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 207: Rest Periods

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In most states there are labor laws that dictate the rest periods or “breaks” that certain employees must take throughout their work day. If someone is an hourly paid or classified as a non-exempt (means not exempt from overtime regulations)employee they, in most states, are regulated to take a break somewhere in the first half of their day, a lunch break, and a break somewhere in the second half of their day. These regulations originated from the days of assembly line and factory work when someone would be required to stay at their piece of machinery the entire day without a break whatsoever. As if someone in management didn’t think that that would catch up with them dome day? Organized labor found an opening to gather support by the rank and file to fight against this and establish laws to mandate something as human as a rest break. These kinds of topics always make me wonder about the relationship between capital and labor and why, since capital is also made up of people, that there is a leaning on labor until a breaking point is reached, until almost an inhumane breaking point is found, and then everyone comes to their senses only through the law or regulation. It is one of those oddities to me of this thing we called work. We are all called to rest at some point. Even God modeled rest on the seventh day after the work of creation was completed. Work is laborious (ala labor). Work wears us down. Work takes a physical and mental toll on each of us. Work adds to us problems that we feel like we cannot solve on our own and places burdens and weights on our shoulders and around our necks. Work can overtake us and push us to a point where we are doing inhumane things to ourselves with lack of sleep, increased stress and red-lined physical capabilities. We then let all of this permeate into the other areas of our lives and before long we are suffering in our relationships with loved ones and also spiritually. We need a rest period. And you know what? God gives it to us. He says in Matthew 11:28: “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Jesus then goes on to say, “Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke fits perfectly, and the burden I give you is light.” What a cool co-worker God wants to be. He asks us to take a rest period and let Him take over for us. Today you may be readying for a day where you already feel totally burned out, stressed and weighed down, even before the day starts. Try something new today…start the day with a rest period with God. Give Him 30 minutes of your time to refresh you in His word, strengthen you in prayer, and invigorate you with His spirit. See if today that rest period at the start of the day doesn’t make a difference later on in how you make it through the day.

Reference: Matthew 11:28 (New Living Testament)