FOREWORD

(From The Wall Street Journal, December 29, 1980)

Manager's Journal

The Hawaiian Room

By John Rocchi

The author, who is using a pseudonym, was formerly

an officer with a major New York company.

They joked a lot about it in the executive dining room, and at least once during every annual officers' banquet someone with a few drinks under his belt would imitate a guitar playing "Aloha" and get a big laugh, but I don't think any of them seriously believed that they would ever end up in the Hawaiian Room. I certainly didn't.

Things had gone reasonably well for me over the years: steady salary increases, good performance reviews and a number of promotions which led to a comfortable spot in a job I enjoyed.

But then last year, the company re-organized some of its divisions, and my job was abolished. The personnel department assured me that I would be successfully placed elsewhere within the company. To spare me embarrassment, it was suggested I remain at my desk and continue what was left of my normal activities. But I soon learned that others in the company weren't exactly clamoring for the services of a middle-aged man with a large family and a specialized background.

After three months of fruitless search, the personnel officer advised me that all avenues of inquiry had been exhausted. He handed me the company telephone directory and suggested I scan through it and try to find anyone who, through friendship or past associations, might offer me a job. I stared at the book for a moment or two, thinking of the wife and the kids and the mortgage, laying it back on his desk without anger but advising him that I would prefer to move on to the Outplacement Center, the infamous Hawaiian Room. We were both relieved.

As I thought about it on my way home, it really didn't seem all that bad. I had been an officer in the company, and so I would be extended many benefits and privileges not offered to the regular staff: a phone, a desk, assistance in the preparation and printing of resumes, employment counselors if requested and, most important of all, full salary for up to a year while I was looking for a job. Any depression I had felt seemed to be gone now, because I wanted to leave as much as the company wanted me to go.

Also, and of the utmost importance in seeking a job, was that, in theory anyway, the whole procedure was to be treated with complete confidentiality. Outside inquirers were to be told that I had merely been transferred to another department--which explained the new phone number, and even placed me in a better bargaining position in my overtures to prospective employers. After only two days in the Hawaiian Room, however, I began to get calls from headhunters, employment agencies and even outside business associates who were calling to offer their condolences. The Outplacement Center turned out to be a suite of separate offices off to the left of a long corridor. From time to time, during my first few days there, the whole group (there were usually from eight to 10 occupants) would get together for light and airy conversations, with no references to the real subject. Though I didn't know everybody, every effort was made at first to make the newcomer feel at home and among friends.

Gradually, the conversations became more serious on a one to one basis, with each recounting why he was there. Many had legitimate grievances, it seemed to me: bosses who were tyrants, scapegoats for the negligence of others, perhaps just at the wrong place at the wrong time. But there were of course obvious cases of drunks, chronic complainers and inept and totally unqualified executives, who probably deserved to be let go.

After a while, life fell into a regular pattern. Everyone was busy looking for work; some more, some less. Some men had told their families, some were delaying the bad news. And some, perhaps, would die with their secret, or what they hoped was a secret. Some men were continuously close to tears while others pretended a false bravado. Some sat in stunned silence; others were loudly adamant, retelling the story of the fate that had befallen them. For some, it was a blow from which they would never recover, while others just got up, went out and found a job and never looked back.

The most seriously affected seemed to be those who had been with the company all of their lives. Others who had been unbearable snobs, strutting arrogant peacocks during their careers, were also vulnerable, unable or unwilling to face their misfortune. And some of the saddest cases were those whose wives had left them because they were no longer members of the elite.

The worst days seemed to be toward the end of the week, especially on rainy or overcast days when some had elected to remain home. It was an eerie feeling, sitting alone with the silence broken only by the soft padding of the secretary passing by the door, the muffled sounds of the vice president jogging in place in the next office to relieve the tensions, or the quiet sobbing behind the closed door of the office at the end of the corridor. The atmosphere was closely akin to the solitary confinement scenes dramatized in "Papillon."

Not many ever again lunched in the executive dining room, most preferring to eat their lunch in a quiet corner of the regular employee cafeteria, sometimes almost shunned by their former associates who passed them in the halls with averted eyes, fearful of being "tainted" by any association which would impede their forward progress with the company.

There were days for rejoicing when a fellow inmate would land a good job, but these times were not that frequent, with many people still there close to a year and still looking. Eventually, they would be dropped from the payroll and never be heard from again. My time came too and, though I didn't have a job yet, my days in the Hawaiian Room were concluded.

Aloha.

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Reprinted with permission of The Wall Street Journal,