Big companies have lost loyalty
When attorney Clem Glynn worked at Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro in San Francisco, he arrived two hours before the law firm opened its doors at 8:30 a.m. And every morning, Martin Macy was already there. He always seemed to be there.
“The firm was his life,’ said Glynn, who is now at Glynn & Finley in Walnut Creek, Calif. Macy didn’t marry or have children. He walked to work from his apartment on Battery St.
You could hear his laugh all the way down the hall. Glynn would come up with off-color jokes just to hear Macy’s distinctive uproarious laugh. Over the decades, as lawyers came and went, as the firm expanded and moved into ever-larger digs, Macy stayed on, his dark hair turning to gray, his sturdy frame softening with age and diabetes.
Macy wasn’t a lawyer. He was a messenger, beginning in 1965 at the age of 17. He delivered the mail office to office, desk to desk. He did this for 41 years. He was a company man, an emblem of an era when businesses were local and the bosses stopped you in the hall to ask about your mother’s cataracts.
Now he’s an emblem of a new era.
Last week, at age 58, he was laid off by what is now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, a firm with 16 offices around the world, 900 lawyers and $600 million in revenue.
Macy earned $34,000 a year.
So when Macy lost his job, he seemed to be just one of thousands of American workers snagged each week on the sharp tip of an efficiency expert’s pen. But he wasn’t another worker. His dismissal has become something of a cause celebre in the San Francisco legal community.
It began with Glynn, who kept in regular touch with Macy. When he found out Macy was being laid off, he sent e-mails to a handful of colleagues who also had worked at Pillsbury. “What can we do?” he asked. “We have to take care of Martin.”
The response was immediate: Where do we send the check?
Word spread. E-mails were forwarded. Phone calls were made. Money started coming in from lawyers, judges, legal secretaries, even clients who had gotten to know Macy. The Recorder, a San Francisco legal newspaper, ran a story on Monday about Macy and the fundraising effort. More money has poured in. What began as a few e-mails among friends has mushroomed into the financial equivalent of a barn raising: Macy’s fans are hoping to put together enough for an annuity that will support him for the rest of his life.
“I don’t think I can write a check big enough to repay Martin for all he’s done for me over the years,’ Marin Superior Court Judge John Sutro Jr. said.
Sutro’s grandfather founded the firm in the late 1860s. Sutro worked there from 1961 to 1990.
“Martin was just devoted to the place,’ Sutro said. “He gave of himself limitlessly. He reflected the spirit of the firm, at least during the time that I was there, back in the days when things like that mattered.’
Macy didn’t want to talk to the Record or to me. He is still loyal to the firm. He doesn’t want anyone to think poorly of him by saying something ungracious in the paper. But, according to Glynn, he’s overwhelmed by what his former co-workers are doing for him.
It’s not just the legal world. The workplace is different now from the day Macy walked through the doors of Pillsbury, Madison 41 years ago. Mom-and-pop shops have morphed into multinational conglomerates. Everything is bigger, faster, shinier.
Macy was an anachronism, a carrier of values that now seem quaint. He still believed that if you showed up every day and worked hard and never complained and made everyone around you feel better for your presence, the company would be as loyal to you as you were to it.
Joan Ryan is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Send comments to her in care of this newspaper or send her e-mail at [email protected].