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 2377: A Comma Mistake

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“The lips of the godly speak helpful words, but the mouth of the wicked speaks perverse words.”

Last month a somewhat unusual business trial was settled with a group of Dairy Farm drivers winning $5 million dollars in overtime pay.  This was not because anyone tried to cheat them out of anything or withheld pay, but because in the overtime regulations, someone forgot a comma. The state law read this way:

In the state provisions that list which activities did not qualify for overtime, there is no comma between “shipment” and “or.”

The canning, processing, preserving,
freezing, drying, marketing, storing,
packing for shipment or distribution of:
(1) Agricultural produce;
(2) Meat and fish products; and
(3) Perishable foods.

And so, the lack of the comma gave the delivery drivers (who never packed, but only drove) an argument that their work was not exempt from overtime.  And, the company ended up seeing it that way too after an appeals court sided with the drivers.  What we write, like what we say, makes a difference.  What only seemed a like a misplaced comma, turned out to be costly.

We have our own mistakes of misplaced and misused words that we must be cognizant of at all times. The words we use, and the words we don’t are powerful reminders and cues to those around us as to who we are, what we believe and what example we follow.  Let’s do our best today to pay close attention to how we use our words.

Reference:  Proverbs 10:32 (New Living Translation)