics; them graduated to six-hour programs on self-empowerment, leadership, and communication skills for secretaries and administrative assistants. Mary loved my story lines and dialogue, two of the things I invented as I wrote.

Mary turned me over to Barbara, the editor of Trainer’s Workshop, a training manual in magazine format. Managers, who were not really trainers, would follow the prompts, copy the overheads, and teach the skills. I wrote on Coaching, Counseling, and Feedback; Managing Under ADA (The American With Disabilities Act); Managing a Diverse Workforce; and, naturally, Managing Meetings. The irony of all of this was that I was writing training, mostly about interpersonal and communication skills, which Sam and Tony had said I was incapable of doing. Ah, sweet revenge, though, to tell the truth, I never felt the need to send them anything I wrote.

My cassette-tape program on communication skills for secretaries and administrative assistance was getting some attention. Mary suggested I contact an acquisition editor at Amacom, the book-publishing arm of AMA. Jacquie was open to a book proposal on the topic. I bought a book on how to write a book proposal, wrote it, and sent it off to Jacquie. Later, I learned that the ease with which that proposal was approved and a contract signed was not the norm. The process is generally much harder and more time consuming, but I was naive on the subject of publishing.

Now, I was writing a real book, which meant dealing with editors, reading and rereading galley proofs, and fighting with the marketing department about ridiculous subtitles. Writing the book itself was not difficult because all the information already existed in the audio program. It was just a matter of rethinking it as a book instead of a series of conversations. To make it more relevant I interviewed secretaries on each of the skills I wrote about and inserted the edited interviews into the narrative.

The Secretary’s Secret Weapon: Arm Yourself For Success With 7 Essential Communication Skills was published in 1996. (Two years later, it was translated into Portuguese, under the title of it Secretária Efficiente: Prepare-se para o successo Desenvolva as sete habilidades esseniciais de communicação. I don’t know a single person who has read it.) By that time, I was long gone from my last job and able to write on what I called prime time, which meant during the day instead of only nights and weekends.

Since AMA thought of me as a communication guru, my next two books were on getting organized, written with a co-author, and polishing one’s people skills. Published by a new division of Amacom called Amacom New Media, the books were attractive and expensive, with soft-cover books and CDs within heavier outer covers.

Jacquie introduced me to Claire at Marshall Editions, a London publisher who was looking for someone to “Americanize” British-English books written by experts who couldn’t write very well in any kind of English. Those projects were painstaking, especially since British grammar is so different from ours, but they led to writing a book for Marshall called Dealing With Difficult People. It was beautifully designed, but that meant I had to “write to fit” the design, which presented a completely new set of constraints.

Since the book was going to be sold all over Europe, the editors took out anything pertaining to U.S. law, and I had to come up with new material to fill the gaps. Marhall Editions and AMA had an arrangement to publish each other’s books. When Dealing With Difficult People came out, Amacom published it as Solving People Problems. The editors had promised to reinstate the U.S.-specific information, but they didn’t change a thing. I was disappointed and thought American version was weak. But by this time, I knew that editors and publishers are god-like creatures who make decisions that are incomprehensible to authors. Don't like it? Too bad.

Sidebar

“If you look around a typical workplace—whether it is an office, a plant, or a store—you might notice the growing variety of people. Diversity is a fact of life in today’s business world. Where once offices were primarily populated with white, Anglo-Saxon males, the mix has changed. Diversity means you are likely to be working with or near a person of color, someone with a disability, older people, women, immigrants, and those from different cultures and ethnic backgrounds than your own. These people may be new to you; and the unknown can be unsettling, especially if there are language barriers, differences in work styles, or even personal styles. Stereotyping and prejudice are unfortunate realities. Some people fear what they don’t understand or find “different” from themselves. These feelings can create fertile ground for uninformed judgments, rudeness, and bigotry.”

2000 • Dealing With Difficult People

Like so many companies, AMA kept reorganizing and moving people to new jobs or out the door. John, Mary, and Jacquie left. I don’t know what happened to the Extension Division, but I had heard Amacom New Media was dissolved after publishing only a few books. Thus, my stint at AMA came to a close with no fanfare. It was a great gig, while it lasted, but its two greatest benefits were creating a bridge between full-time employment and full-time freelancing and launching me into the mysterious world of book publishing.

Chapter 7 • 1982-1989 • The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

My next job, which turned out to be my last job, deserves a book of its own. On one hand, the company personified dysfunction; on the other, it was graduate school in organizational dynamics and marketing. The word “again” describes every aspect: starting over again, proving myself again, leaving under duress again.

My first interview was not in a business office but rather in a beautifully appointed living room of one of St. Louis’s historic mansions. The man who owned the house was president of a small training and development firm. Tony was charming and polite as he described what he was looking for in a writer. They already had a writer, he explained, who had been with the company since its inception. Sam had written everything—books, training programs, promotional materials—all in a style that was completely different from mine. I left with stacks of his work, took them home, and read every word. I didn’t like the way he wrote.

When I returned for my second interview, Tony asked, “Well, what do you think?” There was no sense beating around the bush. I said, “I don’t write like that. I can’t write like that. And I don’t want to write like that. If that’s what you’re looking for, I am not the person for this job.”

He was impressed with my honesty, he said, insisting that he did not want more of the same. He wanted “a fresh, new voice.” He had read my writing samples and thought they were excellent. I was indeed the right person for this job. Convinced, I began the process of touring the homey, one-story building in a St. Louis suburb; meeting Sam and the other significant players; visiting my workspace; and negotiating salary and benefits. Looking for a job can take months; being hired often happens overnight. One or two conversations, a handshake, a few papers to sign, and I became the newest member of the team.

If the lesson I was supposed to learn at the bank was don’t believe a thing anyone tells you when that person is trying to hire you, I hadn’t learned it. I believed what I was told because I wanted to believe it and because I had an uncanny ability to ignore anything that didn’t fit my preferred paradigm. Everything about the job was appealing. The location was closer to home; the salary was a quantum leap above what I had been making; the people I met were intelligent and friendly; and, though my office was a cubicle on a sun porch with one whole wall of windows. Parking was free; the benefits were great; promises of future raises sounded fantastic; and on and on. I wanted out of the bank and into this place. Tony sounded like he was so lucky to find me; he couldn‘t believe his good fortune. I certainly couldn’t believe mine.

If I had applied the too-good-to-be-true test to Tony’s sales pitch, I would have been suspicious. But I had just come through almost a year and a half of having my ego mashed into the floorboards, and I was basking in newfound adoration. To be honest, not everyone adored me. When I met Sam, I could tell he wasn’t going to be president of my fan club. In fact, he indicated that, while I may have charmed everyone else, he was not so easily fooled. To my credit, I recognized a red flag this time. When I accepted the job, I told Tony, “I do not want to report to Sam; I want to work directly for you.” He agreed to my terms.

Sam was a fixture. He was the voice of the company, and he wasn’t about to have his position usurped by some interloper. He viewed me as a threat to be neutralized, and he threw himself into the task. I was undermined and sabotaged with such shrewd subtlety, I didn’t realize what was happening.

Even though Tony began to believe he had made a huge mistake, he wasn’t about to admit his faulty judgment. I remained with the company in a variety of capacities for six-and-a-half years.

My first assignment was to head up advertising, an area about which I knew nothing. My background was in publications, not advertising, but that didn’t seem to matter. Ned, who came on board the same time I did, had years of ad agency experience and could have handled my job with his eyes closed. He was hired as a sales rep and told to keep out of marketing. Such was the convoluted reasoning of management.

The company designed, taught, and sold training programs and insisted that the new hires go through all of them so we would understand the products. Ned and I spent weeks participating in seminars until we were bleary-eyed and confused. How could anything be so complicated? There were seven programs of varying lengths and complexity, which we tried to keep separate in our minds. Then, one day we realized the obvious: there were not seven programs at all, only one program dressed up in seven different packages! And when we thought about it, that one program wasn’t so difficult to understand.

Nonetheless, Sam had convinced Tony that I was clueless and therefore couldn’t write about our products. That was sheer nonsense. I could understand and write about anything and had been doing so for sixteen years. I thought my job was to translate their arcane jargon into clear, conversational English. I was wrong. My job was to memorize the arcane jargon and write just the way Sam had always done. Nothing short of that would suffice. But I could not and would not do it.

The heart of the training was interpersonal skills. The programs were all built on a behavior model that explained why people behave the way they do and a step-by-step system for structuring potentially difficult conversations. I explained those concepts in every possible vehicle—ads, newsletters, articles, marketing materials, sales letters, news releases—except the actual training programs.

I subscribed to those skills. I learned them; I practiced them; I knew they worked. The irony was management, particularly Tony, did not. It was like working for a company that manufactured widgets but wouldn’t have a widget in the place.

Sidebar

“If trainers want to become an integral part of the business-planning team, they will have to learn to think more like business people and less like trainers. Too strong a statement? A lot of people in the corporate training community don’t think so. In fact, many of them wonder why anyone would debate the premise. Too long relegated to the role of policy followers, rather than policy creators, they are examining their own image.”

1987 • TRAINING

Every once in a while, for no reason anyone could discern, Tony would announce a reorganization, and suddenly we would all have new responsibilities and job titles. After several years of being a company writer, I morphed into an instant sales rep, a job for which I had no qualifications or prior experience. My territory was the East Coast, including New York, Washington D.C., Connecticut, and part of Pennsylvania.

Dragging heavy sample cases of video cassettes and training manuals, I found myself racing though airports, hailing cabs or renting cars, staying in one hotel after another, and calling on people who bought training programs. I was constantly lost, going the wrong way on unfamiliar highways and ending up miles from my destination. When I realized I was heading north to the Poconos, instead of south toward Philadelphia, in a heart-stopping maneuver, I made a U-turn on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

My strength as a salesperson was in “eliciting needs,” in other words, interviewing. I soon discovered I was not very good at the rest of the selling process—closing the sale. Despite being as far removed from writing as I could get, I enjoyed the job. I met a many great people, walked around Manhattan, toured the Smithsonian in Washington, and jogged from the posh Four Seasons Hotel to the art museum in Philadelphia. Just as I thought I was getting pretty good at this selling business, Tony announced another reorganization. I thought for sure, this time, I would be reorganized right out the door.

Instead, I was promoted to marketing manager, given a private office with a window, and put in charge of a staff. I never knew what prompted that decision. Ned, who had begun as a sales rep was now VP of marketing and my new boss. Together, we created the first real marketing program the company had ever undertaken. I can’t possibly quantify all that I learned from those years in marketing. I had come in as a writer with expertise in feature writing, publications, and corporate communications. In this latest position, I acquired an abundance of knowledge and skills that would define the rest of my career.

I became a good manager, helping to create the only department in the company in which everyone was motivated, collaborative, and happy. I was also a very successful PR person, getting the company’s name in print every month for a year, including on the front page of The Wall Street Journal. What a shame that management considered public relations a waste of time and resources (I was the only resource involved), but then Tony had no idea what we were doing or how important our efforts were to generating sales. The list of our achievements was long and impressive. I was doing the best, most challenging work of my career—developing multiple communications systems; writing punchy, persuasive promotional copy; placing articles in leading trade publications; and providing hands-on assistance to the sales staff. None of these marketing efforts had ever been attempted before.

Sidebar

“Try this scenario on for size: You’re a manager. Your staff respects you and works hard for you. Your projects are well planned and efficiently executed. Your boss gives you positive feedback. But every time you try to get a project off the ground with a peer, you botch the job, and you don’t know why. As a manager and a professional, you do know that to do your job well you need cooperation form colleagues, especially those whose efforts directly affect your own, but you don’t always seem to be able to get it. You are not alone. The best managers often find that they have problems managing relationships with those over whom they have no formal authority—the very people they must work with if they are going to succeed in their own jobs.”

1987 • Working Woman

During the last reorganization, I had been assigned to a new boss, the sales manager, who knew nothing about marketing. That made no sense, of course, but few things did. Still, I felt I had finally mastered my job and was accomplishing great things for the company. Tony did not agree. He had finally accepted Sam’s contention that I could not write. The next reorganization was my last. At 3:30 on a Friday afternoon, with no warning, I was fired.

I wasn’t really shocked, perhaps because I had been waiting for this particular shoe to drop since not long after I arrived. I was also tired of proving over and over again that I was good at my job and that people could actually understand my writing instead of having to fight their way through ten times more words than were necessary to make a point. That was a widely held view in the company, but one that was never communicated to Tony. So, Friday afternoon, I packed my things, cleaned out the files, took down my pictures, and disinfected my office. When people arrived on Monday morning, there was no sign that I had ever been there. A bit dramatic perhaps, but I took some pleasure in forcing my new boss to explain why I was gone.

I had spent twenty years working for other people in non-profits, corporations, and privately owned companies. I had always loved my work but not the circumstances in which I was paid to do it. For once, I had enough of a financial cushion to think through my options without panicking. That was exactly what I intended to do.

Chapter 6 • 1980-1983 • Corporate Squared

I had been unemployed for 12 weeks and was feeling quite desperate by the time I reached the Corporate Communications office on the eighteenth floor of the bank building. This was the largest, most influential bank holding company in Missouri, with facilities all over the state. It was involved in all sorts of city expansion plans and civic activities. Its CEO had been the chairman of the RCGA board when I was at Commerce magazine. Still, I knew nothing about banking in general or this bank in particular. I would be in for another steep learning curve, but that was something I had tackled many times in the past. After all, at my last job, I had been working my way through more than 100 companies in six disparate industries. How hard could banking be?

This is what I learned: When someone offers you a job, there are ten imperative rules to follow before you accept. (This will probably give away the plot of this chapter.)

1. Interview the interviewer.

The cardinal rule of job hunting is to research the organization before the interview. I should have learned as much as possible so I wouldn’t sound like I just fell off a turnip truck when I walked in the door. But there hadn’t been time. The phone call had come at 8:00 in the morning on a day full of job interviews. I was breathless and wired by the time I arrived at my last appointment. Now, of course, I would approach the whole thing more scientifically, armed with rehearsed answers to every possible question an interviewer might ask, as well as a long list of questions I would ask. That day, however, I walked in cold.

There were so many questions I should have asked, but Richard, the charming man who had waited all day to meet me, was intent on telling me all about the job and trying to ascertain if my resume was fiction or fact. Other than inquiring about benefits, which would have been reason enough to take the job, I don’t remember asking a single intelligent question.

2. Be suspicious of your first impressions, especially if they are glowing.

Richard was so genial I couldn’t believe he was real. He was warm and funny and complimentary and eager. Where was my head? I had been in the job market for three months and hadn’t met anyone who embodied even one of those characteristics, let alone all of them. I kept thinking how great it would be to work for this man, and the more he courted me (that’s what he was doing), the more I thought it. I was practically in love by the end of our meeting. Obviously, this is a cautionary tale. The Richard who interviewed me and the Richard I went to work for a week later were not the same person. I don’t know what happened to Mr. Nice Guy, but he was replaced by a look-alike who had no personality, ranged from blah to cold, and appeared to find nothing even remotely funny. I had been duped.

3. When your inner voice talks to you, pay attention.

Richard had to get clearance from the vice president of Corporate Communications before he could hire me. This was reminiscent of the hiring process at Commerce magazine. Richard’s boss was tall and distinguished looking, but not at all warm or funny or complimentary or eager. In fact, he seemed to be doing me a favor by agreeing to meet with me. The interview was brief, and when it was over, I knew more about him than he knew about me. As we walked out of the office Richard looked a bit embarrassed, and I felt a fleeting catch in my chest. I ignored both indications that this job might not be all that it seemed.

The VP, however, was exactly what he seemed—self-absorbed, insecure, and domineering. He terrorized everyone who worked for him, especially Richard, who suffered from high blood pressure and mood swings. The best course of action was do your work, don’t make waves, don’t expect credit for anything, and never forget who is in charge. All information had to flow through the VP, so that whatever anyone wrote was edited within an inch of its life to reflect a single point of view—his.

4. Take time to get the feel of your workspace.

My tour of my future office consisted of a glance inside the door as Dick flipped the lights on and off. Of course, it was empty and lacked the grace notes of a place with a live-in occupant. It had a desk, a chair, a bookcase, an electric typewriter, and a window overlooking some part of downtown. The feeling was dark, but then it was already dark outside. We breezed by it as Dick showed me to the door and practically hugged me goodbye. By the end of the first week, I knew It had not been sufficient to merely see where I would work; I should have taken the time to sit at the desk and spent some time there. Had I spent even 10 minutes in that room I might have realized the energy was as dark as the sky and the metal furniture. This place would take more than pictures on the walls to warm it up.

5. Clarify exactly what your job responsibilities will be.

Richard had explained that I would be launching a new employee communications program consisting of a statewide quarterly magazine, a monthly newsletter for St. Louis employees, an occasional press release, and other little tasks as necessary. One of the reasons he had hired me was that I had just gone through the same process in my last job. I could choose my graphic designer and photographers, though, of course I would be expected to take pictures as well. He was thrilled that I knew how to handle a camera. I would get to travel, again to hotspots like Bowling Green and Sullivan, Missouri, and to write about their banking affiliates. There was only so much one can write about a bank building, so I thought it would be better to write about the communities in which these buildings resided. Getting approval from the VP was not easy, but Richard and I figured out how to make it seem like this was his idea.

The pace was brutal. As one publication was going to press, I was already writing the next one or two. There were no breaks in the activity, and the occasional press releases turned out to be daily because this was the year interest rates went through the roof. The “little tasks, as necessary” sometimes became big tasks. I had never worked so hard I my life, even when I was running a magazine.

Sidebar

“A walk through the quiet streets of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, is much like browsing through an old and well used photograph album. There is a pleasant sense of nostalgia in the carefully restored old homes, in the easy way people greet each other, and in the unhurried pace that seems to characterize the tempo of the town. The 5,000 residents of Ste. Genevieve think of their hometown as a small, rural community, and that is exactly the way they like it ”

1981 • Mercantile Quarterly

6. Ask if you will have help or if you are the whole staff.

Since I already knew it was going to be a huge job to create, write, and produce several publications, I wondered aloud if I would have an assistant or a secretary. (Three of us had shared a secretary at my last job) “Well, no, not officially,” Richard admitted, but “unofficially” there were two women in the front office—one was the VP’s private secretary—who would be available when I needed help. That sounded pretty unconvincing, but I could hardly ask, “Are you sure?” Later, it became obvious it would take a court order to get any administrative assistance, but by the time I figured that out, I knew that Richard’s glowing descriptions of the job and working conditions had been wildly exaggerated.

7. Check out the logistics (cost and location of parking, etc.)

The main bank and headquarters building were located in the heart of downtown St. Louis far from the highway. So, not only was I commuting 50 miles a day in stop-and-go traffic just to get to the edge of downtown, I also had to crawl through crowded one-way streets to reach the parking garage and then walk several blocks to the bank. Parking was expensive, and I didn’t even get to park my own car. Garage employees would take it from me and peel rubber as they sped up the ramps. This played havoc with my transmission.

Of course, I didn’t realize any of this when I took the job, and, while it was hardly convenient, it wasn’t terrible until winter hit. St. Louisans don’t seem to know how to drive in snow, traffic was a nightmare, and driving in bad weather terrified me. By the time I got from the cold garage to the bank I was frozen solid. I never knew how long the commute or parking would take, but I did know I had to be at my desk at 8:30 sharp. Since it often took an hour and a half to drive 25 miles, I had to leave home very early.

8. Clarify flexibility or rigidity of rules (starting and ending times, lunch), especially when you are a salaried employee.

Since I was managing employee communications, I assumed that meant I was a manager. Managers don’t punch a time clock. If they are a few minutes late in the morning or returning from lunch, it’s OK. Right? Wrong. Apparently, I was not a manager in that sense, and it was not OK to be a few minutes late. It was Commerce magazine all over again. The leash was inappropriately tight for the position I held. I found it frustrating to be asked, “Where were you?” and “You do know what time we start work, don’t you?” I viewed this as corporate Mickey Mouse and bent the rules whenever I saw an opportunity.

9. If possible (it rarely is), ask your predecessor why he or she quit.

This is, of course, a fantasy. If I had met the person who inhabited my dismal office, he would not have told me why he left. He undoubtedly would have said something about a better offer or a great career opportunity. He would not have confided that a general mood of misery pervaded the department, which was run by a paranoid, petty tyrant; that everything about the job was depressing and stressful; and that he was overworked and underappreciated. Those would have been good things to know.

10. Find out if there are any little perks no one has mentioned.

There did not appear to be any extras, though I did ask. Senior management was about to introduce a new benefit package, which turned out to be the best part of the job. There was no deductible, and it paid 100 percent of everything. I didn’t realize at the time how over the top that was as benefit packages go. I discovered the best perk of all while I was researching a story on exercise. The bank would pay 50 percent of the membership fee, as well as the cost of any class we wished to take. I interviewed the senior vice president who had initiated this program and several people who were even more stressed out than I was. They swore that joining the Y had saved their sanity. I signed up.

Not only did the exercise and running relieve stress, it also helped me avoid rush hour traffic. The class I signed up for was in the morning. Participation meant getting up and 5:00 a.m., driving the practically deserted highways at 6:00, and hitting the gym floor by 6:30. I conquered my fear of driving in snow, avoided other crazy drivers, and made it to work by 8:30.

Sidebar

“If keeping fit is the latest great American pastime, the rallying cry of its fans is, ‘Keep moving!’ On the main roads and on the side streets, on courts of every size and description, in rural areas and in cities, people are doing just that. They are on the move, and their methods of getting in shape and staying there run the gamut of possible physical activities. ”

1981 • Mercantile Quarterly

While working out helped, it didn’t improve the atmosphere of the office. It was maddening to love my work but hate my working conditions. I was beginning to realize that this was a corporate anomaly: Hire an expert to do a job; then make it almost impossible for the person to do that job. It was still winter; it was still cold and snowing; and the environment was still depressing. Then, I got a phone call that gave me reason to hope. I had been referred to a small company for a writing job. Was I interested in meeting the company’s chairman?

By March, after only 16 months at the bank, I was gone.

Chapter 5 • 1980 • Fear & Freelancing

Shock is a good thing, especially after a profound loss, such as being fired with no notice. Shock/denial, in fact, is the first stare of the grieving process. One walks around in a fog thinking this can’t be happening. I don’t believe it. I’ll wake up, and it will all have been a bad dream. Shock/denial dulls the pain until a person is ready to deal with the loss. I was not ready.

Numb worked for me, especially since I was moderating a panel that night on—irony of ironies—“Where the Jobs Are.” After the presentation, people in the audience, who had somehow learned I’d been fired, told me they had never seen anyone so cool under the circumstances. I was not cool; I was drunk, since the whole department had adjourned to a neighborhood bar because we didn’t want to go home at 4:00 in the afternoon.

The shock phase lasted a while. I sort of stumbled around with no particular sense of purpose or direction. About the only thing I accomplished was cleaning my house. This was therapeutic, but not a long-term solution. It took teeth-gritting determination to pull out my resume and update it with one additional job. My previous job had lasted only 14 months, the shortest tenure on record, and I feared I would be labeled a job hopper. It was time to make the dreaded phone calls.

My Rolodex was pretty full, since I had met a lot of people since 1972. I began with the “A”s. Everyone seemed happy to hear from me, but it only took a few calls to figure out the reason. The mass firing of our department by a national corporation was NEWS, and I had the inside scoop. Inquiring minds wanted to know every sordid detail. There weren’t many sordid details, or if there were, I wasn’t privy to them.

My celebrity status, however, did get me a few interviews from people who probably wanted to hear the story right from the horse’s mouth. It was only two years since my last foray into the job market and not much had changed; there were still no jobs. We did get a pittance of severance pay, negotiated by our boss whose husband was an attorney, but that wasn’t going to last very long. In the meantime, I was trying not to panic.

My friend and mentor, who had given me the corporate survival guides, worked for Monsanto, one of the largest and most prestigious companies in St. Louis. She introduced me to the person in charge of Corporate Communications. He like me; he liked my work; but he couldn’t hire me because of something called “head count. But he did have a project for me. Thus began my temporary freelancing career. It was amazing how quickly my anxiety subsided as I slipped back into the groove of interviewing very important people. One project led to another, and I almost forgot I was unemployed. This was what I was meant to do, I thought, and it was nothing like my former freelancing days when the most I had been paid was $50 for an article. This was real money.

Sidebar

“This may be the age of television, but most St. Louisans wake up the sound of radio. Whether it is switched on automatically or manually by a barely conscious listener, radio begins the day. It sets the mood and provides information about the weather, the world, and what life is like out there. It entertains us from the moment we hit the deck until we pull into our parking spaces at work and reluctantly turn it off to get down to business. For many of us, the first voice we hear in the morning is that of our favorite radio personality, disc jockey, or newsman. And it is the same voice every day, for few of us switch our radio dials once we have found our station. Waking up to the same person every morning is one of life’s more intimate relationships, and that makes our choice of a station extremely significant.”

1980 • St. Louis Post-Dispatch

I could get used to this, I thought. Maybe I should give it a whirl. But when one of my daughters became ill and I was close to the end of my insurance overage, I came to my senses. Get real, a little voice whispered. You need benefits. You need a job. Freelancing became a sideline as I turned looking for a job back in to a full-time job. I’d forgotten how much I disliked the process or how hard it was. I had leads and possibilities and even probabilities but no tangible offers. Time was running out, and I was beginning to feel desperate.

My daughter ended up in the hospital, and I found myself running back and forth between job interviews, story interviews, my typewriter at home, and visiting her. On the last day of my severance pay and insurance coverage, I found myself standing in the most depressing room at Children’s Hospital, staring at the peeling paint on the ceiling and thinking, Oh boy. This is serious. I must confess I am not a religious person and don’t believe in asking God for favors but desperate times call for desperate measures. “I need a miracle,” I whispered. “Just one little miracle.” And I went home.

The next day, I had four job offers. Four!

The fourth one was at the end of a job interview with someone who had called that morning. I had to rearrange three other appointments to find time to meet with him, but I managed to schedule a meeting at 4:00 p.m. Richard was the director of Communications for the largest bank holding company in the state of Missouri. I think he had interviewed every other writer and editor in town. He was clutching a copy of my resume in his fist when I arrived.

“Are you as good as you look on paper?” he asked. “Better,” I said and almost looked around for the ventriloquist who had usurped the conversation. “Here's what I’m looking for,” Richard said, having memorized my last job description. “You’ve found her,” I replied. Where was that coming from? I had no idea. “What will it take to get you?” he asked. I was out of work in a buyer’s market, and he wanted to know what it would take to get me. A number appeared on the inside of my eyelids—a big number. “Twenty-seven five,” I said. There was the briefest silence before Richard said, “I’ll have to create a new job classification, but I don’t think that will be a problem. Let’s go meet our vice president.”

I met the VP, but I wasn’t conscious, so I didn’t register anything about him except perhaps for a tiny flutter in my chest. Later, I realized that the flutter was my Jury of the Deep saying, “Uh oh. Watch out,” but I wasn’t about to listen to a naysayer at that point in the process. We went back to Richard’s office, and he could barely wait to say, “You’re hired!” vigorously shaking my hand and grinning.

The rest was a blur. “Here’s your office ... Meet your next door neighbor ... Come in first thing Monday morning and get squared away with Personnel ... Welcome aboard ... Have a good weekend.”

Starvation had been averted, fear banished. I drove to the hospital in a fog. $27,500. Where on earth had I come up with that figure? I have given myself an $8,000 raise! And I would be doing what I knew how to do—launching a series of employee publications, from scratch. When something seems too good to be true, it usually is, but that never entered my mind.

This would be my third corporation. That in itself should have given me pause.

Sidebar

“A young tennis player watches as Ilie Nastase ‘flips the bird’ in a universally understood gesture of anger. Nastase’s desire to win has been diverted from his forehand to his middle finger. This is the highest level of tennis, the quintessence of competition. And, in a sense, it has become a prototype of behavior, in perfect harmony with the popular philosophy of ‘winning though intimidation,’ ‘looking out for No. 1’ and countless other bromides that glorify the king-of-the-hill position in sports and in life. Competition, long considered a healthy pursuit that raises group and individual standards, and winning are not the same.”

1980 • Tennis Press