Lightning Rods

ANONYMITY GUARANTEED

Now it was Joe’s belief that in the long run a company that wanted to include lightning rods in its team for the twenty-first century had only one option: to outsource all personnel recruitment. Otherwise how are you going to guarantee anonymity? If you just outsource the lightning rods somebody in the company is going to know which employees are handled by personnel and which are handled by an outside firm, and if that person happens to know why the outside firm was taken on that person is going to be able to identify the members of staff who are providing an extra service for the company.

The thing was, though, that there was no way in the world that he was going to persuade a company to hand over its entire personnel operations to an outsider. The actual service he was providing was radical enough without challenging received opinion on personnel.

The important thing is not necessarily to persuade someone straight off the bat to do something in some totally different way; the important thing is that you need to be aware of what your ultimate aim is.

What Joe did, anyway, was he left the whole question of personnel strictly out of bounds. He simply explained that, given the importance of anonymity, his company would have to handle all temporary personnel requirements. Some of the temps provided would be lightning rods; some would not. At the end of a six-month period they would review the success of the program.

The client obviously put up a fight. He said that this was a lot more far-reaching than he had originally anticipated.

Joe said, “Look, Steve. I’m not even going to try to persuade you. I’m just going to ask you to think about this for a minute. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. These women are not prostitutes. Now just think about what that means. These are qualified professionals who could walk into any job you care to name and get top dollar. I don’t need to tell you that they’re being asked to accept an element of risk. All they’ve got is my word for it that their anonymity will be respected; that the choice they’ve made goes no further than my office. I’m not about to do anything to jeopardize that for a short-term gain. I don’t want it on my conscience if some gal who’s made a big contribution to a company in good faith ends up being stigmatized because of short-sighted personnel arrangements. Nossir. It’s of the utmost importance that any administrative arrangements made to process this personnel should appear to be no different from the arrangements made to process single-function members of staff.”

“I see what you’re saying,” said Steve. “But as I’m sure you’ll appreciate this is quite an upheaval for something that is just a trial flight.”

“I certainly do appreciate that, Steve,” said Joe. “But if you think about it, in the longer term this represents an opportunity for substantial savings. I don’t need to tell you what it costs to hire as permanent staff someone who has initially worked for you as a temp. That’s not the way I do business. If at the end of the six-month period you decide not to pursue the provision of lightning rods at that time, that’s fine. If you decide to hire one or more of the ladies we’ve introduced to the organization, that’s fine too. No strings. No introduction fee. The only thing you won’t be getting is the lightning rod provision. All I ask is that as long as you do make use of the service, you pay a flat fee for a fixed number of lightning rods which is not associated with any one individual or individuals in any way. My agency will distribute remuneration in accordance with the services being provided; you don’t need to know which particular individuals are providing them.”

“Huh,” said Steve.

“I think I need to think about it,” said Steve, after a pause.

Any salesman knows that the last thing you want is for the target to think about it.

“Tell you what,” said Joe. “Let’s go and have a look at the disabled toilets.”

They went down the hall to the Men’s Room. There was a big cubicle at the end of the room for disabled users. The Ladies Room was next door. They didn’t go into the Ladies Room but Steve explained that it too included a large cubicle for disabled users.

The Ladies Room was obviously not labeled “Ladies,” but Steve, as head of the company, got irritated whenever he passed female toilets labeled “Women,” so he had put his foot down. There was just a little icon on the door. Since the Ladies Room just had an icon on the door this meant the Men’s Room had to have an icon on the door too, and then the disabled stall had an icon of a wheelchair.

Steve and Joe went into the cubicle to look around.

“You know,” said Steve, “we provide better facilities for a type of employee who would be in a minority if we even happened to have one, which we don’t, than for the hundreds of able-bodied employees we actually happen to have.”

“Exactly,” said Joe. “There’s absolutely no reason why this space should not be put to use to promote the well-being of employees actually on the staff. Now speaking for myself I have every sympathy for individuals who have the misfortune to be crippled or malformed in some way which interferes with the normal function of going to the toilet, I think they have a tough row to hoe and I give them a lot of credit for that. A lot of credit. I mean, I personally wouldn’t like to have to manoeuver myself out of a wheelchair every time I wanted to use the john, and I think it’s up to those of us who are more fortunate not to put any unnecessary obstacles in their way. At the same time, when all’s said and done, I think it’s possible to go too far the other way.”

“Next thing you know they’ll be wanting me to put in a jacuzzi,” said Steve. “It’s not that I’m unsympathetic, but this kind of PC crap really gets my goat. Next thing you know they’ll be taking me to court for not installing a sauna.”

“You said it,” said Joe. His eyes scanned the room. “Now the way I see it,” he said, “is this could be modified to suit our purposes at a very reasonable cost. You said it backs onto the disabled cubicle in the Ladies; couldn’t be better. We knock a hole in the wall connecting the two compartments, and install an inconspicuous transporter for the gal. We also install a simple dispenser for condoms and lubricant, disguised as a unit for dispensing extra toilet rolls, and a simple disposal unit.”

“I think I need to think about it,” said Steve.

“You bet,” said Joe. He put his hands in his pockets. “You know, I really gotta hand it to you,” he said, surveying the cubicle. “You really provide a first-class facility. You may not know this, but not all disabled toilets provide a sink at the right level.”

“You don’t say,” said Steve.

“Of course, having a sink in the cubicle could be quite convenient from a hygienic point of view for individuals using the cubicle for purposes for which it was not originally designed,” said Joe. “We would hope that individuals would take care to clean up after themselves so as not to inconvenience or offend legitimate disabled users of the toilet.”

Steve laughed. “You son of a bitch,” he said. “Hell, I don’t know.”

He opened the door of the cubicle to pace up and down along the urinals.

“You may have a point,” he said. The fact that he had already agreed was neither here nor there, often it’s only after agreeing to buy something that a customer begins to realize how much he would like not to buy it.

“You should see some of the hot shots we get these days,” he said. “Straight out of college and they’re on a hundred grand a year. In my day you didn’t see that kind of money till you were thirty. In my day you thought you had something to prove. Well, you’d think the positive side of it would be you’d get staff who knew how to deal with liberated women. I know I’m too old to learn, but at that age they should have been growing up around women expecting to be treated as equals. Instead we get behavior that—well, all I can say is, we wouldn’t have expected to get away with it thirty years ago, and that was before they started taking people to court for opening a door or some damn thing.”

A good salesman knows when to let the customer do the talking. Joe waited sympathetically at the door to the disabled cubicle.

“I tell you frankly I’ve seen things that made my hair stand on end. The whole thing is a minefield. I’ve explained to a couple of the more egregious offenders that there are no certainties, the fact that a young woman is wearing high heels does not mean she can be guaranteed not to sue you. I don’t mind telling you that some of these men are a lawsuit waiting to happen. This idea of yours may not be in the best of taste, but from where I’m standing it looks like more of a solution to a genuine problem of nightmare proportions than anything else I’ve seen. To be honest, it’s something a man of my generation has trouble with, but the younger men are a different breed. We can’t do business without them, or we’ll lose our competitive edge; but I have to say I’m getting sick and tired of wondering when some girl is going to get awarded $1 million in damages because the firm didn’t protect her from their shenanigans. How the hell am I or anyone else supposed to protect her, for the love of Mike? Well, if they want protection I’ll give ’em protection. Send me a contract and we’ll get the builders in.”