Drowning in Bad Management!: The Obstinate and Odious Nature of Corporate America’S Executive Management

Chapter Two Getting a Start and the Early Career Years

Off to the Real World

I got my first job as a staff accountant in June 1982. Date-wise, that might seem like a long time ago, but in reality, it seems like yesterday. I am sure you know what I mean as life continues to race by at a pace that I sometimes fear. Hell, I got to thinking that I had better start doing me some writing before too long, not just because I think I have a lot to say that might be useful and entertaining but because I might die and you folks would not have the opportunity to read my books. So on I go pounding away on the keyboard and viewing the output on my new Dell monitor that I had to buy because my son threw the mouse into the last one, requiring that it be replaced.

In any case, I had graduated from West Virginia University and left Morgantown in December 1980. Most folks, including my parents and other relatives, thought that would never happen. Their thoughts were not that way because they believed I was stupid, but the well-established fact both in and around town was that I was far beyond what most would consider wild and ran with a bunch of dudes who were every bit my equal. After school, I came home with the same attitude and bad habits I had initially gained in high school, which were augmented, nurtured, and taken to another level at WVU. Goddamn we had a good time. But good time in this sense does not translate into high grade-point averages and a well-defined route to gainful employment. I took a different path, one could say, which took me through some difficult and humbling times but taught me lessons about people, life, and general humanity that are priceless, at least to me. When I think back, what seemed to be very hard and trying conditions at the time that tested my character, fortitude, and other attributes of overall personal strength were actually some of the best times of my life. It is ironic how a person’s view of situations and events can evolve as time goes by, sometimes to the extent of a total reversal of what might have been the feelings at the actual time of the occurrence.

Regardless, I spent the entire year of 1981 raising hell and running around like there was no tomorrow. The old Joe Walsh song Out All Night, Sleep All Day, had become a way of life. Drinking, drugging, whoring, brawling, and just general hell-raising and carrying on didn’t just carry the day; it carried the whole year. I held several menial jobs during the time, including painting and working on the garbage truck in the town next to mine where my uncle was the mayor. The most consistent source of income for me was playing pool in the bars and pool halls in the general vicinity of my hometown, Kenova, West Virginia. We used my pool-shooting winning many times to get liquored up, buy dope, chase women, and whatever else we happened onto. You name it, we did it, and we were as a group just a bunch of whiskey-drinking, hell-raising, barroom brawlers who at the time pretty much didn’t give a hoot about anything. Sometime right around Christmas, my dad came into the bedroom where I was sleeping at around 6:00 p.m. and woke me up. He said that he and my mother had seen about enough of my bullshit and handed me two hundred dollars. He said that should help me get out of town and that the time had come for me to take my act on down the road. I was actually not that surprised, because a couple of my friends and I and my older sister Mary had been discussing the possibility of packing up and heading to Houston, Texas, to look for work.

With my newfound wealth, that plan escalated over the next week, and on January 3, 1982, we loaded up Mary’s ugly-ass sky-blue van and struck out for Houston. We had Mary as the driver and her friend Jim along for the ride, and my buddy Squint and I squatted cross-legged in the back. Jim’s car was in tow. That was the night I left my hometown for good except for the occasional trip back home for a class reunion or a funeral. There were feelings of anxiety and uncertainty, but at the same time there was excitement and a sense of adventure. Regardless of where someone grows up, there are probably feelings of separation and loss of identity in going somewhere else to live, making decisions such as the one we made difficult. But we did make such a decision, and in hindsight, getting out of my hometown and heading out into the world on my own and into the total unknown turned out to be the best decision I ever made.

You might ask what this has to do with incompetent corporate American executive management. You might even be thinking that old hell-raising me, at least from the sounds of my past, had somehow finagled my way to become one of the dumb-asses I am writing about. I mean how could a rough and tumble southern West Virginia whiskey-drinking, hell-raising Republican be in the position to cast judgment and opinion on others who by definition must be more urbane and therefore far more capable? Well, that is how some of the folks I write about here may have seen me initially, and honestly, I still encounter that stereotype today. But read on, my friends; it gets better as we go, and this old country boy can mix it up with the best of them. If you know a little bit about me, that might help you better visualize and understand how I have come to see some of these people who are the thrust of this book. I would suspect that regardless of where you are from, and that would include city, state, or country, if you are still reading along up to this point, you probably possess some of the same personal characteristics that I do. Growing up in West Virginia was a wonderful experience, and the things that were instilled in me by my parents, other relatives, and friends have over time made me a much better person and enabled me to achieve a fairly high level of success while maintaining a high degree of humbleness, gratefulness, and overall respect for all people of goodwill.

I was taught while growing up to always be honest and forthright. While I may have an above-average ability to bullshit, that bullshit ability is only used in social and personal settings, meaning I have never deceived or misled anyone in a business matter that was of any significance. I was taught that if you made a mistake, own up to it without blaming others. How many times do you see your boss or coworkers finger-pointing or blaming others for problems that are clearly under their realm of responsibility? Worse than that, how many times have you seen them take credit for other people’s work or ideas while concealing the real source? My mother and father both worked very hard, and I can honestly not remember one time when either of them called in sick or missed a day of work other than a scheduled day off. My father was a lawyer and later a judge. My mother was a registered nurse.

Finding a Job in Houston

My first job in my chosen profession came in June 1982 in the great city of Houston, Texas. We had arrived in Houston in early January of that year in pursuit of work since there were really no jobs of any type readily available in West Virginia. This time frame was right in the middle of Reagan’s first term, and the country was still in the throes of the economic malaise created by the Carter administration. The unemployment rate had been well over 10 percent for some time, interest rates were hovering around 20 percent, and the inflation rate was around 10 percent. Those were the days. Had it not been for the sharp increase in the price of oil that resulted from the Iranian hostage debacle, Houston would probably have been mired in the same economic wasteland as was most of the rest of the country. As it was, Houston was thriving at the time due to its strong presence in and dependence on the oil and gas industry. Houston was hot, and that is where we went. As an aside, every time I hear Jimmy Carter’s name, I want to puke. I hate that son of a bitch.

For the first five months or so after my arrival in Houston, I worked several different jobs, more or less taking anything I could get just to survive. I probably could have initially pursued an entry-level accounting position, but I didn’t have any clothes in my possession that would accommodate any kind of formal interview. I had lost most of the two hundred dollars my dad had given me playing pool before we even left West Virginia. Big Mary found out about this situation somewhere around Memphis and bitched and raised hell with me the whole rest of the way. I wasn’t in the position to offer much in the way of gas or food. My first job was on a construction site on the west side of Houston. Squint and I (we called him Squint because when he got high his eyes would squint damn-near shut) were out driving around and came upon the site and just parked and walked up to the foreman. We told him we were looking for work, and he hired us right on the spot. We made it there for a couple of weeks, and then we were let go. I think the dude just hired us because he felt sorry for us. But we did make some money and were able to save some of that for later.

I then got a job working for Crown Plumbing, a dominant plumber in Houston, I was told, whatever the hell that is. This lasted for another few months. I had been placed as a plumber’s assistant in a truck with a psycho bigot from Alabama. This guy was dangerous. Every minute I was in the truck with this idiot I was filled with mortal fear. It was an easy decision to quit. From there I went to a small construction company where I worked primarily as a roofer. This place, too, was quite the zoo and had in its employ an interesting cast of characters. I pretty much managed a bunch of Mexicans on the roofing crew because the foreman (Uncle Bill) said I had a knack for getting along with others. I never understood a goddamn word they said, and I know they didn’t understand me either, but at day’s end, we all gathered around and drank beer and smoked cigarettes like we had known each other for years. This job lasted about three months, and over the first half of the year I actually saved some money. I went out one Saturday afternoon to Foley’s Department Store and bought a gray double-breasted suit and all the trimmings. I saw an advertisement in the Houston Post for a staff accounting position and sent in a résumé that I had typed up.

About a week later, I got a call from the recruiting firm, and the recruiter there informed me that the mortgage company doing the hiring wanted me to come in for an interview. I went into downtown Houston and interviewed with the finance folks there; a few days later I was extended an offer, which I gladly accepted. It had taken a little while to get there, but it sure felt good given my recent work history. At the same time, those first six or so months working in Houston were in hindsight some of the most beneficial, insightful, and overall life-learning times I have ever experienced. And these lessons were not taught to me by one or more stuffed-shirt, cufflink-wearing, Ivy League godsends who thinks they are God’s gift to the world. For those in the latter camp, I am quite confident in saying that while I and others acknowledge that we probably don’t mean much to you and your ilk, I can further assure you that you mean even less to us.

Cattleguard Mortgage, Inc. (CMI)

So I start working for a mortgage company in Houston, Texas, in June 1982. I was a staff accountant, and my initial job entailed the basic accounting duties. Being young and with this as my first accounting position, I was initially cautious and quiet, and I was simply trying to do a good job and learn the business. This may sound rather benign in terms of overall company management, but this goes a little deeper and is more important than it appears. For example, young and inexperienced employees comprise a large portion of the workforce. Most companies are full of entry-level staff and other employees with three, five, and seven years of experience. For employees who change jobs or change companies, in many respects the process starts again each time, meaning that there is a perpetual group of employees that is fairly significant in terms of size that is pretty much removed from what is really going on in their respective companies. This group doesn’t possess the knowledge or the assertiveness to challenge their own boss, much less the company’s strategy, business plans, or executive management. This removes this group of employees as potential deterrents against bad corporate management because they simply don’t know enough, or in many cases, care enough, to add anything useful in this regard. So you end up with a majority of employee worker bees whose primary objective is to stay employed and draw a paycheck and who pretty much avoid conflict to ensure that outcome.

At the same time for me, the cumulative on the job accounting and finance experience over time enabled a keener ability to quickly identify what was happening within any respective company I worked and the impact of executive management decision making (mostly bad). My upward ascent on the corporate finance ladder also heightened and eventually made quite visible most variables and activities, internal and external, that impacted my respective employers. Finance is where the rubber hits the road, folks, and the old cliché that the numbers don’t lie is just as relevant and pertinent now as it ever was—that fact will never change. But that doesn’t mean that it will not be denied or ignored. The people talked about here in the corporate world are politicians just like the ones in Washington, DC, and all other repositories of power throughout the world. Do you think they could possibly conceive that they are wrong or have been responsible for anything that is wrong? Does a chicken have lips? Why hell no, and these types of people aren’t capable of being honest and forthright about much of anything, much less something that would point out their shortcomings or failures. And the band plays on, my friends.

So as far as CMI goes, it was at one time a very well-managed company that had taken advantage of the oil and gas boom all over Texas. The company had retail-mortgage-origination offices in various cities throughout the state. The company was also partners in numerous large residential-construction projects in Houston and San Antonio. At the time of the boom, this was a great strategy as the company participated in the funding of the land-acquisition and development loans, then the home-construction loans, and finally the end loans, more commonly referred to as residential-mortgage loans. The first three loan types mentioned allowed for fees and rates that are substantial, and the mortgage company ended up with the actual residential-mortgage loans, selling them off to investors and retaining the rights to service the loans. Loan servicing was a very profitable business at one time until it was destroyed by all the geniuses who ended up running the large commercial banks, Wall Street, and pretty much everyone else who worked in the mortgage industry and who contributed in one way or another to its catastrophic demise. Regardless, CMI was a profitable and well-run company that was doing well in and around its local geography. This was a far cry from how things were in other parts of the country, economics-wise, and Houston, at least for a while, was the most vibrant and growing city in the country.

All of this would take quite a turn the other way in about four years when the price of oil sharply declined as the overall climate in the Middle East improved and the Iranian Revolution and hostage crisis became more of a thing of the past. While I was at CMI, the company was sold to Liberty Tubes National Bank (LTNB). LTNB was a large regional bank with its corporate headquarters at the time located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This is when the problems began for CMI, and we will talk about these problems later on when I discuss my life and times at LTNB. I left CMI in the spring of 1985 and took a job at a commercial real-estate developer in Houston named Broke Dick Development. While at CMI, I passed three parts of the CPA exam and thought I was therefore more worthy of higher pay and increased responsibilities. I think now that that assessment might have been true, but I didn’t realize it fully either professionally or economically until much later.

Broke Dick Development, Inc. (BDD)

BDD was a large commercial real-estate developer that built, sold, leased, and managed large commercial buildings and other developments primarily in the Houston area. At the time, they had been involved in the construction and subsequent property management of half the Houston skyline. The company was at one time very profitable and the owner a very well-respected businessman who was very involved in the community and entrenched in the Houston social scene. When I came to this company, the first ripples of the economic tsunami that would soon come to the whole oil belt were just coming ashore. Every company has its own little culture, and this one was no different. The main mantra here was who could outwork who. The CFO and controller were always there, even on the weekends. Everyone in the finance area seemed to follow suit, so the staff accountants, who were seen as nothing more than a bunch of drones, were expected to do even more. This was my first experience with what would become a routine over many years as working long hours and many weekends became a way of life.

I guess, in hindsight, that I did learn a lot, but this type of effort and dedication on my part and the part of others like me seemed to mostly benefit only a select few in the company, who in the end pretty much used us and ended up with all the glory and most of the money. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part, I would say that the cost benefit of this approach to work is terribly out of kilter. No one should be expected to work sixty hours a week on a routine basis. If that is what you want to do individually, then knock yourself out. But if it is mandated and expected, maybe review your work processes or hire some people. Being at work all the time is nothing to aspire to, at least in my opinion. I’d rather spend a little time doing some other things. Screwing in particular comes to mind.

The tone was set early on there in terms of what was expected, and the management team did not welcome any input on this matter and were absolutely repulsed by being challenged. A short while after my arrival, the company placed a freeze on hiring and employee raises. So here I was working long hours and weekends while having to look forward to having no help, no salary raise, and no bonus. Now I realize that sometimes all employees have to bite the bullet if a company is struggling and expenses need to be cut. But when you are twenty-six years old and are working at a pace that you have never known, with the knowledge of no immediate reward for what seemed to me to be an extraordinary effort, the enthusiasm for increased effort and mandated austerity quickly wanes. Now I always tried to be a good employee and pretty much did what I was asked to do to make things work there, but the long hours and what seemed to be a lack of appreciation on the part of the management team began to wear on me and my coworkers. This situation was exacerbated by the company’s deteriorating financial condition.

Anyhow, BDD was the first company where I experienced an up-close view of management infighting and other symptoms of management dysfunction. At CMI, if there were such things going on, it was below the surface or I was simply far enough removed from the higher-ups that I simply did not see it if it was there. Plus, the management team there all hung out together and had what appeared to be good working and social relationships. BDD was different, and this was my first introduction to the some of the management types I highlighted earlier. There were also a lot of good managers and employees alike who worked at the company, but the outcome there was the same as it is most places where a dominant few end up sinking the ship. In the finance department, the CFO was the top dog. I rarely saw this man and do not believe that I ever interacted with him during the year and a half I was there. As a matter of fact, the guys on the top floor seldom came down to our floor, and while I saw and heard the names of all the upper-level managers, I wouldn’t have known some of them if I saw them. Now I could understand this if BDD had been a large company with hundreds or thousands of employees, but it was not. There were maybe a couple of hundred employees. So there was a clear and probably purposeful segregation of the executives from the rest of the company. This was a problem then, and such situations are a problem now. After the CFO, there was the controller. He was not a bad guy, and he was very smart. But he was also the one who set the tone for the work environment I discussed previously. Then there was an assistant controller and two accounting managers. One accounting manager was in charge of partnership accounting, and one was in charge of corporate accounting.

The two accounting managers reported to the assistant controller. I started here as a staff accountant in the partnership accounting area. Now the accounting manager I started working for was not a bad guy either, but he was quite the Ass-Kisser-Politician Manager, and this fact was quite easy to detect. He always hung out with the assistant controller and the controller. They ate lunch together, went drinking together, and would gather in each other’s offices together to shoot the shit. Of course, there is absolutely nothing at all wrong with this, but for the Ass-Kisser-Politicians, it provides the perfect stage to inject themselves into the minds of others, especially future bosses and others in positions of power, by using the tools, gimmicks, and general bullshit almost universally employed by Ass-Kisser-Politician Managers. Let’s talk about some of those tools, gimmicks, and general bullshit used by the Ass-Kisser-Politician Manager and then on the makeup and habits of this manager species.

The Ass-Kisser-Politician Manager Hierarchy

First of all, Ass-Kisser-Politician Managers are ass-kissers. They come in varying degrees, and each Ass-Kisser-Politician Manager has his or her own level or degree to which he or she will take their ass-kissing. I have known all kinds of Ass-Kisser-Politician Managers, and the range and depth that is covered by their lips and tongues is immense. For example, some of the Ass-Kisser-Politician Managers I have known were in essence fairly harmless because their ass-kissing amounted to nothing more than maybe an occasional peck or two on the left or right butt cheek. Other ass-kissers, however, will stop at nothing to elevate themselves in the eyes of those they see as their way up the corporate ladder. These people are disgusting and destructive. Throughout my career after BDD and in the succession of companies where I have worked since, I always encountered one or more Ass-Kisser-Politician Managers whom I thought at the time had taking ass-kissing to heights heretofore unknown to man and to heights never to be reached again. Every time, one or more other aged and seasoned Ass-Kisser-Politician Managers exceeded those heights, establishing yet another record for future comparison and leaving me to realize that ass-kisser alone is an inadequate description of this activity and is in need of some additional terminology and subsequent clarification to accentuate my point.

The Ass-Kisser-Politician Manager can be found on all steps of the ladders of the management structure, with each upward step indicating a higher level of ass-kisser upward mobility. Most Ass-Kisser-Politician Managers start off in a rather subtle and inconspicuous way. I mean a gentle smooch on the butt cheek is no big deal. We’ll call these ass-kissers Cheekers. Cheekers are not terribly bad people and are more an irritant or annoyance than anything else. Their ass-kissing is primarily related to self-promotion and glory grabbing, and as long as they do not progress up the ass-kisser hierarchy, they can remain relatively benign. Unfortunately, most Cheekers do not remain Cheekers; they evolve to a higher and much more damaging type of ass-kisser over the years. As their ass-kissing intensifies, so does the cumulative surrender of what dignity and personal honor might remain in them at any particular point in their ass-kissing career. If all ass-kissers were no more than Cheekers, this type of manager would probably not have made the list of general loser-type managers we talk about here in the book, but one must understand the starting point where many of these losers began.

Then the evolution to greater depths of incompetence, indolence, arrogance, and a litany of other negative attributes and characteristics that seem to accompany so many American corporate managers becomes much easier to understand.

The next step up in the Ass-Kisser-Politician Manager hierarchy is the Lingo. A Lingo is a bit more than a Cheeker but quite a bit less than a Shitksy, which is on an even higher ass-kisser level. A peck on a butt cheek is not enough for these folks if you know what I mean. Their quest for power and authority by whatever means necessary is what drives their over-the-top ass-kissing tendencies. This type of Ass-Kisser-Politician Manager is already dangerous, having elevated past the Cheeker stage and by now possibly being placed in a position that he or she has no business being in by someone above them who is susceptible to and sometimes dependent on the ass-kissers around them. This is where the trouble starts for companies that promote Ass-Kisser-Politician Managers. Many of these people do not have the knowledge or experience to perform well in the position they might be placed in because it was not such things that got them placed there to begin with. They are promoted and put in positions not because of job performance and management and leadership abilities but because they are Ass-Kisser-Politician Managers. The damage caused by these people and the others that hire and promote them is almost immeasurable.

In the Ass-Kisser-Politician Manager hierarchy after Lingos comes the most notorious and disdainful type of Ass-Kisser-Politician Manager. Look out folks, here comes the Shitski. The Shitski is well above the Lingo and far beyond the Cheeker. This person will take their ass-kissing to any level imaginable if they think it means good and underserved things for them. These folks have no shame and no scruples and will betray and double-cross anyone or do anything to get ahead. That is pretty much how it is for the Shitski. These managers are always with one or more of those whose asses they are always kissing. The Shitski could easily be a shadow, as they are always following someone around. They are so indulged in ass-kissing activities that everyone who knows them or works with them knows they are an ass-kisser. No one likes them, and no one respects them. The Shitski is a human colonoscopy machine.

The one critical thing to remember about all the Ass-Kisser-Politician Manager types is that in order to be effective as an ass-kisser and therefore destructive to your company, its shareholders, and employees, you need one or more managers above you whose ass or asses you are kissing and who are overly susceptible to the ass-kisser’s ass-kissing. An Ass-Kisser-Politician Manager would not even exist if there were not those around them and above them who for one or more perverted reasons allow them to perpetrate their dubious ass-kissing deeds. In this regard, an Ass-Kisser-Politician Manager is reliant on one more type of Ass-Kisser-Politician Manager. This would be the Bob. You might ask, what the hell is a Bob? Well, a Bob is a person who is very susceptible to ass-kissers and ass-kissing. The Bob actually encourages the various types of Ass-Kisser Politician Managers and associated degrees of ass-kissing because these are the only people from whom the Bob receives any adulation or praise. If there are Ass-Kisser Politician Managers, there are Bobs. You can’t have one without the other.

So there you have it folks, the Ass-Kisser-Politician Manager hierarchy. The Cheeker, the Lingo, the Shitski, and the Bob. We also have the potential for a ShitskiBob when a Shitski is adjoined with a