Treated Like Family by Tom Faley

Author:Tom Faley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Center Street
Published: 2018-04-10T04:00:00+00:00

23

Doing the Right Thing: Sowing Family Values

1967

HOW IRONIC, THOUGHT Leonard.

It had always been the lack of money that drove him to work harder, to stanch his concerns over a meager income by venturing in different business directions. Never did he and Dolores live in a state of penury, but for nearly thirty years, his dedication to building a business foisted his family into a standard of living that others not often realized nor would envy if they did.

Now, at the age of fifty-three, he would be defending the meager profits of his two cheese companies, citing their earnings as “appropriate.” He didn’t oppose profits. After all, earned income allowed Sargento to develop new products. It paid his employees’ wages and granted him the freedom to donate funds for the betterment of the community. What he opposed was maximizing profits to the detriment of his companies’ or employees’ well-being.

It seemed to him that a long-term vision should never fall prey to what was managerially expedient. Doing what was right today, no matter the financial implications, offered the greatest promise for an ethically successful business—a business capable of transcending generations.

He flipped the page of his day calendar. The next morning, Ron Begalke would meet with him to discuss corporate profitability. As they closed the corporate books in June to end the fiscal year of 1967, profits were slim. Paper-thin margins, he remembered Ron had called them.

With Central Wrap now in its new building in the Plymouth industrial park, as Sargento slowly whittled away at the stiff loan required to buy Joe Sartori’s interest in the company, Ron had been advocating that the company make decisions to maximize its profits by being more parsimonious in its spending—the very topic of the next day’s agenda. Leonard was fully prepared to argue his defense.

A knock on Leonard’s door interrupted his thoughts, and the somber face of Bob Gilles arced around the door frame.

“Leonard, the slice line is down. We got a truck on its way to pick up product. We’re running out of time, and Chuck and I can’t reach Bud Dick. I think he may be fixing a machine over at Central Wrap but I’m not sure.”

Here we go again, Leonard thought. “I’ll be right there.”

With that, the production foreman vanished. “Hey, Bob,” Leonard called after him. “You got the toolbox or should I grab it?”

“Got it already,” came the response fading down the hallway.

Leonard pushed away from his desk. This was just another example of costs for tomorrow’s discussion with Ron. The equipment could only run for so long without failing.

On the production floor, Leonard saw Bob standing next to an employee hunched over the meat-cutting machine, instructing him to manually pare the loaf of mozzarella into uniform slices. Others hustled about as if acting out a well-trained drill, pushing cases of product toward the end of the line as fast as they could.

How could you not admire these people, wondered Leonard. It seemed to him at any other company with any other

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