Competitive Stupid

COMPETITIVE

STUPID – THE DECONSTRUCTION OF A CORPORATE DOWNSIZING

A Novel by

Mary J. Scarpelli

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SMASHWORDS EDITION

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Copyright © 2013 by Mary Scarpelli

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Disclaimer

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, institutions, places, events and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental and used fictitiously.

Also by Mary J. Scarpelli

The Pursuit of Enlightenment

Love Finds Its Pocket

(Continuing Pursuits and Other Anecdotes of Enlightenment)

Copyright © 2013 Mary J. Scarpelli

Prologue, part 1

Prelude to a Tragedy – General Workplace Contemplations

Lesson #1 – Beware! For your marginally competent manager to continue moving up the food chain, dragging along the burden of his mediocre intellect and lean skill set, he must contemptuously negate the value of your brilliant ideas - and then promptly appropriate them;

Lesson #2 – The more you do, the more will be expected of you and then in short order, the demands will have no end; balk at the inequity, and your manager will take you down like a red-zone dog;

Lesson #3 – Although senior management may request, nay demand, that you reflect and formally comment on them as popularized in the dreaded 360̊ annual review process, they’ll also insist on redirecting any less-than-stellar opinions to a more positive conclusion by badgering you to buy-into their idealized self-view until you acquiesce – and woe betide those who refuse; your future will indeed be bleak;

Lesson #4 – You are nothing more than a pawn to senior management. When the time comes to make staff reductions, you’d better hope that no one at the round table has taken offense at anything you’re ever said or done. The work environment within Corporate America is nothing more than a sophisticated high school social club and memories for slights run in perpetuity. Perception is everything!;

Lesson #5 – Even during those brief interludes when you manage to remain invisible hence neutral, the ugliness of that one co-worker who thrives on introducing chaos into the environment will seek to surreptitiously drag everyone else into the muck and then point an accusatory finger in your general direction while he handily saves the day – the corporate equivalent of Munchausen by Proxy;

Lesson #6 – Keeping the bar of achievement sufficiently low is a must, because to expect more from those who are either incapable of or unwilling to do/be better, will only unite the losers to eventually turn against anyone that threatens to expose their fondness for slothful inactivity;

Lesson #7 – Long-term employees expect to be granted a promotion simply by virtue of their extended tenure with the company, irrespective of their lack of competence or demonstrated leadership abilities. What they perceive as loyalty is interpreted by management as slothful inertia not worthy of recognition.

Forget the conventional wisdom that we use only ten percent of our brains. We most likely employ quite a bit more than that but haven’t devised a scientific methodology adequate to validate or recreate evidence in support of that hypothesis. The origins of seemingly inexplicable, externally occurring phenomena have caused man, since cognizance overtook instinct as the mainstay of our existence, to create the most absurd rationales for things not readily comprehensible.

Not too dissimilar from our inability to hear, yet not be consciously aware of, pitches above the 20,000 kHz range, things that exist well beyond our ability to perceive them have created a perfect breeding ground for anyone with a convincing enough argument to get your buy-in of their explanation, however absurd it may be. That desperate drive of the ‘common man’ to make sense of his world puts fear-mongers and ambitious professionals in a dangerously powerful position, as we all become unwitting participants in our own demise.

Unavoidable Conclusion: Secure a job that will allow you to achieve a comfortable level of independent living – once there, mind your own business, smile and make sure you’re liked by the right people. Exhibiting too much confidence amongst the weaker-willed will only work against you, as you will then be perceived as a threat or at the very least, an insubordinate little shit. When downsizing time comes around, and it will, who stays and who gets left behind in the melee comes down to a superficial, geek-fest inflected sophomoric popularity contest. If you want to retain your seat at the table, you’ll have little choice but to play the game, employing their rules as the basis for your survival. To achieve corporate longevity and maintain peace of mind, watch your back and trust no one.

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Prologue, part 2

Snap Out of It! This is Not Your Dream Job

Achieving a harmonious balance of personalities in an office environment has a higher probability of success if the cast of characters possesses an acceptable level of reflected self-knowledge and acceptance. Not in the superficial sense of being able to itemize one’s likes and dislikes, but by possessing a depth of insight about how the aggregated events of our personal history have conspired toward fashioning the mold of the personified masks that we then employ to successfully navigate through the vagaries of life.

The dream of inhabiting a healthy workplace cannot be realized without a confluence of events that seems only to occur upon proper star alignment. An intrinsic correlative understanding of the effects that those early chapters had on our burgeoning fragile psyches is a priceless gift that we give to those around us. Ignorance is a far more dangerous weapon than one would initially suppose - attachment to that blissful cliché notwithstanding.

Navigating through the debris of familial obligations is usually a non-negotiable obligation in which everyone somehow manages to find their niche within that framework whereas the unavoidable necessity of successfully contending with one’s unrelated work colleagues while avoiding recrimination, litigation or termination is a far trickier feat.

When entering a new work environment, it’s usually prudent to employ a strategically designed mute button until the idiosyncrasies of one’s colleagues can be reasonably discerned, which, if successful, will reduce the probability of committing a major offense against someone thereby summoning their ugly core to the surface.

Forgiveness of an unintentional slight as perpetrated by a stranger is easier if the transgression is deemed a one-off even though the destructive impact of a drunken rage or a shove onto the tracks by a madman is no different from an elaborately designed attack by a sworn enemy. The emotional component then becomes the deciding factor as to the probability for forgiveness and an ability to forge a peaceable co-existence.

The development of a finely-honed ability to prevent one’s demons from spewing their ugliness in the workplace and thereby not burden others with our personal shit or allow ourselves to succumb to others’ childish psycho drama are essential survival tools that should be a prerequisite to being awarded a management position.

If a greater number of individuals enjoyed the peace of mind that resulted from having developed an emotionally mature, level-headed playing field, then the workplace would be a far healthier and more productive environment than it is. The unfortunate reality is that an unacceptable amount of time and energy must be re-routed away from profit-making in an unending effort to avoid the mental mines whose triggers are sensitive and perpetually in danger of activation.

Since judicious considerations of fair play remain well beyond the reach of most, especially those whose intellectual bent is rigidly geared toward the competitive acquisition of bragging rights generally reserved for those individuals that pursue the accumulation of action-oriented accomplishments, means be damned, the workplace becomes a passively hostile feint, counter-feint mind fuck of a battle field in which excelling will be limited to a chosen few. The greater the ambition, the more one’s colleagues’ skills are perceived as mere tools on which to capitalize and hijack.

Humanistic compassion becomes an indulgent, idealistic concept that is shunned as a weakness – a contagion to be obliterated. Any show of humanity, or similar behavior that is interpreted as a concomitant flaw, is deemed imprudent and foolish and as such, an impediment to future advancement.

Unchecked ambition creates an insidious, downward spiral that most don’t even realize they’ve fallen victim to until it’s too late to be safely extricated from the vortex. People unwittingly become enmeshed in the subterfuge to such an extent as to be indistinguishable from the herd - nothing more than automatons going through the motions of a scripted life. Ignoring the burden of humanity’s ills sans compassion is the best defense mechanism there is against the even more onerous responsibility of cognizance, so the game continues to be played without conscience or constraint.

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When a business is profitable and the momentum is on a solidly upward swing, some measure of sanity can be enjoyed by an office’s denizens. Conversely, the party really gets pumping once the scent of a downsizing starts to drift through the ductwork, slowly revealing itself as a faintly acrid scent of unemployment, the accumulating stench wafting down from the top of the food chain working its descent through the corridors to eventually strike the least fortunate - you know, those who start chattering nervously about needing to polish their resumes while furiously calculating how ends can be met on a meager severance package and a dwindling 401k account – replete with outstanding loan, and shockingly modest, below poverty level unemployment benefits.

Sometimes the frenzy of financial planning gets interrupted by a thought, ever so fleeting but with great residual value that perhaps all is not yet lost. What a short-listed employee lacks in financial resources adequate to sustain his current lifestyle can be compensated for by attempting to turn the destructive focus onto someone else – like maybe the guy in the office down the hall who isn’t saddled with a wife and kids and a mortgage and college payments or any other onerous expense that would make him more deserving of keeping his job.

Whatever sense of job security one might have previously clung to is best abandoned once the subtle threats of termination are intentionally tossed off within earshot of the usual suspects of first-round pink slip recipients. The true essence of one’s character is tested under such conditions and soon enough everyone starts feeling the strain of suspicion, even against long-term colleagues, whose standing invitations to weekend barbeques have been a summertime staple for years.

Employees feeling less secure about their future employment prospects will start running their hands under their desks, checking their computers for keystroke recorders, or better yet engage one of their IT colleagues in an off-the-record friendly conversation to inquire if their phone extension has recently been plugged in to the Racal recording device.

Even if your help desk associate tells you that he couldn’t possibly divulge that type of information without himself coming under the close scrutiny of the cadre of senior management elite, you’ll know by his demeanor if you need to monitor your every telephonic communication as if ‘they’ were listening with deterministic intensity, gathering evidence to make that ultimate decision of which employees, by dint of being privy to your carefully worded conversations with colleagues and loved ones alike, are to be given the hard boot.

However, only the most optimistic of employees can maintain a positive outlook once the calls from Human Resources start to flood the phone lines of fellow cube-mates, one-by-one as the cacophony of ring tones begins to deafen and smiles fade away, pulled downward by the impending dread, personal belongings are scooped up and quickly stuffed into hastily constructed cardboard boxes, coffee is left untouched and desks are abandoned while an unrestrained panic begins to spread amongst the rank-and-file.

Those employees sporting a personnel file rife with spotty performance appraisals or those with marginal personalities will start to run through their internal databanks while attempting to recall every negative comment they ever made about any superior officer, directly or otherwise, in a vain attempt to thwart any repercussions that might arise and be used as a destructive justification for winning the severance package lottery.

A prudent gut always forewarns against engaging in incendiary commentary as experience teaches that in due course, those details will be thrown right back up at you at the most inopportune time and in front of people who salivate at the possibility of transmuting those tidbits of gossip into alchemized gold.

Possessing the discretion sufficient to maintain self-control, especially when one’s proclivity is to upset the balance of an environment in order to make a point or right a perceived wrong, is frequently an elusive prospect. The eventual negative impact that inappropriate decision making can have on an individual’s future career trajectory creates the barrier from which forward movement becomes an unrealized dream.

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Chapter 1

The King is Dead, Long Live the King!

Refusing to stand alone and feeling far safer inhabiting a space in which a tightly linked network of allies was available to buffer his sensitive soul against the aggressiveness of the notoriously competitive, gotcha-mentality environment thriving within the company’s New York office, Stephan, aka the Big Guy, upon his arrival at the branch in the latter part of the year in which a painful reorganization and downsizing was being engineered by senior management at the Head Office, decided to mark his territory by immediately seizing control.

Stephan strategically scheduled interviews to only include key personnel, i.e., officers that were also members of management, in possession of advanced degrees, and duly deferential to his greater authority. He dedicated every meeting with Charles, the First Vice President of Human Resources, in addition to countless hours in his home office / guest room, to sizing up each candidate for possible inclusion within his inner circle. The alternative to membership was exile and resentment so he took great pains first to identify and then make a conscious choice not to alienate those whose personality types promised a higher-than-usual probability of taking retributive action down the road. He was an ardent believer that keeping one’s enemies close was more than just a trite adage.

The Big Guy was a military strategist at heart so straight away began devising a plan to helm the workplace as a warrior General overseeing a civilized battlefield: his passion to succeed was palpable. He would rather have failed at almost anything else but when his thoughts turned to leadership, a perfect fit for his recently acquired M.B.A., his second post-graduate degree and a greater source of pride than being awarded his Masters in Economics, he felt a responsibility to provide the best possible governance to those whose lives and careers would depend on the strength of his management skills and soundness of his business acumen.

Managing the lending side of banking was never something he worried about doing well as he tended to have a natural’s instinct about which business lines were best to pursue, where funding would be kept to a minimum, and which were best suited to withstand potentially long lasting economic downturns.

The Head Office had carefully identified the most capable candidates to whom consideration for an overseas assignment would be given, inviting each one, in succession, to sit with them while they extolled the benefits that would be heaped upon them if they were to accept.

You should feel honored to be here with us today, they assured everyone, employing their well-worn script.

Once your tour-of-duty is over, you’ll be offered a plum choice of assignments back at the Head Office. Not only that, you’ll be receiving a New York City level salary plus a generous housing allowance which, if you play your cards right, can be alchemized into a significant addition to your retirement fund!

At the conclusion of the proceedings, each member of the Head Office transition team was stunned; every last one of the managers named on the list of Candidates for Possible Relocation refused the post outright, citing an unwillingness to be subjected to the potential dangers that a long-term exposure to the idiocy of the average American could produce.

Stephan was finally approached, choice number eleven on the original list of ten nominees. The transition team exhaled a collective sigh of relief when several positive nods and a few hearty laughs were his response to their offer during their initial meeting with him. He agreed to relocate to New York primarily for the opportunity to conduct feet-on-the-ground observations of those infamously hard-assed New Yorkers, with an added bonus of satiating his seemingly bottomless curiosity about the culture adapted by his country’s heretofore loyal compatriots.

He remembered reading about and being fascinated by the debacle of the Kitty Genovese murder case in which multiple witnesses demonstrated apparent apathy in the face of a vicious attack on a defenseless woman by not taking active action upon hearing her bloody screams when she so obviously was being brutalized. As an ardent student of the human condition, he was equally horrified and excited to delve into that cultural psyche in an attempt to construct some form of rational explanation.

Stephan was rapidly approaching retirement age; the bump in pay would factor nicely into his quest to purchase a bed and breakfast in Provence, a wonderful environment in which he and his wife could retire while also making a steady income in which to meet their household expenses.

Europeans preferred to keep their management pool from showing too much wear, then dying on the job – bad for morale. They rationalized their decision to court Stephan as less of a Hail Mary pass, than an inspired choice. They spruced-up their offer by promising him at least four but most likely a six-year stint in the States. The package included an amply padded ex-patriot’s stipend to more than cover the cost of a modest rental in the exorbitant Manhattan rental market, two fully paid holidays per annum back to the mother country for his immediate family, which in his case meant only he and his wife as his children, being over the age of twenty-one, were prohibited from partaking in that particular perk, in addition to a healthy retirement package sufficient to send him off in style at the end of his contract. The sell was hard and irresistible with only a hint of desperation wafting from the Head Office orifice.

As far back as the clarity of his recollections would allow him to wander, Stephan felt driven by an intellectual and physical restlessness, exhibiting these characteristics without restraint or conscience, so decided that embracing the challenge of uprooting his life and his wife, the kids were not part of the relocation package, in pursuit of the Great American Adventure was a perfect next step in his end game career.

Stephan’s wife was a university professor. Although not entirely thrilled with relocating to a foreign country for such an extended stay, she refused to remain home while her husband was left unfettered in a limitless New York City, so negotiated an agreement with the administration at Hunter College to teach a few courses in literary classics to the poor sods stuck in the doldrums of the City University of New York’s comparatively substandard educational system. Secondary to keeping vigilant control over her husband’s wandering, lustful eyes she also had hopes of extolling the beauty and passion found in great literature to the American illiterati.

She’d recently read a research paper revealing the sad statistics that the average high school graduation rate in the United States hovered at around 75% while the rankings for math and science proficiency had fallen away at an alarming rate, no longer universally competitive, having lost ground to the student bodies of several Far and Southeast Asian countries. If the proliferation of reality television programs coupled with the preponderance of low-brow American culture were any indication of the extent to which a rescue was warranted, she supposed her valiant intervention would be greatly appreciated and rewarded.

Although the intellectual acumen required for gleaning the depths of a Dostoevsky, Wilde or Voltaire is not quite on par with wending one’s way through the myriad details required to grasp the complexity of quantum mechanics, there are insights about the human condition to be culled from the classics to which people with limited vision might not otherwise be made aware.

The Big Guy was already positioning himself to use his wife’s connections with the literati as a conduit to ingratiate himself within the intelligentsia of New York society and demonstrate to them how several hundred additional years of fashioning a civilized society worked toward cultivating a more evolved, complex outlook on life. He saw Americans as the perennial adolescent in need of a swift kick to move them into the next phase of emotional maturity. Certainly, his considerable wisdom would be welcomed and rewarded with invitations pouring in from so many groups that he’d need a secretary just to manage his social calendar.

Being none too fond of and having little respect for his predecessor Gerard, Stephan chose not to seek his counsel during the transition phase regarding the personalities of management personnel. He even refused to read any of the prior performance appraisals authored by Gerard, as he considered the value of his opinion to fall into negative integers.

Rumors about the Big Guy’s management style had been circulating around the branch ever since the announcement was made that he would be supplanting Gerard forthwith. It takes quite a questionable personality type to earn tepid or worse yet, downright negative reviews from one’s compatriots as the Head Office management machine was inclined to avoid making any uncomplimentary comments so it came as a sickening shock to everyone when eyes were averted and circuitous, opaque comments about the Big Guy were fed back to the local office.

‘Uh-oh, that can’t be good’, and, ‘shields up!’ were the responses most commonly expressed by the plebes whenever the patricians tried to convey such disturbingly dubious information about Stephan with a positive spin. However broadly they managed to stretch their smiles or upbeat they pitched their vocal inflections, the message of impending doom was painfully clear to all, which created unease within the plebe cadre who made a collective decision to remain united and steel themselves for the worst possible situation until receiving reliable intel that it was safe to breathe again.

As virtual lifers at the company, the plebes had been through and survived quite a few changes in management over the years and, although far enough removed to not have to work side-by-side with Stephan on a day-to-day basis, nonetheless thought it prudent, until time and behavior advised them it was safe to act otherwise, to keep one eye on their work while the other was trained on the Big Guy’s movements.

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Chapter 2

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble – The Formation of the Inner Sanctum

The first person with whom the Big Guy formed an alliance was Charles, the Metrosexual First Vice President in charge of Human Resources. Because Charles was so well groomed amid a torrent of untucked, business casual appropriate shirts coupled with the ubiquitous khaki trousers that invariably toppled over onto one’s never-polished shoes, his perfectly appointed appearance couldn’t have been more suave if he had come to work dressed in a tuxedo. The men were jealous of his good looks, handsomely contoured blond hair that fell just north of his shoulders and blue eyes that simultaneously intimidated and welcomed; the women simply dreamed about him. His cordial manner oozed of good breeding although he never sought to flaunt it. He frequented the gym, was unmarried and comfortably into his late thirties, which provided fodder for the mounting rounds of hand-sniffing that he must be gay. That the Big Guy took an immediate liking to him only raised everyone’s level of suspicion even further; they simply assumed that Charles’ attractive feminine wiles were in full, exploitive bloom.

All of senior management wished they could have been Stephan’s first, most valuable confidant but knowing that they’d collectively lost the race to someone else, a pretty boy no less, left them slumming for crumbs, behaving like nauseatingly sycophantic beggars. Stephan found Charles to be an agreeable enough fellow with a sufficiently developed sense of humor and an appreciation for his at-times off color commentary. He required a counterpart that was able to play off of him without being obvious or specifically directed to do so.

Considering the upheaval that lay ahead, it was imperative that the inner circle include a tight-knit cadre of individuals, each one deserving of the trust he would be placing with them, as the core group could not withstand internal dissention, dim-wittedness or even the occasional attempted mutiny; having to censor his remarks would have put a clamp on his flights of inspiration. Under the best case scenario, Stephan would prefer to experience the full simpatico of the entire compliment of management but absent that dream, having Charles steadfastly behind him would have to provide comfort enough.

I’ve drafted the branch’s hierarchically drawn organization charts. The last few pages contain the lowest level drill-downs so we don’t need to waste any time considering any of those names.

Charles was furiously riffling through each of the twenty pages of organization charts, segregating them into the appropriate piles of: upper, middle and lower management, followed by a pile that he placed just outside of the Big Guy’s field of vision, with rows of boxes containing the names of the supervisory, administrative, operations and clerical personnel.

I pulled the employee files for everyone in the upper management quadrant. They stand the highest probability of inclusion within your core group. I’m assuming you’ll want a cross-section of individuals from different disciplines? Charles paused and took notice of The Big Guy’s lips, which had visibly tightened in on themselves. Being the shrewd observer that he believed himself to be, he quickly changed gears.

Alrighty then. Not a problem. Definitely the money-centric guys, but not the bean-counters. Operations personnel? Women? Okay – again, not a problem. We’ll just abstract them from the piles for an end-game review, pause, if necessary.

Charles registered every movement, every affectation exhibited by the Big Guy - changes in the depth and rate of his breathing, his vocal nuances, how forcefully his body changed positions after he’d been presented with myriad tidbits of both upbeat and disturbing content, categorizing and storing those responses in his own mental file server as every insight into the manifestations of Stephan’s machinations offered unrealized future value. He knew intelligent, ambitious people to have complex thought processes and Stephan, being of that ilk in addition to being the one to whom he directly reported, warranted his efforts and attention in spades – especially so since he had been selected to sit at the right hand of the father.

Time was tight; the Big Guy had requested that the core team be assembled tout de suite. Decisive expediency was the best way in which to set the tone within the branch, leaving very little over which people could endlessly obsess. Ambiguity regarding one’s standing within an organization carry far more dangers than knowing conclusively that you’ve been relegated to the bottom of the slag heap. The Big Guy’s advanced degree studies taught him that subordinates generally felt more secure in their jobs and were consequently more productive when their position in the pecking order, even if not necessarily to their liking, was unambiguously communicated.

He sought to accomplish that feat early on by awarding someone with a title, an office - with or without a window, or a cubicle, the most desirable of which was set far back from pedestrian traffic, or simply by ignoring a person’s existence except under the most urgent circumstances. Of course, not everyone would be happy with his/her newly designated station, but at least that person would know with whom he/she could form alliances, which would clearly define what they were sure to start railing about.

The Big Guy craved the chaos borne from the formation of opposing factions because it allowed loyalties to be constructed and reconstructed based on a combination of solid, reliable management directive mixed with a smattering of gossip, minor variations of which would be tossed in from time-to-time to prevent the environment from becoming mind-numbingly predictable. Boredom over a prolonged period tended to propel Stephan into spurts of self-immolation, which made his efforts to externalize his curiosity about reactions to traumatic events seem almost rational.

Charles handed over eight folders containing the personnel files of the best possible candidates for consideration of inclusion into the inner sanctum – an exclusive invitation for membership within the committee, destined to house the most entitled, notable officers at the branch. Charles noted that the Big Guy took possession of the folders while slightly nodding in the affirmative with impressed appreciation at such efficiency. He then handed over an additional, separate bundle of four employee files to be placed on the List of Intermediate Managers for Possible Disengagement or Imminent Consideration for Kneepad membership.

Charles had reached out to the Big Guy, commencing a correspondence with him via email the moment after the change in management became official. He didn’t consider his pre-emptive actions as posturing although the rumors floating about the office decisively concluded otherwise. Preparing himself to successfully navigate the changing tides seemed prudent rather than sycophantic as it saved him from suffering through the anxiety that an eleventh-hour bout of scrambling to capture useful information would have caused had he waited until after the Big Guy’s arrival in New York to commence that laborious, getting-to-know-you process. The insight he gleaned from those communications was invaluable, allowing him to disengage from the noise and continue implementing his methodology, guided by an instinct that was buttressed by fact. The preparations also provided him with a feeling of calm reassurance that he was on the right path.

The Big Guy only hoped that Charles’ self-confidence was well founded; otherwise, he’d be looking through those files for an HR replacement as well. Stephan took possession of the folders and rather than review each one with Charles standing over him, anxiously anticipating his questions and eagerly awaiting an opportunity to impress him with his wealth of insight into each candidate, he thanked Charles profusely for his diligent efforts and left the conference room for the sanctuary of his own office.

On paper, everyone looked so similar that their job descriptions, resumes and profitability statistics were nearly indistinguishable from one another. Stephan referred to them in the collective as a blended scotch, the ultimate Uni-Banker. He tried not to get too dismayed since he found that personnel at the Head Office were no different in their approach to blending-in to be accepted; people are people, regardless of their geography, he mused.

It had become quite a challenge to distinguish one professional colleague from any other, as adroit as people had gotten at wearing the ubiquitous uniform with a snug fit. The unavoidable downside to requiring that bankers come equipped with the same pedigree is that you end up with automatons rather than individualists. Free-thinking personalities were frowned upon as subversive, judgmental and elitist. Decisions must be ratified by consensus with each step in the process documented by a committee secretary and placed on permanent record. Promoting the antithesis of chaos was Stephan’s outward mission statement; his contrary-leaning, internal machinations were his alone to savor. Let the games begin!

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Chapter 3

The Classic, Well-Groomed Metro and Undeniably Hetero Sexual Human Resources Director

Charles’ transformation into a Human Resources specialist, a decision made after it became painfully clear that a change in professional gears was all but imperative, was plagued by several spasms of self-doubt about the wisdom of embarking on a profession perceived predominately as feminine. His college-days’ work experience included internships consisting of everything from puppeteering during his freshman and sophomore years to, after leaving behind his rebellious teens, forming a non-profit group called Cycling for Humanity, which raised money for causes ranging from providing opportunities to ensure educational equality in the inner-city classroom, to designing, renovating and managing secure facilities to house battered women.

Charles’ educational pedigree consisted