Dan Rust - Workplace Poker: Are You Playing the Game, or Just Getting Played?

DAN RUST writes and speaks about career acceleration, workplace culture, and related issues. He is the founder of Frontline Learning (frontlinelearning.com), an international corporate training company.

Twitter: @danrust

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/danrust

Email: dr@danrust.com

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F irst I have to thank all of those who shared their stories with me. While your identities were changed to protect relationships with bosses and coworkers, Im grateful that you were willing to share your experiences with the rest of the world and let us all learn from them.

My wife, Paula, and son, Quinn, were daily sounding boards as this book transitioned from ethereal concept to final manuscript. Thanks to both of you for your ideas and unvarnished opinions. We can finally pull down all of the Post-it notes from our dining room wall.

Eric Nelson and Susan Rabiner of the Rabiner Literary Agency were much more than just agents for this project. They helped to refine the initial concept and proposal, and I have no doubt that this book would not exist without them.

Eric Meyers, Hollis Heimbouch, and Colleen Lawrie at HarperCollins all poured tremendous time and mental energy into this book. They coaxed me along with mostly gentle nudges and occasional sharp elbows when needed.

Larry Julian, bestselling author of God Is My CEO, has been on this journey with me from the beginning. Our wives sometimes worried what two guys could possibly talk about for hours and hours on Saturday mornings. Now theyll know. Most of it.

My father, Franklin D. Rust, passed away before publication. He and my mother, Darlene Rust, deserve credit for nurturing the soul of a young writer and letting him wander the world to find his own way. My brother, David Rust, deserves a public apology for being tied to trees more often than was necessary when we were young, plus he helped me understand a whole new universe of workers in a way that truly helped to expand the scope of this book.

T he most profound business lesson of my life occurred more than twenty years ago, mid-afternoon in a bar near the horse racetrack just north of San Diego. The sun was shining brightly outside but the bar was dimly lit and I was sitting in the darkest corner at a table with six men and two women. Even in the low light I could see the anxiety on their faces.

The company we all worked for had abruptly gone out of business that morning. We showed up for work and the doors were locked. A note taped inside the glass of the front door said the business was shut down. Permanently. This was just before payday, so many of us spent the morning making phone calls, trying to get answers and some assurance that we would receive our final paychecks. Although our frantic calls to the home office went unanswered, a few of us did reach people at some of the other regional offices. But nobody seemed to have the full picture of what was happening. We eventually figured out that about half of the regional offices had been shut down. And the other half had been instructed to operate business as usual and minimize contact with anyone from the closed regions. So no one wanted to talk to us. And even if they did, no one knew what was going on. After a tense morning, the bar seemed to be a natural choice for a few of us to gather and try to sort things out.

Final paychecks never arrived. Later we discovered that a year earlier the company had spun off half of their regional offices as a separate business with different owners. These were the offices that had just been abruptly shut down. Some spent years trying to chase down the owners and get the back pay to which they were entitled. As far as I know, none of us ever got a dime.

So our small group sat in the bar for most of the afternoon working through the stages of grief and loss. First denial, with imported beer on tap. This has got to be a mistake. I can see why they would shut down Austin and Oklahoma City, but San Diego? No way!

Then anger, with shots of tequila. The agave good stuff. Those damn kiss asses at corporate are all idiots and the little guys always get screwed!

Then there was bargaining, with a chaotic mix of gin, whiskey, vodka, and one white wine spritzer. (It was the late eighties, so dont judge.) Maybe if we reduce our operating expenses and cut back on overtime we could show them how profitable the business here could be!

We never really got to the acceptance stage, but I did buy a round of brandy for everyone. That was about the point when Tony walked through the door and up to our table. Someone looked up at him and slurred, Bout time... you gotta casshh up.

Sorry, I cant, Tony said. Ive got a couple of job interviews this afternoon.

He stood before us, smiling and upbeat and wearing a nice interview suit. We all stared at him silently, the way you look at a strange animal at the zooa striped tapir with one red eye, or an ocelot with five legs. Any decent group of human beings would have felt good for him and given him encouragement. All he got from us was What the hell?

Tony had been a telemarketer, relatively low on the corporate totem pole, spending most of his working days in a cubicle talking to prospective customers on the telephone. We didnt interact with him much at work, but we all liked him. He kept his head down, did his job well, and always seemed to be in a good mood.

He sat down with us and asked the waitress for a glass of ice water. He was annoyingly peppy and pleasant, sipping at his stupid cold water and trying to cheer us up. When someone asked him how he got a job interview so quickly he said, It wasnt quick really, these interviews have been in the works for a while.

These interviews? Meaning more than one? I asked.

Yeah, Ive got a few solid opportunities in the works. And the one this afternoon is my third at the company, I think theyre going to make me an offer today.

We all watched as the ocelot grew another leg. What the hell? someone said again. It might have been me.

Come on, you guys, Tony said. This couldnt have been a big surprise to you. The only shocker is that it took this long for them to shut down the business. He went on to describe things he had seen and heard over the past year that led him to the conclusion our office was doomed along with seven other regional locations. So of course he had started interviewing for a new job many months ago.

Tony seemed to know things he just couldnt (or shouldnt) know. Somehow he knew how each of the regional offices ranked in terms of profitability, although this information was tightly protected by the corporate home office. He knew that our region and seven others were actually owned by a separate corporate entity. He knew some of our competitors had heard rumors about how the business might be consolidated and high-value real estate might be sold off because the founder was cashing out in advance of an ugly divorce. Tony didnt have the time to explain how he acquired all of this information because he had to leave for his job interview.