I was the Director of the Berlitz Language Center in Vancouver in the late 1980s …… this story has a few twists and turns explaining how I am now writing this story from the top of the world at Rogers Pass in British Columbia many years after the fact.
In the 80s, I had been working as a stock broker for Richardson Greenshields of Canada. I was not particularly successful so I quit Richardson’s having no idea what I was going to do next. Mona (my ex-wife) and I had decided that I would work on building an addition on our home in Horseshoe Bay, West Vancouver. BC. By the end of 1988 I was coming near the end of construction and was looking for a job when I came across an advertisement for the “Director of the Vancouver Berlitz Language Center” in Vancouver. I applied and was hired by Sandro D’Addario, President of Berlitz Canada (very very Italian as you might imagine) The job was basically selling language lessons like all of the other Directors in Toronto, Montreal and several other mid western US cities that were managed by Berlitz Canada. After a while it became very boring. That is where the arrogance part of the story develops!
As usual when I first started I was so totally scared that I would fail, I was a basket case a lot of the time even though no one would ever have guessed. Within six months I had grown the school and generated the largest growth in sales for Berlitz Canada that had ever occurred. I received the largest commission check that was ever issued by them, more than $25,000.00. But the job was just so boring! This is where the arrogance part of the story sprouts.
D’Addario had gotten to like me pretty well (read – “follow the money” when reporting to NYC). In addition, I was very respected by the other Berlitz Directors because of the growth I had achieved. The Quebec Directors were the most experienced Directors in the group, were the largest schools in the country and so had lots of “pull” with both head office in New York City and D’Addario because they were the largest schools in Canada.
We had monthly telephone conference calls where each office, from across Canada and the US Midwest, would call in and the meeting would be chaired by Sandro D’Addario. Everyone had agreed that the meetings were to be conducted in English, the most common and well understood language. The 2 Quebec Directors and Sandro D’Addario and I were the only ones who could understand both French and English fluently.
D’Addario, like many middle managers, was caught in between Senior Management demanding the numbers and being “friends” with the Quebecois Directors and of course his new rising star, ME.
Remember now that we had all agreed the meetings were to be conducted in English. He was not able to keep his word and maintain English as the language of the meeting. One day we all got on the phone and he did the same thing and allowed French to dominate. I knew that at least one of the Directors (maybe Cleveland Ohio) could not speak a word of French. I asked D’Addario, in a fairly demanding tone, to speak and all things went very quiet. I then quietly asked the English speaking Director whether or not she had understood the “most recent” exchange that had occurred. That exchange, to be clear, had been completely in French without anything being said by D’Addario. Of course English Director replied “No”. At that point I then requested that the meeting stick to English as agreed. Everyone agreed again and of course and as usual another French episode, another Harvey request and again another French episode. So I hung up the phone in as loud a manner as I could imagine. I did not hear back from D’Addario until the following day.
D’Addario did not like that I had challenged the integrity of his meeting. I was severely reprimanded with a “don’t you ever hang up on ME again” in an incredibly thick Italian accent with all of the emotion and passion that you would expect for an Italianno. “OK!” I said!!!
I never participated in another teleconference. It wasn’t long before I quit. Using the $25K as seed money, Mona and I became partners in Commercial Illustrators, the largest commercial photography company in Western Canada.
The question: Who was most arrogant? The French speaking Directors who just naturally spoke French and got into their work without thinking? D’Addario for allowing the French speakers to dominate? Or ME for just leaving the scene? Life has so many facets, none of which are ever very black and white.
