Out in the Corporate World

So today’s news?

“Man, this is the third time I’ve spoken to these people in Mexico, and I keep telling them, ‘hey, this is a business, and I’m alone here, so I’ve gotta take care of customers. And so whatever you gotta do to get the Internet faster, you gotta do it….”

That’s Jorge, the manager of the café, and on whose shoulders many things fall. Actually, from one point of view, everything. Consider, for example, that it’s slow season, so he should be getting a break, right? But people have quit, and on one occasion have been fired, and nobody wants to hire anybody in slow season. So Jorge? He’s working harder than ever, and hasn’t had two consecutive days off for months.

“I could go home right now,” he told me, a little after ten this morning, as he was opening the shop. “But once the customers come in, I’ll get my energy back….”

It’s a curious thing, how technology has enriched and enslaved us. Last night, for example, I was watching the encore performance of Figaro, which took pace a week and a half ago on a stage in New York City, got shot up to a satellite, and then got beamed down to movie theaters in 66 different countries. For Montalvo, this is an ordinary state of affairs. For me?

My father once explained the essential workings of the internal combustion engine, which—since I am Internetless—I can only say that I think is what propels your car. And though I’ve retained absolutely none of what he said, it dawned on me at the time: he was the last generation of guys who knew how everything worked. They could fix toasters and cars and lawn mowers, and if they didn’t know how to do it? They could figure it out.

But now we have a satellite that is enjoying Mozart somewhere up there, and then willing to share it with the rest of us. And there obviously is a satellite wizard at the Met. Or maybe the wizard is in Mexico, or India, and is doing his magic from home. But when the wizard’s car breaks down? He’s probably as lost as the rest of us.

And lost is what I am, because I have just tried to get on the Internet, and the little bar that tells how the loading is going goes speedily up to the mid-point, the screen changes and obviously wants to become The New York Times, but then what happens? Well, it’s obvious what’s happening, because I am hearing 80% of a loud conversation in Russian. And the other 20%? Presumably in Russia, though it could be anywhere, since the Russians have stopped being in Russia—where they should be—and have instead been sent out to all the cafés in the Western world, expressly to soak up the Internet!

Hah—it’s clear. The Cold War never ended, and guess who won? Because while he is shouting Russian and peering computeristically at his beloved, this is what I’m seeing!

   

So I’m completely unable to tell you anything interesting: no worrying about Wisconsin, no wondering about the Japanese and their inability to acknowledge to the rest of the world that they’ve screwed up and can’t figure out what to do about their damned nuclear plant, which if it falls down  in the next earthquake will be hasta la vista, baby for pretty much everybody (one view) or absolutely no problem (the opposing view)!

Of course, if the Internet agreed to hop tables and spend some time on my screen, I could give you the full report on Tim Cook, who got outed in a TV show, and then—oh so bravely—came out publically today in Bloomberg Business.

And who is Cook? A native of Alabama, 53-years old, and the CEO of Apple. Oh—and the first CEO of a public company to come out. Where’s he been all this time? Essentially doing a Ricky Martin, by guarding his privacy and not wanting to draw attention away from all the incredible people and products of Apple.

And if memory serves, 83% of gay people do this to some extent in the work force. I should know: I did, and now feel bad about it. Because really, how many people didn’t know? And isn’t it strange  that gay people will be a distraction, but straight people won’t? Because in every office, in every cubicle, there was a picture of the husband, the wife, the girlfriend. What was there on my desk, in those receding days when I worked at Walmart? A picture of Raf, my mother, and me: he was there, yes, but my mother took the sting off. What would have happened if I had put a picture of the two of us, dressed in tuxedos, cutting our wedding cake?

Nothing, officially: Human Resources was smarter than that, and since I had come out and told the CEO that I was gay, and then written to the Senior Vice President of Human Resources that I was gay… well, they would have figured out: I was able to stand up for myself. Of course, people would have whispered; the more religious would have—perhaps—tried to proselytize. But after a week? Old news!

That’s what happened to the first CEO to get outed: John Browne, whose 23-year old rent boy turned nasty—ah, reportedly they do!—, and ratted to the tabloids about their affair. Browne was then CEO of British Petroleum and in his fifties; now he is a Member of Parliament, and chairman of the trustees of the Tate Galleries. According to the New York Times, Lee Scott, then CEO of Walmart, called Browne and rescinded the offer to be on the board of directors of Walmart. Why? Browne says that Scott told him that Arkansas wasn’t ready for a gay board member; Walmart says that Browne was being investigated by BP for misuse of corporate funds (so said—here he is again!—the rent boy, but the company checked it out and cleared Browne).

What happened to Browne? Well, all of the stuff he feared didn’t happen. Yes, he resigned, but all his friends rallied, and those who didn’t? Ahhh, the bliss of knowing who your friends are!

That’s the thing about the corporate world: the pressure to conform, not to rock the boat, is amazing. Every day, I used to see about twenty people whom everybody feared: people who could make an entire division disappear. And those twenty people? Strong, rich, powerful—emperors, but without a stitch of clothes.

So fearful were we, that things didn’t get said. And where weren’t they said? Not at the bottom—well, not always at the bottom—but more often at the top. Nobody could tell Bentonville, Arkansas, that Puerto Rico wasn’t Mexico. So the little store with the rice and beans and some cans and some personal items? That store that had no parking? Well, we had to open it, pretend it was a success, and then close it. Because people in Mexico may travel by burros down the mountain to do their shopping, but  everybody, everybody in Puerto Rico has a car! And nobody is going to walk in the tropical heat to get to a neighborhood market.

Had I Internet, I could tell you the story I read in a Malcolm Gladwell book about the program to train pilots how to communicate, since a Chinese or a Japanese copilot would obediently fly the plane into the mountain, if his pilot mistakenly ordered him to do so. Dying with decorum intact is better, apparently, than living with the disgrace of telling your superior he’s full of shit.

Unless, of course, you’re running a business, or answering to the Board of Directors who are—isn’t this the way it’s supposed to work?—answering to the investors. So why it the corporate world so screwed up?

Because for all the talk about diversity, they never got it. The females in top management had to be tougher than the males, the Puerto Ricans more gringo, and gay? Gay???

Well, it’s happened. The first Fortune 500 company to have a gay CEO.

Wait—500 companies? 500 CEO’s?

Stay tuned!