The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee. And I pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.
—John D. Rockefeller
As the feeling of claustrophobia became too much to bear, I finally decided to take a chance and look for another job. My wife and I both wanted to go back south, so I used a couple of vaca
tion days and flew to Atlanta, GA, for an interview with Rollins Outdoor. As part of the interview, I had to take some stringent psychological tests in the office of a prominent PhD who Rollins used to assess all of their management people plus top management recruits. The tests took a full day. At 4 pM in the afternoon I was told to take a break while the results were determined. At 5 pM, Dr. Wayne Helms called me into his office to give me the results. He was reluctant to spell out the details at first, but I prodded him to do it.
He finally agreed to share some post-test highlights with me, while I took notes. I saved the notes I took, and he finally, to start with, told me that I made a very good first impression. “Good eye contact, firm handshake, confident.” he said. He went on to say: IQ 127-132. Higher than 96% of the general population. Shows excellent learning ability. Missed only two on test for logic, rational thinking. (Four on vocabulary). Excellent problem solver. Excellent vocabulary. Clear choice of words.
On people, tests indicate like to spend 80% of time with them; only 20% as a hermit. Do require periods of solitude. But like people, controllable with these, warmhearted, outgoing, and can deal easily with all types.
Show complete confidence in self. Believe in self. Independent. Resourceful. Perfectionist. Not a procrastinator. Innovative. Decisive. Show initiative. Good aggressiveness. A realist.
Tactful. Diplomatic. Good emotional stability. Not volatile. Work well under pressure. Mentally tough. Goal-directed. Evaluate your performance on the bottom line, so no trouble establishing priorities.
Management style: training-orientated. Can work with all types of people, and not bothered by those you dislike. Treat people as individuals. Manage by objectives. Communicate well with everybody. Good crisis manager, turnaround manager.
So there it was. Everything my father said he needed but didn’t realize he had. And, probably, he didn’t really want, or least want to recognize in his son. I’d learned a great deal from my father over the years, entrepreneurial wizard that he was, but it was good to confirm that in my case, as the 1974 song by America went, “Oz never did give nothin’ to the Tin Man, that he didn’t, didn’t already have.”
Needless to say, the next morning I was called for a final interview at lunch by Rollins’ senior management, and a number of alternatives were discussed for assignments inAtlanta. I flew home feeling pretty good about the whole thing and felt that I might be offered a job.
Two days later, the job I was offered was not what I expected.
They wanted me to head their Philadelphia division. Although the assignment was far higher than I expected, the location was not what I wanted. As flattering as it was, it also did not fly with Tetlow, who after having put up with a dozen brutal years of Ithaca winters, had no intention of moving only slightly south to Philadelphia. I reluctantly turned it down and continued working for my father without missing a beat. I was buoyed up by the experience. At least I was marketable and after years of being beat down working for my father had not been rendered unfit.
As I said, the words of Feinberg, Levinson and Morrison on father-son relationships helped me to understand what was going on but did not provide any answers. The same relationship continued without relief, and it became more and more evident that the only answer was to leave for another company as the constricting nature of my job continued to grow.
I’m sure Maya Angelou didn’t mean it the way I interpreted it then, but she said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” And the feeling I had was not good.
The answer finally came when an interview with my father in 1984 appeared in Forbes magazine, with implications that were too much to bear. As soon as it hit the newsstand, I received sympathetic phone calls from all over the nation from friends and business associates, and I finally realized that working with my father was forced to come to a close.