Cassie - The Ones Who are the Boss of Me

by Liz Zuercher

The Ones Who Are The Boss Of Me -  AKA Management

Roger Winston

Roger is our project manager for Bella Vista.  Technically he is a member of our team, and technically he is not the boss of me, but I’ve put him in this category because he has a certain amount of say about how I do my job.  Roger is a stand-up guy and I’ve worked with him on several other projects.  I can always count on Roger to be the voice of reason and to get his job done.  That makes my job easier, because I depend on Roger for all our legal sales documents and exhibits.  I’ve had project managers who just couldn’t get anything done on time or correctly, and that throws the whole sales effort off.  I never have to worry about that with Roger.

Roger is a handsome, towering hulk of a man, a former professional football player, but he’s also the proverbial gentle giant.  He has an ease about him that puts everyone else at ease.  I never hesitate to refer an angry buyer to Roger if I’ve been unable to solve their problem.  He will always talk them down and find a way to make them happy without sacrificing the company principles. 

He can see through bullshit, too, which makes it especially puzzling to me that he has bought into Satan’s lies.  Granted, Satan is on his best behavior during our team meetings, and whenever Roger asks him to do something, Satan jumps.  Still, I don’t know why Roger hasn’t noticed the slipped schedules and the subcontractor complaints.  I don’t understand why Roger believes Satan when he says I don’t cooperate with Construction.  And I can’t believe Roger gave us all a lecture at the team meeting about getting along and not acting like children, all the while looking straight at me.  Satan sat back in his chair with one ankle resting on the other knee, smirking like he’d won the war.  I thought Roger knew me better than that by now.  I’ve never been a problem on any other project we’ve worked on together.  Why does he think I’m the source of the trouble now?

So, I’ve always thought of Roger as one of the good guys, but now I’m not so sure.

Tina Masterson (AKA Skinny Bitch)

Tina is Vice President of Sales and Marketing.  She has never worked as a new home sales representative, and from what I’ve heard she doesn’t have much experience in marketing either.  She came to Monterey Homes from another builder last year to replace Richard Sorenson, who finally retired at the age of 75.  Richard was a first class salesman who worked his way up to the VP position.  He knew first hand everything we were dealing with in the field and what it took to get houses sold and closed.  He was a lovely, compassionate man who cared about each and every one of the salespeople he oversaw.  Tina can’t hold a candle to him.

Tina is 45 and single, just like me.  She’s a tiny person – short and stick thin.  If you didn’t know her, you’d think a wisp of wind would topple her, but she’s one tough cookie who doesn’t bend easily.  Her hair is a severe jet-black and falls from a center part to her shoulders, but her face reminds me of the American Girl doll that Sarah’s daughter used to have.  When she’s acting nice, her voice sounds like it could come from that sweet innocent doll.  But the combination of the hair, the face and the voice produces a strangely unbalanced effect that can put you on edge.  I believe that’s just what she’s going for. 

Tina dresses in short pencil skirts and suit jackets – usually black – with the only color coming from her never-ending supply of silk blouses.  The shoes are expensive sling-back heels with peep toes.  Her makeup is calculated to promote the doll-like image, with lightly applied eyeliner and mascara, a hint of blush on her cheeks and pale coral lipstick.  Her nails – fingers and toes - are always painted coral to match the lipstick and she wears a different flashy ring on her right hand every day, as if she’s playing dress-up.

Rumor has it that Tina slept her way into this job, but I can’t imagine her being that common or that straightforward.  I think it’s more likely she has some dirt on somebody, and she used that to worm her way into her position.  She sure couldn’t have impressed anyone with her sales and marketing prowess.  But she does know how to turn on the charm.  She also knows how to act like she’s in charge and she moves so fast she’s difficult to stop.  Those traits can get a person into high places.

Above all with Tina there’s the smile.  She smiles and pretends she wants to know how she can help you, but the minute you tell her what you need, the smile fades and her eye wanders.  She’ll nod and say, “Yes, yes, we’ll see about that,” and you know right then nothing will ever come of it.  She smiles like she’s offering you candy when she orders you to get more sales.  She smiles when she asks why your market report isn’t on time, and she smiles even bigger when she tells you your printed price sheets won’t be arriving until after the Saturday morning phase release.  Always, the smile is followed by the question, “That won’t be a problem, will it?”  Before you can answer, she’s hurried off to smile at someone else. 

Sarah started calling Tina Skinny Bitch when Tina sashayed into our sales office one day and announced with a smile she was there to inspect the models.  She does this quite often, liking the element of surprise.  I think she’s hoping to catch you in a mess, so she can smile and tell you how you really must try harder. 

Anyway, Sarah was working alone that day and didn’t volunteer to accompany Tina on her inspection.  She could see that a prospect was pulling into the parking lot and would need her attention.

“Aren’t you coming with me?” Tina said.

“No, there’s a customer coming,” Sarah said.

“You’ll be catching up with me when they leave, won’t you?” Tina said.

“I’ll try,” Sarah said, knowing how fast Tina moves and how many questions a prospect can have.

“I’ll expect you,” Tina huffed and hurried off to the first model.

The customer had a few questions then left to tour the models.  Before Sarah could leave to join Tina, the escrow officer called about a problem she was having with the documents on Lot 75, which was scheduled to close in three days.  No sooner had Sarah solved that problem than the Lot 63 buyer called in a panic to say he couldn’t get the loan approval we needed.  Sarah called the loan rep to see what they could work out for Lot 63.  After she dealt with that, an appraiser called for comps that Sarah faxed to him.  She was just starting out the door to the models when the phone rang again and it was a relocation realtor we’d been working with to sell Lot 54 to a cute couple from Arizona.  They wanted to make an offer, but they had a list of questions they needed answered first.  The whole time she was on the phone with the realtor, Sarah desperately had to go to the bathroom.  The minute she hung up the phone she sprinted to The Spa to relieve herself.  When she opened the bathroom door, there was Tina standing at the topo table, tapping her coral fingertips on the glass top.  This time she was not smiling.

“I expected you to join me,” she said.

“I had to deal with some things first,” Sarah said.

“Like lolling around in the bathroom?” Tina said.

Sarah saw the customer walking up from the models, just about to come into the office and she decided not to respond.  It wouldn’t be professional to be having an argument in front of the customer.  But Tina either didn’t notice or didn’t care, because she kept on scolding Sarah for not meeting her in the models.

“The customer’s coming,” Sarah said, hoping that would shut Tina up.

“There’s always some excuse why you can’t do what I need you to do,” Tina said as the customer opened the door and looked nervously from Sarah to Tina.

Tina flashed her smile at the customer then turned to Sarah and said,  “You really should make sure this nice gentleman is taken care of, Sarah.”

Sarah’s jaw dropped before she recovered enough to smile at the customer and ask how he liked the models.

The customer mumbled something about how they were okay and made a beeline for the door to escape to the parking lot.  That’s when Tina told Sarah she shouldn’t scare away the customers like that.  After Tina left, Sarah called me to tell me about what had happened.  The usually cool Sarah was spitting nails.

“She acts all cutesy and smiley sweet, but she’s such a bitch,” Sarah said.

I was shocked to hear Sarah speak that way about anyone.

“And she’s so damned skinny,” Sarah continued.  “She’s a damned skinny bitch.”

“Yes she is,” I said.  I couldn’t disagree.  Tina was skinny and she most certainly was a bitch.

So Tina became Skinny Bitch to us.  The story made its way around to all the sales offices – the sales grapevine is pretty active – and soon everyone had embraced Tina’s new name.  We all like to affect a smile when we say Skinny Bitch.  It only seems right.

Bethany Perry (AKA Baby Bitch)

Bethany is definitely not the boss of me, but she acts like she is.  She is Skinny Bitch’s assistant.  She is only twenty years old and has no experience in the home building arena.  Her last job was scooping up ice cream cones at Baskin Robbins while she went to community college to perfect her Microsoft Office skills.  To be fair, she is very good on the computer.  She could be a cute girl, if she weren’t under Tina’s spell. 

Bethany idolizes Tina to the extent that in the three months since she started working at the main office, she has had her hair styled just like Tina’s, acquired a wardrobe of pencil skirts, jackets and colorful silk blouses, and painted her nails the same coral shade.  It’s a little creepy.  That’s why we’ve dubbed her Baby Bitch. 

That aside, I mention her in this category only because she is an extension of Skinny Bitch and one that’s even more galling, given her young age, lack of experience and her bossy attitude.  She’s in charge of implementing Skinny Bitch’s edicts and that includes harping on us to get our reports in and chastising us when we haven’t completed them exactly the way she wants.

I have decided that the way to deal with Bethany is to kill her with kindness, so I throw the Skinny Bitch smile back at Bethany.  She doesn’t recognize it as fake and thinks I like her.  That way she cuts me more slack than anyone else.  I can play the smile game, too.

Mark Tolliver – CEO

Mark Tolliver started with the company thirty years ago as a construction assistant, then a superintendent.  Then he was a project manager.  Then he was in charge of our division.  Then he moved up to Corporate as an executive vice president.  Now he is in charge of the whole show, our CEO and Chairman of the Board.  He is the boss of all of us.  He is a tall, distinguished looking man of fifty-five, who has always been approachable and open to ideas from anyone.  That’s probably how he got to where he is now.  He’s a family man, devoted to his church and to the company – an all round nice guy.

If you think he sounds too good to be true, you might be right.  Don’t get me wrong.  I really like Mark – he doesn’t want anyone calling him Mr. Tolliver – but I liked him better before he made the move to Corporate.  Mark’s an emotional guy, which seemed appropriate at the division level, but every time he addresses our division meetings as CEO, he always ends up crying and telling us how much he misses us all.  It was charming at first, but now it’s uncomfortable.  I find myself wondering if he has the mental toughness to run a multi-million dollar national company, especially as the housing market runs into stormy weather.  I don’t have a lot of confidence that Mark can make the hard decisions necessary to keep this ship afloat.