Corporate Guy
A semi-fictional story
Last week, I published the 2023 Always Care Community Top Ten posts. The world almost had reason to lose all hope in AI and algorithms when second place went to a post about plastic-wrapped bananas and sweaty cheese.
Fortunately, the runaway winner was a deserving shoutout to the legendary leaders of Rezidor, a hotel company that grew from a small Scandinavian chain to become one of the world’s largest hotel groups.
I’ve previously told the story about how I thrived at the company that didn’t want to hire me, and I’m truly grateful for having had the experience to grow along with the company for over thirty years.
This week, as many around the world are reflecting on the year that has passed and reciting resolutions for the years to come, I’ve chosen to share another side of a long life in the corporate world.
This is the semi-fictional story of Corporate Guy.
Outside his window, silent streets amplified the many memories the empty inbox brought back. The company he worked for had often treated him like a wallflower at a high school dance.
Except in times of crisis. An audit of the safety and security programme he’d created had amazed the external experts that carried it out. They’d never seen a company where the corporate programme was well known all the way down to the front lines. There was only one problem.
“When we ask what they would do in a crisis, everyone simply says they’ll call you.”
The secret to promotion
At his very first job interview, the manager told him he was unwanted.
“You’re too old and too educated to be a security guard."
The only other applicant for the bottom-of-the-ladder role withdrew and thus began three decades of unwavering loyalty to the company.
His first promotion came two years later when the manager and three colleagues sought greener pastures on the other side of town.
An often overlooked secret to climbing the career ladder is not to follow others when they jump ship. Staying loyal to the company quickly bumped him up the seniority list.
Shortly after the promotion, he was recruited to help develop the most covert plan in the country.
“I don’t want you”, the man in the trench coat said, ”We can’t get security clearance for you but there’s no alternative.”
For some reason, people with military and government agency backgrounds believe that only other people with military and government agency backgrouunds can be trusted with secrets.
Corporate Guy could keep a secret better than most. He shared more information than any of his predecessors had. The more you share, the less people look for things you might be hiding.
Besides, if he had told anyone that he was helping to plan the funeral of a healthy monarch who enjoyed god-like status in the country, he might have joined burned-out colleagues who crowded a local psychiatric ward.
When Iraq invaded Kuwait, a senior leader wanted him terminated from his role.
“Why don’t you have a plan for when one of our hotels gets taken over by an invading foreign army?”
He wasn’t fired. A few months later, CNN reporters Wolf Blitzer and Bernard Shaw became household names around the world:
“The skies over Bagdad have been illuminated!”, reported Shaw.
“Bluebook has been activated.”, said the voice on the phone an hour later.
“Your King has died. I have to go to work. I’ll be home in ten days.”, he told his sleeping wife.
“I don’t want to be married to you anymore.”, his then-wife said when he returned to his then-home. She didn’t like secrets
Career advice
He was asked to leave at lunch on day one of the first corporate team-building event he was invited to.
“Your personality test result says you’re a “cold fish” and might be disruptive in a group.”, the facilitator said, adding that it was her first time facilitating leadership training so she thought she’d be more comfortable if only “normal people” attended.”
During a wildcat strike at the hotel, a member of parliament he didn’t know, compared him to Joseph Goebbels.
Management didn’t publicly call out the libellous accusation. Instead, he was promoted to a corporate role. His job as head of safety and security wasn’t considered “important enough” and he was also tasked with administrating a runaway loyalty programme.
Administrating a travel agent commission payment programme and a database marketing programme were added to his part-time job of overseeing safety and security for one of Europe’s fastest-growing hotel companies.
Mounting piles of paperwork threatened to bury him.
He mentioned his untenable workload during an annual review with a senior HR leader.
“You’re too quiet. Even you should know that only squeaky wheels get greased. Introverts can’t be successful in hospitality companies. You need to change to succeed.”
Nothing changed.
A temporary manager found him in his office late on a Sunday evening and gave him some advice.
“Go home, go out, go somewhere, but get a life!”
Learning the hard way
Before transferring to a new country, he asked his soon-to-be-manager about taxes.
“As expats, we pay very little income tax.”
When his paycheque arrived, 49% tax was deducted. He was making less than he had before he was promoted. He was also living in a hotel room without a bathroom and struggling to find housing in a challenging market.
“I thought you said ex-pats hardly pay any income tax.”, he asked his manager.
“You’re not an expat.”, was the answer.
His “expat” manager was from a neighbouring country. Corporate Guy came from the far side of the planet.
“I think it’s best if people like you learn the hard way.”, said the manager.
While he was on vacation, congratulatory emails rolled in.
Without being consulted or informed, he’d been promoted to a Vice President role.
“We needed to do that so we could put you on the insider’s list when we go through our IPO.”, the CFO said.
The manager who thought it was best to learn the hard way was being transferred to a high-risk country. As head of security, Corporate Guy was tasked with preparing people to live and work safely in their new surroundings.
He called his former manager to set up a meeting.
“I assume that in this instance, you’d prefer not to learn the hard way.”
The ethics of awards
The company was encouraged to apply for an ethics award.
“How much does it cost?”, his boss asked.
“It’s an ethics award, there is no cost to apply”, Corporate Guy replied.
He showed his boss the award requirements and the companies that had previously won the award.
“We’ll never get it.”, his superior wasn’t optimistic.
When all the paperwork was done, the application was submitted, surprisingly, a “Congratulations!” response was received along with an invitation to attend the official award event in New York. He shared the good news with his boss.
“I’m going.”, said his boss. “I will represent the company.”
The parent company gave a lifetime achievement award to a key person from each of its subsidiaries every year. Winners and spouses were invited to a lavish ceremony and everything was documented in the subsidiary’s in-house magazine.
In 2014, he was shocked when the parent company informed him he had been selected as an award winner.
On awards day, he was surprised to learn that there was an event for all the nominees. His company had not informed him that he was nominated.
The evening ceremony was like the Oscars with tribute videos, speeches, and amazing entertainment.
It cost $2000 for his wife to join him. His boss didn’t attend the ceremony nor did his company celebrate his award as they had for their previous winners. Rumour said they had nominated someone else and were disappointed when the parent company board overruled them.
“You could have applied for us to reimburse your wife’s travel.”, he was later told.
The unlikely profit centre
“In security, every interaction you have with a guest or a colleague will be preceded by a negative event.”, his first boss had said.
Later, as he learned how much companies focused on the safety of travelling personnel and the security of the information those travellers had access to, he built relationships with corporate security leaders at some of the most important corporate clients.
“Why is he spending so much time talking to people outside our company? Is he looking for a new job?”, a C-suite executive asked.
A year later, those companies had grown their business with the hotel company three times more than the average corporate client. Corporate security was more of a revenue generator than a cost centre.
He proudly showed the numbers to his boss.
“Your numbers must be wrong.”
“They’re not my numbers, we got them from Sales.”
The head of global sales was summoned to look at the numbers.
“I think maybe we had a special campaign for those companies.”, Sales Guy suggested. “My sales teams deserve their bonuses.”
“Don’t worry, they will! Security doesn’t get sales bonuses.”, Corporate Guy calmed the air.
“Shouldn’t you concentrate on security?”, his boss raised the tension again.
“This only happens because we’re concentrating on meeting our clients’ security needs. Just like we ask guests for their feedback, we asked our contracts what their companies’ needs and expectations were. We built relationships. Security is my job, hotels are my business”, Corporate Guy said.
Once a wallflower, always a wallflower
During the final annual business meeting he attended, crisis management was activated due to the terrorist attacks in Brussels. While supporting the company's crisis response, he had to wing his presentation to the attendees. Some were moved to tears. As he always did, he went to the banquet early to check the facilities for safety and security. When the guests filed in, he approached several tables but was told all the empty seats were spoken for. When everyone arrived, there were no vacant seats. He spent the evening in the shadows chatting with servers and security personnel.
The certificate for his 30 years of service was handed to him in his car when he drove himself and his new boss to lunch. The CEO was scheduled to join them but pulled out at the last moment. He was unaware the lunch was to mark his 30 years of service. Had he known, he would have invited his wife.
In 2017, shortly before a scheduled Christmas vacation, his boss, who usually cancelled their meetings, invited him for a coffee at five in the afternoon.
It wasn’t about coffee and a chat, it was to inform him that the company wanted him to fire three of his direct reports to save costs. One of them was disabled, one had thirty-five years of seniority and was less than two years from retirement.
He offered to resign so his colleagues could keep their jobs. It was also a better financial move for the company and allowed them to continue to provide tactical support while they searched for a new strategic leader. It was a win-win-win solution.
He remained on call until the morning after his last official day with the company, six months after he resigned. That same month, a jury of his peers named him the most influential corporate security executive in the world.
There was no official goodbye. There wasn’t even a memo. He was told the rumour mill was rife with stories about him being fired.
Epilogue
“If it was so bad, why did you stay?”, he was asked.
As usual, his response was to tell a story.
Many years after he’d been afraid to use the main entrance on the way to the interview at the hotel that didn’t want to hire him, he returned there on a business visit. As he entered the lobby, he saw a cleaning attendant vacuuming. The cleaning attendant had been a refugee. Security people scared him. They first met when the cleaning attendant, shaking with fear, had crawled across the floor to collect the trash bin in Corporate Guy’s office. Over time, they’d become friends. Now, all these years later, when he noticed him the cleaner stopped vacuuming, smiled and gave Corporate Guy a huge hug. “Look at me, I’m still alive and look at you, still heading for the stars!”
“I stayed because my role wasn’t about climbing a corporate ladder. I was motivated by making our hotels safer places for guests to stay, and better places for people like A.K. to work.”, Corporate Guy said.
In the corporate world, you can behave like a North Korean politician and bow to the bosses, or you can do the right things for the right reasons.
That might slow your career path and it won’t put you behind the wheel of a Porsche or earn you a mansion, but it will earn respect from the people who count and the people who count on you.
Stay safe, Always Care
Written with the clarity of hindsight, the accuracy of a faded memory, and countless creative liberties, 87 Stories is a journal of how my gap year lasted four decades, made me an emigrant, an immigrant and gave me a life I never dreamed of.
In addition to my love for writing, I’m a professor, an educator, and a consultant with a passion for hotels, hospitality, and keeping people safe during their travels.
I’ve been told that my specialty is saving bacon.
Thanks for being part of the Always Care Community. Your support is my motivation and I’m genuinely grateful that you’re here. Please share, subscribe, and connect with me.
Wheww what an ending and what a great life story, Paul! Thank you for sharing it.
I always ran away from the corporate life, I wanted to be free, to make a difference, to blaze my own trail. But in a few months I'll celebrate my 5th anniversary at my first corporate job in 20 years, and your lessons are invaluable. We can always make a difference, no matter where we are. It's all on us.