Steak and Crow

Steak and Crow was first published in 2001 in The Dickens, the Copperfield’s Books Literary Review (in Sonoma County, California). 

     The coiled bullwhip and the leather boxing gloves mounted on the wall gave me pause. But doubts can be obstacles, and obstacles can be overcome. I chose to override my intuition.

     I was 26, and had been laid off from my job as a copy editor at a local publishing company. I was unemployed, except as a part time janitor at a nearby synagogue, and was impatient to start a lucrative career. I wasn’t really interested in business, but I knew that my English major’s dream of making a living as a writer was not going to be realized anytime soon, and so I had better find some way of paying the rent. Commercial real estate seemed to be the best way to “get rich quick,” so I got my real estate license and applied for sales positions at several East Bay companies.

     Some folks think that the 1980’s were the epitome of greed, thanks in part to Ronald Reagan, but that view is rather simplistic. Jimmy Carter was president when I began my quest for gold, and Bill Clinton presided over the golden age of the dot coms. I don’t know who was president in 1849 when the California gold rush began, but the desire for instant wealth is nothing new in American society. In my case, I was not motivated by a desire for possessions, but by a desire for freedom – I wanted to be free to read, write, and travel. As a friend said at the time, “I’m basically a hippie at heart, but I’m going to right-wing it for awhile and make a lot of money, so I can go back to being a hippie.” I understood completely.

    And so in December 1978 I found myself in the glass-enclosed corner office of “Mike” (all names have been changed), the sales manager for the Oakland office of “Associated Brokers,” a California company. Mike’s office overlooked about 20 sales cubicles, and on his wall were the bullwhip and the boxing gloves.

     Mike was in his mid thirties, with a medium build, blond hair, and a ruddy complexion. He had been a boxer in college, and had enshrined the whip and gloves on his wall as a reminder of the harsh, competitive nature of sales. He was hyperactive and rather scatterbrained, but for some reason I was charmed by his erratic sincerity and organizational incompetence. He was a good salesman, but a terrible manager.

     Mike was impressed with my status as a Berkeley graduate, and I was impressed with the fancy suite on the top floor of the bank building. There’s a saying that the biggest sucker for a sales pitch is a salesman, and Mike and I sold each other on a vision of a partnership for prosperity that was doomed from the beginning. Unfortunately for both of us, we liked each other. I took the job.

     I was promised $800 a month as a draw against future commissions, but soon after I informed the other brokerage companies where I had applied that I had decided to work for Associated Brokers, Mike told me that I would not be receiving the draw after all. He seemed embarrassed by this breach of agreement, but was vague about whose decision it was to renege on the promise. I would have to work full time, with no income other than that from my part time job as a janitor.

     I should have quit then and there, of course, but I have a stubborn streak, and was determined to grit my teeth and tough it out. Several guys in the office were making good money, and I intended to quickly join their ranks.

     Associated Brokers was notorious for putting up its “for sale,” “for lease,” and “available” signs even on properties where the owner had not given permission. There were three reasons I was given for putting up as many signs as possible. First, the signs would show prospective clients that Associated Brokers was a player in the local commercial real estate market. Second, even if a property owner told us to remove one of our unauthorized signs, we would be able to get phone calls from interested parties and redirect them elsewhere before we got around to removing our sign. Third, the little billboards were a “declaration of war” against other brokerage companies. Our signs were signs of aggression. We would strike fear into the hearts of our competitors. Mike’s slogan for the Oakland office was “Bloody noses in Alameda County in 1979.”

     I was appalled by the unethical behavior and violent imagery present in our corporate culture, and several other guys were privately disgusted as well. But in our own ways each of us rationalized our continued association with the organization. I resolved to put up signs only with the owner’s permission.

     Part of Mike’s problem was that he was under tremendous pressure from “Moose,” an owner of the company and overseer of the three northern California offices. A multi-millionaire around 60 with close-cropped gray hair, Moose burned with a combative zeal. The first time I met him he told me that his favorite part of the previous day’s Oakland Raiders football game was when a small Raider had picked a fight with a bigger opponent. Moose was determined to thrash the local competition and outstrip our southern California offices. I soon found out firsthand about his intensity.

     I was called into Mike’s office. Mike had the look of a beaten dog, and Moose sat next to him, facing me. I had walked into an ambush. “How long have you been working here?” Moose demanded.
     “Two weeks.”
     “How many signs do you have up?”
     “None.”
     Moose stared at me with a cold fury. Through clenched teeth he lashed out, snarling, “You’ve got one week to put up a sign, or you’re going to have a problem, we’re not going to have a problem, DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?”

     Stunned by his emotional onslaught, and stung by his bitter threat, I mumbled something about understanding his message, and was dismissed.

     I was afraid of losing my job. I was financially vulnerable, and saw Associated Brokers as my best ticket to prosperity. And I was afraid of failure at the start of my new career. So I found a vacant lot in a bad part of Oakland, a lot already cluttered with several other brokerage signs and political signs. I ordered an Associated Brokers sign for the property. And I didn’t ask permission.

     In early 1979 my fellow agents and I were informed of a company sales competition known as the Steak and Crow contest. We would each be paired with another agent in our office, and would then compete with that agent to see who could put up the most signs within a few months. Associated Brokers would then have a banquet for all three northern California offices, where the winners of the contest (half the sales reps in each office) would sit on one side of the tables and eat steak, and the losers (the other 50% of the sales force) would sit opposite the victors and eat crow (actually, turkey).

     My opponent was another office leasing specialist who had become a good friend. We both laughed at the stupidity of the contest, but each of us wanted to win and eat steak. He was a better real estate agent than I, and he had the right attitude for the job, which he later flaunted with a bumper sticker on his car that said, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” He was also better at putting up signs. He pummeled me in the rivalry, and I was now officially a loser.

     I was learning to keep a low profile, not only because I was new to the business and already a designated loser, but also because my values were so different than those of my peers. I was a Buddhist and an environmentalist, and while I did not like population growth or urban sprawl, I felt that some economic development was inevitable, so I decided to get in on the action.

     But I made the mistake of expressing my reservations to a company executive recently arrived from southern California. He said he wanted to turn nearby Contra Costa County into another Orange County. I objected, saying that Orange County was known for its traffic and air pollution. He angrily replied that there was nothing wrong with smog, saying it was an indication of economic vitality. He added, “If I could, I’d cut the smog into cubes and sell them for a buck apiece, because that’s the American entrepreneurial spirit.”

      I neglected to ask him if his soul were for sale, too. But that is a question I might also have asked myself.

     Life at Associated Brokers wasn’t all bad. Mike liked to remind us that we worked hard and played hard. There were parties, and the guys (we were all males except for one woman, and all white except for one black man) would usually bring their wives or girlfriends to the social functions. But one weekly social event was just for the sales force. And not every salesperson attended.

     Late on Friday afternoons, Mike and up to a dozen of us would gather in the paneled conference room and close the door. Amid much joking and shop talk, Mike or someone elso would pull out a joint or a pipe, and we would proceed to get stoned. I was always amused at the idea of sitting in a formal conference room on the top floor of a bank building and getting ripped with my sales manager and a bunch of guys in blue or gray three-piece suits. And unlike me, they were all Reagan Republicans. We would then adjourn to the roof of the building, where, while overlooking the Bay Area, the merriment and war stories would continue. It was our version of the wild west, and our version of a rush, for both gold and pleasure.

     Speaking of parties, the day finally arrived for the Steak and Crow banquet. Wives and girlfriends were not invited to the country club, so that there were about 75 men, mostly in the three- piece uniform, and two or three female sales agents. The women stuck together, understandably enough, for this was to be an alcohol and testosterone-fueled occasion.

     There was an open bar, and it didn’t take long for inhibitions to be flogged and sloshed into submission. Even my fellow losers and I felt released from the scourge of failure as we submerged our mortification in a sea of liquor.

      We moved to the dining room and sat down at three long parallel tables facing the head table, where Moose presided over the dinner, flanked by Mike and the sales managers from the San Jose and Sacramento offices. I sat down on the loser’s side of the Oakland table, facing my erstwhile rival who had soundly defeated me in the sign competition.

     Spirits were high and the booze continued to flow as wine was brought to the tables along with dinner rolls and salads. One of my inebriated comrades threw a dinner roll at a co-worker, and soon the air was filled with flying dinner rolls. Next, pats of butter sailed through the air. When the steak and crow were served, along with baked potatoes and vegetables, the hijinks momentarily subsided. I ate my crow and laughed at the antics of these conservative businessmen in the stuffy country club.

     Then someone started throwing baked potatoes. This was getting hilarious – my first coat-and-tie food fight. Not to be outdone, a couple guys at the San Jose table began flicking spoonfuls of sour cream at each other. I was howling with laughter, gleefully watching the vaunted Associated Brokers Steak and Crow ritual disintegrate into drunken anarchy.

     And then it happened. A San Jose agent, infuriated by the sour cream splashed on his expensive suit, picked up a silver tureen of sour cream and threw it at an assailant. The tureen struck the man in the head, spilling white goo all over his face and dark suit. Enraged, he staggered drunkenly to his feet and charged his attacker, knocking over a table and sending dishes, food, and silverware flying. He was so drunk that he may not have landed any punches, but now the hall was in an uproar as other San Jose agents intervened to stop the fight. The man on the receiving end of the silver container was almost sobbing with humiliation and wrath, and suddenly the pathos of the suffering man was heartrending. A friend consoled him, tenderly wiping the cream off his face and clothes, as the rest of us averted our eyes from another human being’s public degradation.

     Meanwhile the country club staff had called the police, and it was announced that the gendarmes were on their way. With that, our fearless leader Moose, Mr Tough Guy himself, who had done nothing during the food battle, fled the scene ahead of everyone else, jumped into his Mercedes, and sped off just as the cops arrived. The party was over.

     Some months after this celebration, I was told that my services were no longer required. I went to work for a competitor, where six months later I was fired because I was “too nice” and because I lacked the “killer instinct.” After the one-two punch from these two companies, I belatedly realized that they were right – I didn’t fit into their cultures. My real estate career was over. I had ignored my intuition, and paid the price. I hadn’t been successful, and I wasn’t going to get rich. I had been bullwhipped.