Their only major hurdle in the new location was a competitor called Corvette Specialists of Pasadena. A small operation run by a couple of automotive enthusiasts, Corvette Specialists had an excellent reputation for customer service. This obstacle, however, was eliminated in an elegantly simple maneuver. "We figured these guys were pretty much in it as a part-time deal," Marlow says. "So I told Rich, 'Why don't we just call them up and see what it would take for them to go out of business?"
As it turned out, it didn't take much. R&J paid Corvette Specialists $10,000 earnest money to close up shop, and bought its inventory for an additional $100,000, thus making the deal an "acquisition." Among the things acquired was a young employee who had worked for Corvette Specialists since he was 16: Rod Olsen.
The fortuitous hiring of Olsen was followed by much harder times in the recruiting of new employees. With an admittedly low wage scale in a part of California where unemployment is down to 3.5%, R&J has had to scramble to find people who could meet Marlow's standards. "We hire no one," he says, "until we find exactly the person we want."
After exhausting most conventional ways of hiring new people -- including $3,800 worth of national advertising in trade journals that netted only a single resume - Marlow has turned instead to an improvised system of word-of-mouth recruitment.
Jenny Yocky, whose father is a longtime customer of R&J, began at the company with a summer job while she was in high school. Yocky, an honors student and standout softball player, came recommended by Marlow's former basketball coach at nearby Savanna High School, where Marlow says he has at least two more prospects ready to be hired. "We knew we wanted Jenny before she ever walked in the door to ask for a job," says Marlow.
At the time, Yocky had other long-range plans. Having worked on her high school newspaper, she had intended to study journalism in college. But what began as a part-time job in R&J's shipping department -- a job she considered simply an alternative to "slinging hamburgers in some fast-food place" -- has now become a full-time career she describes as "thrilling." Her original inclination toward writing has lately been exercised in producing copy for R&J's catalog, and Yocky confesses that one day she hopes to have full responsibility for the company's advertising and promotion.
"They all seemed so eager to keep me here," she says, "that I realized maybe it could mean something. This is a small company, and the people who are in it now are going to be running it someday."
Longtime car buff John Woodbridge, a 28-year-old business graduate from Arizona State University who is now R&J's wholesale marketing manager, was brought to the company's attention about three years ago by his mother, who owns a small advertising agency next door. Woodbridge had been planning a career in real estate, but was persuaded to become a regional sales representative while he was still in school. Then, during his senior year, he got a call from Marlow to "get the hell out here and interview" for the marketing job, which was going begging for lack of a decent applicant.
Woodbridge describes himself as "the first outside professional" brought into the company -- and he may be close to the last. With the possible exception of a chief financial officer, Marlow says, there is no reason why he shouldn't be able to promote from within the ranks. Which, of course, is the same way most of his employees see things.
John Hudson, certainly no outside pro, calls himself something of a "prototype" employee at R&J. The 33-year-old shipping clerk joined the company last year after a court-ordered stay in the Phoenix Program, where he was undergoing treatment for heroin addiction. "In a way, the therapy I've had has been perfect training for this place," he says. "If we detect a negative attitude in somebody here, we'll talk to him about it."
Attitudes, in fact -- not Corvette parts -- are R&J's real stock in trade. Most of the time, the company seems less like a carefully managed small business than a big, raucous family, or perhaps a marginally disciplined platoon in a grade-B Hollywood war epic. But attitudes, both Joe Marlow's and those he has inspired in his young staff, make working at R&J a way of life infinitely different from "slinging hamburgers" or most of the other local options.
There is the attitude, for example, that self-discipline is important. Supervisors, who work for Joe Marlow, pay $20 when they come in late. The fines escalate in $20 increments for successive offenses within the same month, and the money is kept in an office kitty for future use at company parties. Marlow also prohibits swearing on the job, an offense fineable at 10? a word. "We've got ladies working here," he says. One day last year, Keith McFarland, who works in the back warehouse, came in a few minutes behind schedule to be greeted by a smiling Marlow. "Oh shit," McFarland said, "I'm late."
"Yup," said Marlow, "and it will cost you $20.10."
There is the attitude that perfection is the goal -- and that everybody better pull his or her weight. "I suppose you could say we get a little insistent with each other," says Olsen. "In sales we demand that the shipping department be 'error free.' What that means is that besides getting the address right, those guys have to check the prices and the parts as they go out. Of course, that's not really their job.
