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 354: Shift Work

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Early on in my career I worked in a manufacturing plant that had three shifts that were filled and assigned by seniority first and preference second. When the two were combined, first shift (day) was first choice and then 3rd shift (graveyard) was the next most chosen. I was always fascinated by this as I found overnight the hardest shift to adapt to (I did it on the radio for 4 months). What I learned is that some people are just built for overnight work and sleep during the day. There is a rhythm to the night and a quietness of the world that some people take to more than others. But, these are a rare and small number. The night and darkness for many people is a time of uncertainty and many times fear. Once during a realignment of the plant, a woman was bumped to third shift for a short period. She was nearly hysterical that she would have to be out of her house in the middle of the night. I really felt for her as it was obvious that her fear was real for her and it was not going to be overcome. We could only help her in that the time period was going to be short. Light and dark and night and day are all metaphors that we read throughout the Bible and light symbolizes good and God. Dark and night is bad. 1 Thessalonians 5:5: says; “For you are all children of the light and of the day; we don’t belong to darkness and night.”. It may be that even though you work first or a day shift, you feel like you are caught in the dark of a third shift. What God wants to do in our lives is to allow us to work and walk in the light of His day, each and every day regardless of the physical light or dark that we would work or live in. He doesn’t want us to ever feel like we are stuck in the dark or stuck in the metaphoric night. There is one way to always be in the light of the day and that is to walk towards Him. With God there is no seniority and he does not place preferences on people. God opens Himself up to all of us and only asks that we walk towards His light and then take Him with us, in our hearts, wherever we go. What God wants is us to have Him with us on all three shifts!

Reference: 1 Thessalonians 5:5 (New Living Testament)