Management problems

Adolpho was the IT manager at Ercosa when I arrived, and he had at least one good trait - he spoke excellent English. But as a manager, he only knew how to do what had been done before. When we called in a Wang representative to clean our new disc drives, I asked Adolpho to ask the guy for the cleaning disk. Adolpho told me several times that he wouldn’t ask because the guy would not give it to us, but I kept asking (nicely), saying something along the lines of “nothing ventured, nothing gained”. When Adolpho finally did ask him, the guy said sure, and handed over the disk. I hoped this would help Adolpho understand we could do things a bit differently if we wanted, or at least try, but the very next time something came up and I suggested a solution, his response was to tell me that’s not how it was done in the past. Several times my boss (who was also Adolpho’s boss now) talked to me on the phone about letting him go. I always said no, I can work with him. I felt that as long as he was good for the company, I could handle the problems he caused. 

Then one day he and I went to have a conversation with one of the foundry managers, Joaquin Berganzia. Joaquin spoke limited English and I spoke limited Spanish but we made ourselves understood and got alone fine. Now Adolpho told me to sit over there in a chair and be quiet while he talked to Joaquin. Joaquin had done nothing to deserve a problem in his office, so I sat down politely, said nothing, smiled, and fumed. After the meeting as Adolpho and I walked back to IT, I was so angry that I could not even speak - I had to whisper to tell him to never treat me so disrespectfully again. He patted my arm and said “don’t be upset”. That was the only time in my life I literally saw red, so I didn’t say more. But the next time our boss called and said he thought he should fire Adolpho, I said “you should do what you feel is right", and very shortly after that Adolpho was let go. He was astonished that anyone would consider firing him. To be fair, there was some basis for his surprise. For one thing, just a couple of weeks earlier Mario knew he needed to get Adolpho out of the way so I could get some work done; instead of firing him, he sent Adolpho to Madrid for a week to Wang school. I was pretty sure Adolpho saw that as approval, but hey, not my problem, I got the necessary work done without his interference. Also, I had the impression that in that part of Spain, once you had a management job, you kept it, period. 

Adolpho was very angry with me - I heard him refer to me as "esta mujer" - "this woman". I am sure he thought I was to blame for his problems but it was all a result of his unwillingness to move with the times; I just stopped standing in the way of the inevitable. He wanted to clean out his desk without me around. Unfortunately our boss had specifically instructed me to not let that happen. I explained to Adolpho that the boss said I was to be in the room, and I would just stand out of the way and not bother him. He would have none of it, and brought in someone from Personnel who explained to me, very politely, that Adolpho had the right to clean out his desk without me being present. OK, time to come up with a "Plan B" that would satisfy my boss and not break personnel rules. Adolpho got along well with Eduardo, so I asked if Eduardo could be in the room and Adolpho said yes (probably anyone but me would have been acceptable). I had a quick private conversation with Eduardo, explaining that he would be taking on Adolpho’s responsibilities for awhile and he needed to make sure Adolpho did not take or do anything that would impact getting the job done. Eduardo, who was a quiet, hardworking, agreeable and smart man, understood exactly what I meant. He handled the situation very well, and there were no consequences to me not being in the room. 

Later there were discussions about finding someone else to fill Adolpho’s position on a permanent basis. I maintained that Eduardo was doing better than Adolpho ever did, and we should officially put him in the position. When I left Spain, Eduardo was still in charge of the IT department. Later Mario explained to me that ordinarily it would have been almost impossible for someone of Eduardos’ “class” (i.e. the working class) to get a management position; it only happened because I insisted he was the right person for the job. In that time and area, management seemed to be very class conscious. I hope Eduardo kept his position; he should have, since the company was now run by Americans who were a lot more interested in making money than status. If so, perhaps I was instrumental in changing his life.