Lightning Rods - By Helen DeWitt Page 0,21

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