Kevin S. Grangier is president of CarryOn Communication, a publicity
firm in Beverly Hills, California, that opened in 1998. But before
that, he worked for a multitude of employers. Some were good; some
were not-like the boss who would often tell Grangier to fight the
heavy traffic and bring her paperwork to her house because she
didn't want to do it herself. "It was a one-hour
drive-each way," he sighs.
That same boss once told Grangier that if he wanted to leave the
office early to catch a flight for Thanksgiving weekend, it would
have to come out of his vacation time. So he offered to work on the
airplane, which the boss readily agreed to, as long as Grangier
didn't want to be paid for that time. But she did expect him to
bill the client (at $275 an hour) for the period spent working on
the airplane.
"I quit a few months after that," reports Grangier,
who says his own company is the antithesis of most of the companies
he worked for in the past. "My philosophy is that if you
create an environment that's fun to work in and respect your
employees, they'll be happy," he says. "If
they're happy, they'll do good work, and if they do good
work, of course, the client will be happy."
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Grangier readily admits it isn't easy keeping employees in
good spirits, especially when you're experiencing rapid growth.
In a recent span of nine months, Grangier went from five employees
to 32, and his firm, which brought in $5 million in 2000, expects
$9 million this year. "It's easy to lose that comfortable
atmosphere. It can happen overnight if you allow it to," says
Grangier, who says he's passed on some big accounts simply
because he knew it would tax his staff. "[But] I don't
want employees dropping off like flies. Why would I want to do
anything to jeopardize something I've spent so much time
on?"
Heaven can appear through the clouds after working for the boss
from hell. In Marston's case, he quit a few weeks after being
forced to fire his colleague, and in 1996, he and his mother, Judy
Marston, started Marston
Communications in Charlotte, North Carolina. And now Cam's
life's work is to consult with employers who have trouble
relating to their under-35 employees. In short, Marston
Communications' goal is to forever rid the world of bosses from
hell.
And just how do you do that? It's not hard. At least, not on
paper. "Be absolutely honest," says Marston.
"Don't try to deceive: You can never get away with it. And
no one is an experiment. This is not a laboratory for you to see
what would happen if-these are people's lives you're
dealing with."
Then Marston reveals what is probably the best lesson any
employer can learn: "People aren't loyal to companies;
they're loyal to people they like."
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