"Back at home they drew the curtains and read with disapproval, with relish, with avidity and glee – even the ones who'd never thought of opening a novel before. There's nothing like a shovelful of dirt to encourage reading."
The Blind Assassin
Winner of the Booker Prize
The economy and the resulting miserable state of the job market forced many financial executives to downshift, i.e. take jobs way below their levels of expertise, authority, and adequate compensation. It's been almost a year since I wrote about the heartbreaking reality of first finding such a position and then accepting it for the sake of having food on the table and keeping the roof over your family's head. Yet, the painful topic is still relevant.
But let's look a little further. We have an opportunity to examine an interesting situation brought to my attention by an actual downshifter – a former CFO of a, now defunct, $500-million-dollar firm. After a year of a futile job-hunting he accepted, at 50% of his former compensation, a Controller's position in a young and small ($30 million) company, ran by two owners – a female CEO and her partner with a COO title.
How many times did I write about accidental bosses? And here we go again: this business has started because the two partners got lucky. They were in the right place at the right time with extensive connections and sufficient funding at hand. Neither of them actually needed it to survive, but the opportunity were too exciting to pass up.
Guess what? The CEO never led a company before. She never even worked in a commercial enterprise. Her partner has an MBA from an Ivy League school, but he only worked overseas. Neither have the chops to make good executives, yet both have undeniable talents and a lot of enthusiasm. She is a sales ace and the toughest negotiator you can find. He is incredibly detailed-oriented.
Not only that they managed to get the company off the ground eight years ago, they kept it growing with minimal labor resources, including a single bookkeeper. Hiring a senior financial person was definitely not among their priorities. Until… Some people are just born lucky. An even bigger opportunity presented itself. To implement it they needed more capital. The dogged COO wore down one of the major banks into providing them with a substantial trade finance line. Among bank's mandates was hiring a proper Controller.
Enter our former CFO.
Because both execs are not very clear on the leadership functions, the division of responsibilities is blurred. The COO was in charge of the Controller's hiring. The CEO never even saw the candidate's resume or salary history. When COO decided that this is their guy, the CEO was called in for a minute to shake the future Controller's hand.
Yet, once our downshifter started working there, he realized that the woman's word was the final authority on pretty much all other issues. Now, because she lacks corporate experience, she is not capable of assessing the Controller's performance. In her mind, any other accountant would provide the same input as this guy, who managed in the first three months to correct more procedural, systematic, recording, and administrative errors than he did in 25 years before this job. Moreover, he contributes into the company's strategic decisions. All that for a price of a low-brow peripheral Controller. The CEO has no clue that what she's got was a gift; that she got very lucky again and obtained an Hermes bag for the price of a Coach.
This is a big problem. If your boss doesn't understand your value, she cannot appreciate your contribution. The fact that someone with lower qualifications and less experience would not be able to attend to the sophisticated tasks you accomplish remains unnoticed. As a result, you are helping to better the company without a chance for a fair reward.
What to do in this situation? You are not the type to brag every time you do something extraordinary. The first thought comes to mind is to re-introduce yourself. The guy who hired you didn't share your resume with his partner, so give her one together with your salary history. You can say, "I understand you've never had a chance to look at it before and I think it's not fair for either of us." I know some people will say it's tasteless, but the options here are limited.
Secondly, you must propose a proper evaluation system for all staff members. Because these people have no idea how to go about it, they will turn to you. This is your chance! Provide them with the format that allows employees to list their own accomplishments. Then, make sure that reviews are actually conducted.
Finally, if you don't get satisfactory acknowledgement anyway, start looking for another job. Maybe you will be luckier this time around. It's like I always say, employment at will works both ways: they can separate from you at any time, but so can you.
I must've dozed off, or something… And I dream that I died and went to hell. There my soul is tortured by things I fear the most…
…I see the country that used to be a beacon of freedom for the oppressed being perverted into a security vault. I see cameras, metal detectors, x-ray machines, bag searchers everywhere. There are satellites looking straight at me. Someone always watches, hears every whisper, reads every word I type on my computer…
…I see that the notion of merit is dead. All that matters now is who you know. Connections and "club" memberships are the hottest commodities…
…I'm forced to watch people merging into two groups: millions of those who barely manage to eke out a living from whatever professions or trades they forced upon themselves and a small number of comfortable others – nothing in between. And on the top, there are a handful of secret billionaires who have been quietly buying up the world…
…Someone murdered the free competition. Small businesses fall down like slaughter victims. Banking conglomerates are being bailed out of their greedy fuckups through the ponzi schemes of international borrowing, but the treasury is empty. In horror, I look at the decaying corpse of the glorious industrialism formerly driven by the production of quality goods - now it's just a feed for the paper-trading worms…
…I see special interests' money usher through the Supreme Court unconstitutional laws, re-directing average taxpayers' earnings right into the pockets of the paying monopolies…
…And I see young fools, with no prospects for decent lives and no understanding of underlying reasons for it, burning with desire for a change. They've been dumbed down to the point that they cannot formulate their purpose or devise an action plan. They huddle in a tiny space, called Zuccotti Park, near the place they assume to be the source of their distress, simply because they have nothing else to do…
…I stop by a newsstand strewn with tabloids covered by repulsive photographs of insignificant clowns. I manage to pluck out one "real" magazine. It excitedly screams into my face that Lena Dunham has received four Emmy nominations for her half-baked mediocrity. The well-connected and moneyed hipsters, she so skillfully represents, jump up and down like mad rabbits…
…And I see a 5-floor-high advertisement board of Katy Perry in 3-D, but I hear that Fiona Apple's The Wilder Wheel tour is not sold out…
…And I see the Redeemer, the young woman whose words and images have the power to alter people's consciousness. But nobody can hear her as she is sealed into a cell of fear built by haters… And I know that I contributed to her imprisonment. She is smashing her body at the see-through walls in exhaustive attempts to break free, and I am not able to help her. And those who can, refuse to do it… I feel impotent, paralyzed.
It hurts so much inside, as if somebody put a grenade where my heart is supposed to be and it's exploding. I scream in agony. I claw at my chest, trying to let the pain out. I whisper to myself, "Wake up, wake up!"
Only, I cannot wake up. This is not a dream and I am not dead. This is the hell of my actual existence.
"Do yourself a favor… don't have kids… Ruins you ambitions, keeps you from what you want in life… I'm not a good mother… Kids are like clients, they want all of you, all the time. Don't get me wrong. I love my son… Love's nothing, love's easy. They come out of you, you love them. What you do after – that's the hard part."
Damages, Season 1, episode 1
Written by Todd Kessler,
Glenn Kessler, Daniel Zelman
The Frustrated CFO's comments:
I watched this and thought, "Wow! This is hard core. You cannot dismiss the truth here." A couple of episodes later Patty ships her disobedient and rebellious son to a Reform Academy. He is snatched away kidnapping-style. She is all about efficiency and getting her way.
Can women have it all? No, they can't. Not, if they want a glorious career and "ideal" children. There is no such thing as an "ideal" child. They are humans, not dolls, and just as fallible as their parents. And the career? Please… there is always something.
What women can have are two zebras (if they are lucky!): white stripe is followed by the black one, and so on, and so forth. Ups and downs at work, good and bad times with kids – the hard life… and that's if no real tragedies happen.
Believe it or not, but a few of my readers actually complain that sometimes my posts are "too technical." I guess, they forget that, even though I manage to squeeze a ton of cultural references here, this is primarily a business blog and some of the topics will be amusing and/or relevant only to financial professionals, executive managers, and business owners.
Well, even though this may further aggravate the merriment seekers, I cannot pass on the opportunity to share the following 100% true episode that has occurred in one import/export company early last week. It's just so hilarious (at least to me)!
Here is the premise. English has become a common language of international business many years ago. Of course, there are other linguistic possibilities: if transacting parties are both Latin American, they will use Spanish; employees of a company in Shanghai will speak Mandarin to their counterparts in Guangdong region. But I guarantee that communications between, let's say, a Turkish manufacturer and a Dutch banker, or a Latvian banker and a Swiss financial broker, will be conducted in English.
Of course, a Korean supplier has no choice but to employ English to communicate her concerns about a Letter of Credit (LC) provided as a form of payment by an American importer. The document itself is prepared in English for crying out loud. Still, it's a foreign language – some linguistic pitfalls are unavoidable.
Those who work in international trade or read my book CFO Techniques know that LCs are very strict documents treated in a very literal manner by the banks responsible for making sure that a supplier gets paid only if and when it complies with conditions stipulated in the buyer's LC. For example, the shipping documents (most frequently these are Bills of Lading (BLs)) must be prepared in accordance with the importer's requirements.
Now, enter a young and anxious clerk at the Seoul office of the said Korean supplier. She is responsible for putting together all documents to be presented at the bank so that her employer can get paid $2,745,000 for 1500 mt of the product that just sailed away. She knows very well that the papers must be in full compliance with the LC. She is a novice and feels a lot of pressure to do it right. On top of that, it's all in English, and, even though she is pretty good with it, the stress makes her paranoid. Basically, she is a nervous wreck.
One thing in particular bothers her the most. So, she writes the following email to the customer's CFO:
"LC request is 'FREIGHT PAYABLE WITHING 7 DAYS OF SHIPMENT DATE' but the shipping line put on Bill of Lading 'FREIGHT PAYABLE WITHIN 7 DAYS OF SHIPPING DATE'. Please urgently ask the shipping agent to revise the BL."[sic]
The American CFO, who has dealt with the international trade issues for many years, had a good laugh reading it, thought that the girl needs some Xanax, and replied:
"Relax. The difference between the words 'SHIPMENT DATE' and 'SHIPPING DATE' will not be construed as discrepancy by ANY bank as these phrases mean EXACTLY THE SAME."
Hey, it's all good. At least she didn't have to gesture and guess.
The Frustrated CFO 