After reading the New York Times op-ed column today about the alleged lack of integrity and greed at Goldman Sachs these days, I couldn’t help but think of Leo the painter who happened to just finish a job at our house yesterday. Might seem like a strange juxtaposition but not really. It always goes back to the type of person you’d want in your lifeboat.
Every now and then, you come across a rare find. This time, our find was in the form of a tall, handsome man with clear blue eyes and a Polish accent, strong and solid, controlled and dependable. A school custodian by trade, an old neighbor of ours and co-worker of his introduced him to us as the best quality, and most cost effective painter one could ever find. “He’s meticulous John, paints clean as a whistle and you can’t beat the price, ” he told my husband. We used him several times in our old house and for a few rooms in the one we are now, but with exorbitant college expenses at this point in life, limited the painting to the rooms most desperately calling out. When we realized the hallway was starting to look really shabby, we gave him a call. The latest job we solicited him for? Two levels of hallway, and a 25-foot ceiling, working around oak chair rail and trim throughout. Leo’s fee this time around – a whopping $350.00.
Those of you who have paid for painters recently might make some assumptions about Leo, based on that price. You might imagine that he is a simple guy, or he doesn’t know prices, or he lacks confidence in the valuable service he offers. Or as a long shot, you might fantasize that he’s independently wealthy and just waits by the phone excitedly longing for opportunities to paint rooms of houses because he finds it so utterly satisfying as opposed to spending his millions at fine restaurants, casinos or paradise islands.
The fact is Leo is just an honest, good man with a superb work ethic, discipline and a world view that suggests maximizing his profit is less important to him than providing a service he knows people value. He makes money when he walks away and to him it’s money that is over and above the wages he relies upon for him family. He’d rather feel good about the appreciation and pleasure demonstrated as a result of his work and his price than make big bucks. For what he lacks in greed, he makes up for in worldliness. He talks about world affairs, how Poland is faring in these turbulent economic times when he makes his annual visit every summer with his wife and two sons, the state of our public schools, what cars are made best and have the longest shelf life, plumbing, the list goes on and on. He is selective about who he does work for so it is an honor to me than he comes eagerly every time I call, no matter what the job. I recommended him to an unmarried friend at work who had just bought a condo. Not only is he her painter. He is now the handyman she can always count on. Most recently, she had problems with her front door lock and within a half hour he was at her house, rectifying her problem in a heartbeat. She is a good person and that’s enough for Leo.
So when I read about today’s scathing article written by an executive (ex) director at Goldman Sachs detailing how it seemed that “a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all,” and that the easiest path to leadership was “persuading clients to invest in products that the company really wanted to get rid of” I couldn’t help but contrast this type of corporate culture to a man like Leo’s own moral code. If everyone were like Leo, we wouldn’t have to worry about regulating Wall Street. Sad fact is the Leos of the world are becoming more and more of a rarity. So wherever we end up on the regulation issue, and defending all the players in the free market as honest abs who don't need to be regulated, here’s the thing – I know who’d I’d want in my life boat, any day.
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