Author Archives: Rusty Rueff

About Rusty Rueff

Rusty Rueff, author of purposed worKING. Rusty Rueff is the former Chairman Emeritus of The GRAMMY Foundation in Los Angeles. He most recently completed the successful 16 month leadership role as Coordinating National Co-Chair for Technology for Obama (T4O) for the reelection of President Obama and ten-years of Board service and President of the Board of Trustees of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Corporately, most recently Rueff was the Chief Executive Officer at SNOCAP, Inc. until the acquisition of the company by imeem, Inc. in April 2008. Before joining SNOCAP in 2005, he was Executive Vice President of Human Resources at Electronic Arts (EA) from 1998 until 2005. He was also with the PepsiCo companies for more than ten years, with the Pratt & Whitney division of United Technologies for two years, and in commercial radio as an on-air personality for six years. Rusty holds an M.S. in counseling and a B.A. in radio and television from Purdue University. In 2003 he was named a distinguished Purdue alumnus, and he and his wife, Patti, are the named benefactors of Purdue’s Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts. He is a corporate director of Glassdoor.com and runcoach. He is the co-founder and Executive Committee Member of T4A.org, serves on the Founding Circle of The Centrist Project and a founding Board Member of The GRAMMY Music Education Coalition. He is also the co-author of the book Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business. Rusty and his wife, Patti, reside in Hillsborough, CA and Charlestown, R.I.

day 476: Distress Calls

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“Distress calls”. When I hear this term I think of either something that happens at sea or something that a policeman or fireman would do when they are in trouble. But, the truth of the matter is that every workplace has their own version of distress calls. It just may not be as obvious as those that we hear and see from TV or other sources. Our distress calls come in the form of people who burn out or become overwhelmed to the point that they feel like they need to walk off the job in order to regain balance or sanity in their lives. Today, there are more and more people who feel this way. This past week, a strange hero was created from the antics of the guy, Steven Slayter, who decided to quit his JetBlue flight attendant job in a very colorful way. I have been troubled since this story by the number of people and media outlets who have lifted him up as a new folk hero of the working person. What this did tell me is that many people are feeling frustrated, trapped and unfulfilled in their current jobs and with the economy the way it is, they would rather stay in their current situation than risk a move or worse yet, join the unemployed. These are distress calls in a distressed time. As believers we are not immune to these feelings in our jobs. But, we have a better place to send our distress calls. In Psalm 55:17, David models this for us; “Morning, noon and night I plead aloud my distress, and the Lord hears my voice”. If today, you are feeling distressed and you are placing the call, but you feel like no one is listening or responding, then it may be that you are sending the call in the wrong direction. Try allowing God to be on the receiving end of your problems and challenges at work and see if the answers don’t come back in a better and different way.

Reference: Psalm 55:17 (New Living Testament)