Speaker 1: And we continue with our American stories and with a
Speaker 1: story about a unique company culture. Tom Golisano is the
Speaker 1: founder of Paychecks, which helped six hundred and eighty thousand
Speaker 1: businesses manage their payroll, HR and benefits. And it's also
Speaker 1: a place that enjoys a good prank every now and then.
Speaker 1: By the way, we've done a bunch of stories on
Speaker 1: pranksters and epic pranks. Here's Tom on a few of
Speaker 1: their pranks, starting with one from his late best friend
Speaker 1: Jean Paulsini.
Speaker 2: We got two little kids at home. It's a Saturday morning.
Speaker 2: The phone rings, and it was just when people who
Speaker 2: are starting to use tape recorders. So I pick up
Speaker 2: the phone. There's this guy on the bather end recording.
Speaker 2: This is the Monroe County Water Authority. We're shutting off
Speaker 2: your water for forty eight hours. Make other preparations.
Speaker 1: What suck?
Speaker 2: I think you can't do that. I call out the
Speaker 2: water at thirty This is Saturday, where nobody's working today. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I get a recording. What the hell do you do?
Speaker 2: Said Glory. Find every pan you can in the house
Speaker 2: and fill it with water. We did that. Now two
Speaker 2: hours later, Jean comes over comes in the house and
Speaker 2: he looks around. He sees all these pants full of water,
Speaker 2: and I can see his slipping and how your lip
Speaker 2: curls when you're trying not to laugh. I said, you sup,
Speaker 2: it was him. He could disguise his voice. So one day,
Speaker 2: Jean's working at paychecks. He was a senior VP, very
Speaker 2: important job. And uh, we're building an addition to our building.
Speaker 2: And there's this huge crane on the grounds. And I
Speaker 2: know the contractor is a good friend of mine, so
Speaker 2: I said, Waite, what's that all about. He says, well,
Speaker 2: we're going to start moving steel in next week and
Speaker 2: that's what we put the steel in place with that crane.
Speaker 2: Can you build a little one platform for a car?
Speaker 2: He says, I got a friend. It's Jane. He drives
Speaker 2: a Mercedes Roadster in the winter time. Now nobody drives
Speaker 2: a roadster in the winter time in Rochester, New York.
Speaker 2: He gott me a little nuts, he says, yeah, I
Speaker 2: could do it. He does it. I get a second
Speaker 2: set of keys from his wife. We send Jeane out
Speaker 2: to lunch with some other guys. He comes back. His
Speaker 2: car is hanging five stories up in the air, swinging
Speaker 2: in the wind. Jeane, you're the employee of the month.
Speaker 2: To show you the attitude of this guy. Though he
Speaker 2: gets out of the car, he looks up, he sees
Speaker 2: his car up there. I'm thinking it could be a
Speaker 2: seventy five thousand dollars joke if it falls off that platform.
Speaker 2: And he says, I wish I thought of that, because
Speaker 2: he would have done it to me. But that's what
Speaker 2: our life was like. I used to have this thing
Speaker 2: with a training department. We had quite a training program.
Speaker 2: We brought all new employees and that was, you know,
Speaker 2: like three four thousand a year to Rochester for one
Speaker 2: week to four weeks of training, depending on the job.
Speaker 2: We believe it was very important because once when you're
Speaker 2: a branch network like we are, people never get a
Speaker 2: feel for what the company's like. They only see their
Speaker 2: local branch. So we'd like to bringing people in so
Speaker 2: they get to meet some of the officers and see
Speaker 2: the general atmosphere. Gives us a chance to brag a
Speaker 2: little bit about the company and so forth. Well, I
Speaker 2: used to have to stand at the training department. I
Speaker 2: used to like to play jokes on them, and they
Speaker 2: like to play them on me. So one day I
Speaker 2: was running for governor and my secretary was transferring to
Speaker 2: Arizona because of her husband's new job. So I said,
Speaker 2: we got to find a new secretary. I said, interview
Speaker 2: several people. Get it down to two, and I'll interview
Speaker 2: them on Friday when I come back to Rochester. I
Speaker 2: come into Rochester on Friday. They send this woman in
Speaker 2: for the interview. Now she's got obviously bleached bond hair.
Speaker 2: She's got her hand wrapped up in a little bit
Speaker 2: of a sling short skirt and a really short skirt,
Speaker 2: tight open up blouse. So I start talking to her
Speaker 2: about her skill set. She doesn't have any. So I'm
Speaker 2: saying to myself, what's happened to our standard here? So
Speaker 2: I'm sitting there thinking, and all of a sudden, the
Speaker 2: cootie she lights up a cigarette. Yeah, we're no smoking building.
Speaker 2: She lights up a cigarette. I looked at it. I said, man,
Speaker 2: would you please put that out and leave? So she
Speaker 2: gets up and she leaves like very normally. I look
Speaker 2: out and there's half the training department standing outside my window.
Speaker 2: They're laughing there at and they recorded the thing. They
Speaker 2: had a microphone and a plant next to my desk,
Speaker 2: So okay, and I walked by the training department and
Speaker 2: there there's a classroom of middle managers and they're there
Speaker 2: for a one week management training course. And I look
Speaker 2: at them. They looked bored as hell. I said, So
Speaker 2: I just happened to go out that night. I go
Speaker 2: to a bar and the local pub, and I ran
Speaker 2: into maybe ten of them, and you know, so I
Speaker 2: had a great conversation with him. We had a lot
Speaker 2: of fun, and I didn't talk much about the class
Speaker 2: but I did grab one of them. I said, you
Speaker 2: want to have some fun tomorrow? He said sure. I said, okay,
Speaker 2: you just follow my lead. I want you to ask
Speaker 2: me about local income taxes, and I want you to
Speaker 2: be not happy with my answers. He says, okay. So
Speaker 2: we normally have a launch and then we do Q
Speaker 2: and A. So now we're doing the Q and A
Speaker 2: and he asked the question. He says, Tom, we're not
Speaker 2: very happy in the state of Ohio with how he
Speaker 2: processed local income taxes. What's being done about it? So
Speaker 2: I gave him sort of a pat answer. While where
Speaker 2: software is working on the development of it, it's going
Speaker 2: to be some time and it'll be bye bah. He says, oh,
Speaker 2: a couple of people ask questions. He comes back again,
Speaker 2: and he asked the same question. He says, I wasn't
Speaker 2: happy with your answer, could you expound on it? So
Speaker 2: the two managers in a training course, the teachers are
Speaker 2: to see. I was getting peeved, so was he. So
Speaker 2: I noticed he put his hand on it on one
Speaker 2: of his legs, settled down, and she gave the other.
Speaker 2: She gave one of the guys to take an easy
Speaker 2: look at the guy that was making this comments. Sonny,
Speaker 2: I gave a same answer, and he got even you know,
Speaker 2: a little peeved himself. Sure enough, he waited a few
Speaker 2: more questions. He came back with the same question. I'm
Speaker 2: not happy with your answer. Mister gallis out. So I
Speaker 2: look at him. I said, you know, if you're not
Speaker 2: happy with the answer, the door's right there, why don't
Speaker 2: you use it? Okay, picked up and he walked out.
Speaker 2: The heads of the training department out in the hall,
Speaker 2: plus the rest of the trainees see this. They know
Speaker 2: the whole company's going to know about it in fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: So I didn't say a word. I just sat there.
Speaker 2: About ten minutes went by. He comes back in the
Speaker 2: room and he's up. We're all laughing now, and they all, oh,
Speaker 2: did we get him? Good? Marty Mucy, he wasn't CEO
Speaker 2: at the time, but he was head of all branch operations,
Speaker 2: and we had a little thing on the fourth floor
Speaker 2: of the executive floor of our building where when it
Speaker 2: was somebody's birthday, on their first birthday, we'd have cake
Speaker 2: and ice cream. And then one a little somebody got
Speaker 2: one of these little halloween ants with the you know,
Speaker 2: the triangle and it looks with a little rubber band
Speaker 2: and you're supposed to wear it if it's your first
Speaker 2: birthday at the corporate office. So we're all in the
Speaker 2: corporate office. Marty comes in and I think it was
Speaker 2: Jean says Marty putting on the hat. And Marty said,
Speaker 2: I'm not putting that hat on, and somebody else time did,
Speaker 2: but you got to put the hat on. I didn't
Speaker 2: say a word. He didn't put the hat on. Finally
Speaker 2: he said, oh, all right, he does this, and he
Speaker 2: does that. There I took out. I put out a hat.
Speaker 2: You know, he's really irritated. He's a little irritated too.
Speaker 2: I didn't say a word. Well, within a couple of
Speaker 2: weeks We had a officers meeting, which was a monthly thing,
Speaker 2: and we had a rule one person talks at the
Speaker 2: time all the time. That was the number one rule,
Speaker 2: One person at the time, So everybody gets hurt. So
Speaker 2: I made sure Marty was the last one to come
Speaker 2: in the room. I think I had a secretary tell
Speaker 2: him something or something. So he comes in the room,
Speaker 2: he sits down, and I bring up a topic. I said,
Speaker 2: I want to talk about it that's been bothering me.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about the color of our payroll checks.
Speaker 2: Marty looks at me. What the hell he's so talking about.
Speaker 2: You know, we're doing millions of checks. They've all been great,
Speaker 2: the same color. So I made a small presentation on
Speaker 2: us and Marty says, Tom, He says, I don't see it.
Speaker 2: He starts talking, and everybody starts talking to their neighbor
Speaker 2: and ignores him. So he kind of looked around the room.
Speaker 2: I went back to the conversation. He came in again
Speaker 2: said something. Nobody paid attention to him, and I can
Speaker 2: tell you he's getting a little unnerved. The third time
Speaker 2: was the cood. He ta, what the heck is going
Speaker 2: on in here? So we settled down and I said, Marty,
Speaker 2: next time, we're the damn hat and then he knew.
Speaker 1: And you've been listening to Tom Galisano. And by the way,
Speaker 1: corporate cultures, well they drive in the end employee satisfaction
Speaker 1: and output. And if you're not having some fun at work,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? And this is a message to
Speaker 1: every boss in America. Have some fun. It's allowed, it's permitted,
Speaker 1: and Tom Glisano is saying it's required, it's required. And
Speaker 1: by the way, you can learn so much more from
Speaker 1: this great American voice by picking up Tom's book, Built
Speaker 1: Not Born, a self made Billionaire's no nonsense guide for entrepreneurs,
Speaker 1: and that includes a little nonsense. Pick it up at
Speaker 1: your local bookstore. Tom Glisano's story here on our American
Speaker 1: Story