Dispositivos PAL combinacionales y sincrónicos

People often beam with pride about their home, and that’s per- fectly understandable. It’s theirs. It’s where they live, and its essence reflects their tastes and values. But you rarely hear any- one boast about their workplace—I mean, who says, “Wait until you see my great office, you’re going to love the coral color scheme and the soft lighting”—even though many of them spend more time there than at home.

Well, we want our associates to think of where they work in the same context as where they live. It should be another home, just as important as a weekend house.

For starters, we don’t use the word workplace. To me, it con- notes that it’s only a place where you work, and we think of it in a much broader sense. We like to say “store,” and if I were in the newspaper business I might say “newsroom.” Many restaurants also say “the store.” Pilots, I have to believe, say “the airport.”

It’s a lot softer to use the generic name of where you “work,” or, as we like to say, where you have fun doing what you’ve de- cided to do for a career.

Not only is it our vision that our store is our home, but the Richards store was actually designed to intentionally look and feel like a spacious home where we welcome guests (cus- tomers). We have a living room (shoe department), kitchen (customer service and refreshment bar), bedrooms (dressing rooms), and other classic (Zegna, Ralph Lauren, Canali, Loro Piana) and modern (Dolce & Gabbana, Armani, Gucci, Prada) areas of our home.

Other ways that we try to make work feel like home is that owners, managers, leaders, and entry-level associates are all ex- pected, as they might be at home, to pick up after themselves, offer coffee to guests, open the door, walk the customers to their cars, and share a bite to eat or a soda in the lunchroom to- gether.

One important bit of logistics is that we make it clear that we are all on equal footing in these responsibilities. No one gets any special privileges just because their last name happens to be Mitchell. There is no pecking order, nor any sacrosanct turf—no assigned parking places and no executive dining rooms, just as there aren’t at home. People have offices, but they can be used by others when their regular occupants are on vacation or out of town.

Dad always used to say, “I empty the trash and serve the cof- fee at the store and at home, just like everybody does.” It was true for him and is true for Bill and me, and it’s true for our

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sons, and we firmly believe our associates see this and feel it. Bill, in fact, is known as Mr. Clean, because he’s always scurry- ing around picking up after all of us!

Associates are encouraged to feel free to occasionally bring their kids to the store. It’s a tradition that Mom and Dad estab- lished with our sons and nephews. They all started as ten- or twelve-year olds, and had loads of fun first picking up pins, then serving coffee, and, in the old days, yes, sherry. And now our sons escort their children in during the holiday season, among other times, as do many of our associates. In fact, we don’t find any need to have a “Take your child to work day,” because everyone already brings their family members to the stores.

A lot of companies get all bent out of shape over nepotism. Well, we’re thrilled—indeed, we think we’re hugging our hug- gers when entire families come to work with us. And so Richards store manager Jeff Kozak’s two daughters work with us, and John Hickey III (whose dad, John Hickey Jr., by the way, worked at Richards for more than thirty years) has contributed two sons. One day, Sophia brought in her husband, Bob, and before he got away we ended up hiring him full-time as “Bar- tender/Barista Bob,” and now he works in shipping and receiv- ing to boot. Tullio happened to bring his brother Pat into the tailor shop twenty-plus years ago, and, lo and behold, Tullio and Pat now manage the shop. All of Tullio’s children—two sons and a daughter—have worked at Richards, as have An- gela’s daughters and Belinda’s son and daughter and Amy’s son and, thank God, many, many others!

and a couple of afternoons each week. “It’s been fabulous for me, because it’s strengthened our already close relationship,” Allison said. “You know how challenging most teenagers are. By working at the same place, David really came to understand and respect what I do and how hard I work. At the same time, all the associates treated him like an equal. Do you know how special it is for a young man to feel like an equal, like he’s an adult?”

The broad point is that we have an extended family in every sense. As far as we’re concerned, bring in those spouses and kids so we can put them on the payroll!

Yes, it’s true that occasionally it doesn’t work out, and what generally happens is that both the parent and the child realize that it’s not clicking and the next day or season the person qui- etly finds another job. But most of the time the relatives blos- som into great associates.

People feel so much like family, entirely at home in our stores, that Jeff Kozak, who spends far more time at the store than at home, said it just felt right to him that he should have his fiftieth birthday party at his home away from home that he is so proud of. In a real sense, it’s the house that Jeff helped build.

He asked if he could, and of course we said yes. So he in- vited his family and friends, many of whom work or have worked at Richards, including the former owners, Ed Schacter (whom we still call the boss) and his daughter Susan Fleisher. All the Mitchells had the opportunity to toast him and say nice things about Jeff. He was just glowing with pride as he stood on the Stairway to Heaven that leads upstairs, with his family and friends spread out in front of him.

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I’m so very proud of Jeff, and proud that we have a store to host the birthday party of a hard-working, loyal associate of twenty-nine years. Wow, who else would throw his birthday party where he works? Would your associates?

Never heard of it before. The great Jeff Kozak did it! Fun time!