Glengarry, Glen Ross

Glengarry Glen Ross


Of all the discussions, readings and video viewings we’ve participated in during this class, seeing this play was one of the best exercises. It is absolutely one of the best examples of ethics gone awry in the American business culture, and I thank you, Dr. Lambiase, for the experience. Some years ago, I saw the movie with Jack Lemmon as Shelley Levene, and enjoyed it immensely, but it didn’t have the intensity of the play – and, of course, I wasn’t viewing it as student from the angle of ethics. I got so much more out of it this go around.

Some of my fellow classmates who have not had much work experience out there in the “real world” have no idea – yet – just how accurately some parts of this play portray some things that actually go on in business.

I had the unfortunate experience – no, strike that. I had the fortunate experience – fortunate because I learned some valuable lessons – of working for a while in an environment that was something like the sales office in this play. It was the same kind of shark tank, but the sharks weren’t quite as big as David Mamet’s characters. I worked for about 12 to 18 months in advertising sales for a company – that shall remain nameless – that owned 14 newspapers – that shall remain nameless. We all had sales quotas, which were constantly raised to ridiculous levels, and by some miracle I always managed to make my quotas each month without selling my soul or becoming like some of my co-workers, most of whom were very much like the play’s characters. I’m proud of is that I always did my very best for my clients. I always tried to create the best advertising program for them; I never tried to talk them into anything that wouldn’t benefit them and their business or that they couldn’t afford; I always got the best value for their money and the best coverage.

Just like the play, the manager of my newspaper company had the same despicable practice of displaying everyone’s sales progress in a very large and public way, a practice that I detested. As you can imagine, it created a horrifically competitive and cut-throat atmosphere, and although the manager talked a great line of ‘teamwork,” he knew exactly what he was doing.

During the time I spent in what I came to realize was a den of ruthless cannibals, I occasionally tried to have conversations with the manager, whom I “fondly” remember now as the Head Cannibal, in which I expressed to him (in more careful and diplomatic words than I now use) that my views that this wasn’t / shouldn’t be just about hustling someone to sell an ad and then moving on to the next victim, that it was about building relationships and being credible in the community and in the business sector of the community, and that that would gain us more profits in the long run the type of short-term go-for-the-big kill methods that he like, that anyone could sell one ad to a customer, but that treating the customer fairly so that they would purchase future ads was the ideal. I realize now that those were wasted conversations on my part because I came to realize that I was dealing with one of the most ethically challenged managers in one of the most ethically challenged companies I’d ever encountered.

The epiphany came one day when, after I’d sold a lot of very expensive political campaign ads. I had always been a social and political activist in the community and knew a lot of people who trusted me and had given me their business because of our past, long-term relationships. When I turned in my sales report that day, the manager told me that he knew I could sell three times that amount to those people. I told him that I knew those people and knew their political campaigns and knew their voting base and that they didn’t need three times the amount of ads they’d purchased from me.

His reply was, “Well, I’m not asking you to compromise your integrity.” – which is very much like when someone says, “It’s not about the money,” you can bet that it is about the money. I was looking him directly in the eyes when he said that and it suddenly hit me and I thought to myself, “That’s exactly what you’re telling me to do.” And it simply wasn’t worth it to me to sell the good reputation I had in the community or to sell the years of trust that had developed between those people and me all for the sake of making money for this pompous ass sitting before me. I handed in my resignation to the Head Cannibal not too long after that and told him I was leaving for “personal reasons.”

It was, as I stated earlier, a valuable experience. It allowed me to learn a lot about the business industry and I certainly learned a good lesson in ethics. So I don’t regret that aspect of it, but I certainly don’t regret the day I walked out of there either. The money was great, but it was the right thing to leave, and I never looked back. I could see how easy it was for some of my co-workers to do the wrong thing, the unethical thing, and I wanted to still be able to look at myself in the mirror.

As I watched the play I saw a lot of similarities between it and the mindset of the environment I’d escaped. The characters lied too easily and had no respect for their clients and laughed too hard at how easily they’d taken them and had absolutely no conscience about any of it. Everyone was de-humanized into sales units. They weren’t people; they were prey.

I’ve long thought in a sort of “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” kind of way that the one of the things that distinguishes us is that women seem to define themselves by their relationships and men define themselves by their work. I think it’s a tribal hunter-gatherer kind of thing. As the gatherers, women are more cooperative and as the hunters, men are more competitive. Whoever brings home the biggest kill for the campfire is the “real” man, and some of the dialogue in the play reflects that kind of attitude, which seems to still be so pervasive in corporate America and is still so dominated by men. The swaggering character, Richard Roma, even suggests to his latest client – who is trying to back out of the deal because of his wife’s objections – that he’s not a real man if he’s not willing to take a “to hell with you, I’ll do what I want” attitude.

I also noticed that none of the characters really listen to each other or anyone else. There’s no real two-way communication. They interrupt, they talk over each other, they often yell and they’re all extremely coercive. It’s all pure profit-driven and pure competition. Nothing is as it appears. Nothing is transparent. Even when Moss and Aaronow are actually discussing committing a crime of breaking into the office to steal leads (Hey, all is fair in war with these guys – whatever it takes to get those sales numbers up. That’s all that matters to them. ), they employ the same kind of conniving, evasive con-man dialogue and do a kabuki dance with the meaning of the words “speak and “talk”:
Moss No. What do you mean? Have I talked to him about this [Pause]
Aaronow Yes. I mean are you actually talking about this, or are we just...
Moss No, we're just...
Aaronow We're just "talking" about it.
Moss We're just speaking about it. [Pause] As an idea.
Aaronow As an idea.
Moss Yes.
Aaronow We're not actually talking about it.
Moss No.
Aaronow Talking about it as a...
Moss No.
Aaronow As a robbery.
Moss As a "robbery"? No.

I can’t even be sure that Shelley Levene’s daughter is real. She may be a manipulative device, something that he made up as a means to an end. Whether she’s real or not, she’s been reduced to being nothing more than part of his sales pitch and his attempted get-out- of-jail-free card. If so, then that suggests that absolutely nothing is sacred as far as Levene is concerned and he has committed the ultimate selling of his soul to the almighty profit margin.