Thursday, May 22, 1997

Case resurrects old concept of 'perky'

By CAROL KLEIMAN / Chicago Tribune

How do you make an office setting look more up to date, happening and with it in the eyes of clients entering the premises?

Not with modern art, Nintendo games, laptop computers or hip hop music.

The solution, instead, is a no-brainer:

You get rid of the faces that look "old."

That means anyone who is over 60 and female who is a secretary or receptionist. They are the faces visitors see first because all the "important" people, such as executives, are stashed away in beautifully furnished offices with wall-to-wall carpeting, open windows and closed doors.

As outrageous as the "solution" sounds to anyone who has ever worked in an office and knows what and who make the wheels go 'round, it's what a "good-old boys" law firm in San Francisco is accused of doing by eight women who say they were forced into retirement.

According to a report by Ann Davis in the Wall Street Journal, six of 11 receptionists at Pillsbury Madison & Sutro were over 6 decades old, and, in an effort to "cultivate Silicon Valley clients," the firm allegedly cut their jobs so that the horror of seeing ancient visages in the workplace wouldn't turn off potential accounts.

After all, "old" is unattractive and even scary.

Those involved in filing the age discrimination suit, which is scheduled to be heard in San Francisco County Superior court in August, include former secretaries, current secretaries and even a former human resources manager (who protested the alleged treatment of mature workers). They say they were axed to cut costs and create openings for younger women.

California state law forbids age discrimination against workers 40 years and older.

The law firm, which denies there ever was a campaign to get rid of older workers, admits it is trying to market itself more "aggressively" to get more customers. But it asserts that those downsized were offered, in good faith, training or special severance packages.

So far, so good. Both sides have their legal positions and the court and jury will decide who is more believable.

But there's one more aspect to the report on the age discrimination case that my tired old eyes glommed onto and got stuck on for quite a while:

"Pillsbury needed a 'perkier' look," the Wall Street Journal reports an administrator for the firm saying repeatedly. The accusation was made by the plaintiffs in a court deposition.

What I couldn't get past is that qualified, mature, dependable long-term workers allegedly were shoved aside by a law firm - a law firm, of all professions! - because they didn't look "perky" enough.

"Perky" is a very interesting word for a cutting-edge group of hotshot lawyers to be using.

Nothing is less with-it than "perky," an adjective that predates Debbie Reynolds and Marlo Thomas and is redolent of poodle skirts, oval pins and pixie haircuts.

Nothing is more old-fashioned and outdated than "perky," which the dictionary defines as "cheerful and brisk, animated, lively."

"Perky?" Perhaps the reason the lawyers wanted to get rid of the older folks, if they really did, was because they weren't hip, didn't know the first thing about gangsta rap or had never seen Dennis Rodman in a wedding gown. Any of these factors is obviously a cause for dismissal and seem to me more to the point than a lack of perkiness.

Everyone knows that some of the most valued employees around are mature executive secretaries and assistants who know how to get things done immediately and efficiently - often because they've been on the job long enough to know how to make things happen.

Are these wonderful women, assets to the world of business, also required to look "perky," the terminology of men clearly over the hill themselves?

If "perkiness" is such an important attribute in the dog-eat-dog world of law firms, it therefore must follow that other archaic adjectives, when applied appropriately, will help lawyers get the new clients they deserve - rather than decimating their older support staff in violation of age discrimination laws.

Here are some other adjectives and phrases for office support staff that might also be added as requirements in the job description:

n "Kittenish" or "the cat's meow": These qualities refer to legal secretaries' required professional ability never to repeat the catty remarks made by the lawyers for whom they work.

n "Hubba, hubba": This is an expression legal secretaries must use when asked to explain their boss' long noontime absence from the office.

n "Quick, Henry, the Flit." This is an old advertising expression for a spray that destroyed household pests, a once popular saying that lawyers over 60 should remember. Secretaries should say it - or use the product - when they are told to be "perky."