> Things like celebrating birthdays, throwing baby showers, collecting for gifts, selling Tupperware or Avon, managing sports tournaments, running betting pools, calling home to keep a romance alive or hand out chores to the children, gossiping or flirting with co-workers, getting a haircut, going to a medical or dental appointment, running to the cafeteria for a snack, coming in a little late or leaving a little early, taking Friday afternoon off, and griping about working conditions were all inappropriate when done on company time.
This stands really in stark contrast to companies today. Can anyone who has been in the industry long enough chime in on how they feel changes like these have affected things like morale, productivity, etc?
At the very least, this suffers from false equivalence: clearly "running betting pools" and "selling Tupperware or Avon" (!) are not in same class as "going to a medical or dental appointment" or "running to the cafeteria for a snack". I think it's also somewhat dastardly that he's tacked on "griping about working conditions" and put it in same category as a personal indulgence that should not be enjoyed on "company time" -- it makes for an easy way of shutting down legitimate and constructive criticism.
In terms of how things have changed since WordPerfect: there is simply not the clearcut distinction between one's personal life and one's company life that there once was. This cuts both ways: yes, some "company time" is used for personal activities (like, um, eating), but plenty of formerly personal time is now used for the company. ("Dad: stop reading your e-mail!") The only path forward is to be reasonable adults about this: the world has become more complicated, and employees should strive to do right by the company -- and companies should strive to do right by employees. Flexibility and empathy are rewarded with increased productivity and improved morale; rigidity like that displayed here has been obsoleted.
WordPerfect Corporation was not a platform for personal achievement, a
career ladder to other opportunities, or a challenging opportunity for
personal improvement. The company did not put the needs of the individual
ahead of its own. The company was not concerned about an employee's personal
feelings, except as they related to the company's well-being.
WordPerfect Corporation was not intended to be a social club for the
unproductive. While other companies might condone many personal or social
activities at the office, ours did not. Things like celebrating birthdays,
throwing baby showers, collecting for gifts, selling Tupperware or Avon,
managing sports tournaments, running betting pools, calling home to keep a
romance alive or hand out chores to the children, gossiping or flirting with
co-workers, getting a haircut, going to a medical or dental appointment,
running to the cafeteria for a snack, coming in a little late or leaving a
little early, taking Friday afternoon off, and griping about working
conditions were all inappropriate when done on company time. Even though
these activities were condoned by many businesses across the country, we
felt there was no time for them at WordPerfect Corporation.
This guy sounds like a real dick. I mean, sure -- running a betting pool at the office is a big waste of time. But this guy is independently wealthy, so of course errands are no problem: you can almost always trade money for time. But going to a medical or dental appointment is not to be done? When exactly are you supposed to see your doctor, given they work M-F 9-6? And I bet they weren't shy about asking for extra time from employees when it's crunch time or there's an urgent bug.
"A year after I left, I received an anonymous letter from someone at WordPerfect Corporation. This person used WPCorp stationery, WPCorp postage, and, no doubt, WPCorp time to tell me he was glad I had left the company. Even though the writer admitted he had never met me, and that he had never worked for me or in a department which reported to me, he had gone out of his way to tell me what a poor job I had done. I was a little hurt by the comments, but I was even more upset that this employee would misuse company resources to send the letter. He was obviously not focusing in on the purpose and objectives of his employer."
Seems like he had a dick reputation that lasted some time after he left the company.
That passage doesn't rub me the wrong way at all. It is a clear set of statements. I don't have to belong to such a company, but if I did, at least I would know what the bounds were. At the start-ups I worked at, I saw a slippery slope of abuse of the "company culture."
Hm, in the UK when the world cup is on there is are betting pools ('fantasy football') in every office Ive ever worked in - so this is not as extreme behaviour as it first sounds.
I (briefly) worked for a company back in the mid 90s where pretty much any form of non-work interaction was frowned upon.
Having spent a couple of months in one of their offices where things weren't too bad, I was then relocated to a new team in their head office. On my first morning, I thought I'd be friendly and said hello to my new colleagues and asked how their weekends had been. I got a couple of brief "it was OK" type responses from them and they immediately put their heads back down into their work.
In the two weeks that I managed there before upping sticks and heading back to a previous company, that was probably the closest I got to a real conversation from anyone. It was the most soul destroying couple of weeks of my working life, and from the body language of the others there, I strongly suspect they felt the same about their job.
When I handed my notice in, I finally got several people commenting on how lucky I was to be getting out. I told them that there were plenty of jobs out there, and they were almost certainly better than this one.
I don't know whether it was connected, but in the months following my resignation, about half the team quit as well, prompting the CEO to start organising lunch sessions to find out why. One person told him honestly, and was promptly suspended.
As I said downthread, this was because they were a Orem, Utah company founded by BYU students that hired mostly BYU students. Thus, the culture isn't typical of software or even business culture of the 1980s, it was typical of Mormon culture. Very different.
Seems like a false correlation. Yes it was was Utah company founded by BYU students, but that is not the reason why/doesn't map cleanly to the culture. Culture comes in large part from founders and the first hires.
I understand that my comment sounded unnecessarily glib, and for that I apologize.
If you read the book, Peterson actually attributes the culture, especially early on (which as you said, is often set by the founders/first-hires, and while Peterson wasn't a co-founder, he was I think the first or second employee and related by marriage to a co-founder), to the fact that they were all conservative LDS types from Orem/Provo who graduated from BYU.
I certainly am not trying to say that ALL Utah businesses, all LDS businesses or all BYU grads in the 1980s or otherwise were like WordPerfect. That said, it would be silly to pretend that in this case, religion had no role in the culture (and Peterson outright said as much in his book, so this isn't even a debate point). To draw a parallel: I grew up in Atlanta, which is largely Protestant. Chick-fil-A is one of our staples , and as we all remember from the controversy a few years ago, a company VERY rooted in the whole Southern Baptist thing.
Put aside the whole same-sex marriage nastiness for a second (and trust me, as someone who loves Chick-fil-A, that pissed me the fuck off and made me very angry at the corporation), that company has a VERY distinct culture. Going beyond the whole closed on Sunday thing, people who worked there had to keep to a very specific set of standards while at work. To its credit, the company didn't enforce or try to push religious beliefs down employees throats (my boyfriend freshmen year who was a store manager was an atheist into industrial metal), but at work you couldn't wear certain kinds of clothing even underneath your work shirt. Guys couldn't wear hats backwards in the kitchen (seriously), shirts always have to be tucked in, there was a policy on language and what music could be played, even after hours (though as long as someone from corporate wasn't there, I think people get away with it), like, it's this whole thing. I tend to think some of that stuff gets kind of creepy, but to its credit, Chick-fil-A is probably the one fast food restaurant where the employees are competent and friendly 9/10. My point is that although I wouldn't brush all companies run by a Southern Baptist with the same brush, to ignore the role that that religion has had on Chick-fil-A's culture would be obtuse.
Similarly, to ignore the impact of a self-described conservative LDS hardliner from Orem/Provo had on the culture at WordPerfect is obtuse.
Certainly not all Utah or Mormon businesses have the same culture, but WordPerfect certainly seemed to ascribe to principals that are not at all at odds with what a hardline LDS guy born in the like 1950 would do.
A good counterexample would be Evans and Sutherland. David Evans was LDS, but fairly open; Sutherland would rib him about it in a joking way (e.g. see the LDS I [1]).
Of course, U of Utah is a bit more open than BYU :)
I don't understand. Your last sentence "Culture comes in large part from founders and first hires" seems to contradict the rest of your post, which seems to be arguing against the attribution of WordPerfect's culture to the specific culture background which unites its founders and first hires, but is distinct from the rest of the industry (or business more general) at the same time.
I found it interesting that in the paragraphs right after that, it's all about depending on employees to do the right thing, giving them trust and empowerment, and not micro-managing them. That part sounds more like GitHub or Valve than like 1980's IBM.
I'm not sure they actually managed to implement the culture as described, because after all, trying to change a company culture through a series of lunch lectures sounds remarkably unrealistic, but those values are very nice, and haven't really been superseded by any newer insight as far as I can tell.
And almost in direct conflict with the part you quote, but ok. Can't have it all :)
I found it interesting that in the paragraphs right after that, it's all about depending on employees to do the right thing, giving them trust and empowerment, and not micro-managing them.
That's what he says. Compare it to what he does: "For years I was the person most feared in the company. If I walked down a hallway, I was used to hearing the sound of desk drawers closing as people hid their snacks from view. If I attended a meeting, it was likely that at least a few of the people there were afraid to speak to me."
Lovely. I know the syndrome of ill-defined, perhaps unrealistic expectations, miscommunication, turf-building on the part of management, and you should run from it as fast as you can. The party line coming from your manager is that you are supposed to support the firm, but what you actually do in practice is support your manager in looking good. Everything is documented (you might get hit by a bus or get thrown under one), except the bossfellow's propietary systems.
Utah. Very strict Mormon background from the founders (and this dude who was the brother-in-law of one of the founders). It's like BYU but it's your workplace...
If you are ever in Provo I would love to give you a tour of BYU. BYU is not like this, not even back then. Seriously message me if you are ever in Utah, I'll show you the sights.
It's nice to have concepts like "don't take the piss and it's okay" but I'm not sure how well that scales when you have more than say 20 people. (I'm sure it can!) The elements of contagion are interesting. For example: Ann works hard, and starts her teabreak 5 minutes late. Reasonably, she takes an extra 5 minutes at the end of her teabreak. Bob sees her, and joins her, getting an extra 5 minutes. If this happens more than once or twice you risk complete breakdown in teabreaks, yet telling Ann to take her breaks on time means you're an asshole. (Before you mention the ridiculousness of teabreaks they're needed in some industries. You can't drink or eat at electronic manufacturing workstations.)
A local aeronautics company (Smiths Industries) has a start time for some worker of 8:43 am.
This is rigorously enforced not just by management but by your fellow workers on the shop floor.
It is baffling how such work-cultures develop. The few times I visited I didn't see much work getting done. I saw lots of people who didn't appear to be doing anything when I saw them. (There are plenty of reasons why, not just worker laziness - maybe the firm had just finished a large contract and a bunch of staff were about to be laid off, for example).
I worked in a small sub-contract electronic engineering factory for a few (maybe ten?) years, several years ago. The worst bosses have left that company and it's a long time ago so I'm always happy to talk about it. Especially our move from paper-based stock system to sage line 100; and our ISO900x joys.
So basically being a normal human being, that is not a good enough soulless drone for the benefit of shareholders, was totally out of the question. Sounds like a "perfect" place to work.
I worked for two startups in the late eighties and early nineties; both located in downtown Palo Alto. When recruiting, would tell candidate thats being downtown made it easy to run errands, lunch at great restaurants, take a quick afternoon bike ride around the Alpine loop, pop out to do some birthday or holiday shopping, walk to the bank, dentist, doctor, etc.
> Things like celebrating birthdays, throwing baby showers, collecting for gifts, selling Tupperware or Avon, managing sports tournaments, running betting pools, calling home to keep a romance alive or hand out chores to the children, gossiping or flirting with co-workers, getting a haircut, going to a medical or dental appointment, running to the cafeteria for a snack, coming in a little late or leaving a little early, taking Friday afternoon off, and griping about working conditions were all inappropriate when done on company time.
This stands really in stark contrast to companies today. Can anyone who has been in the industry long enough chime in on how they feel changes like these have affected things like morale, productivity, etc?
Edit: grammar.