Humans of Workman

Memories and Observations

Photos and interviews by Maddie Williams
8th grade student intern

Lisa Hollander | Art Department

“It was Peter Workman’s fiftieth birthday, and the publicity person, Andrea, came around to everybody and asked each of us to wrap up a golf ball. I had just started here; I had only been working maybe two or three weeks. I looked at the golf ball and I said, ‘What do you mean wrap the golf ball?’ She said, ‘Just wrap a golf ball. Do it creatively.’ We were only about fifty people at the time. I said to myself, ‘What am I gonna do here? I have no idea.’ So I went home and I wrapped the golf ball. I didn’t give it a whole heck of a lot of thought.

“The day of the party, we all went into the lunch room and there was a big pile of gifts on the table. Peter came in and he started to unwrap the presents, and the first one he opened was a beach bucket that somebody had filled with sand and put a golf ball inside, like it was in a sand trap. He unwrapped it, and he proceeded to unwrap more presents and more presents and more presents, all of them decorated golf balls. Finally, he opened up one and it was an avocado, so he said, ‘This can’t be a golf ball; it’s an avocado.’ He showed it to everybody, and he was looking at it and looking at it. He opened it up, and where there should have been a pit, there was a golf ball. I said to myself, ‘Wow, this is a really creative company: everybody!’ It wasn’t just the art department–normally I’m used to just the art department being creative, but that gift was from someone in editorial. It was very interesting, because I said to myself, ‘This is a company I want to associate myself with. This is someplace I want to be.’”

 

International Sales Department Meeting

 

Elisabeth Scharlatt | Publisher, Algonquin Books | 26 years

“In our old office there was a sign at the reception desk that said ‘Workman Publishing: Books, Calendars, Parties,’ and I remember that before the company got so big and the industry got so complicated, we had a lot of parties. It was a much more informal company. As the business has grown, we’ve had to keep up with the digital world and the different ways that books are read and distributed. But we still have parties.”

 

Our Chicken Relaxing in the Relaxshack

 

Erica Moroz | Algonquin Books | 10 days

“It’s a very nice work atmosphere. Everyone’s very friendly and helpful, and encourages you to ask questions. We get bagels on Mondays. I think the most important thing for a new person to know is that everyone is ready to answer your questions.”

 

Brain Quest Display

 

Mike Vago | Art Studio | 10 years

“The biggest thing that we do all year in the studio is BEA, the industry’s biggest trade show. We set up this gigantic booth. We make big posters, we make giant books, huge displays, and all kinds of other things. Every year, there are always one or two little things that go wrong and I always think, well, next year we will get it right. The biggest, most complicated thing we ever did was put together a show and a party at the same time. I rented a pickup truck to drag posters and things back and forth between our office and the Javits Center. It all went off perfectly: Every sign was in the right place, nothing was missing, everything was great. It was all perfect. I walked outside to get back in the truck. I reached into my pocket and discovered that I didn’t have the keys. I ran to the truck and it was unlocked, with the keys in it, running, right in front of the convention center with like 50,000 people streaming past, and nobody noticed. I got in the car and it was fine.”

 

Special Sales Meeting

 

Marilyn Barnett | Gift Sales | 8 years

“The offices are painted all these bright colors, and when you come down the steps you don’t get a really good idea of the layout. So when I first came here, I got lost every time I left my office. The first week I found myself visiting people that I never met again! That’s an amusing memory, looking back, since I never get lost anymore.”

 

 Workman Entrance

 

Phil Gerace | Credit Department | 33 years

“Carolan Workman used to work late a lot, and I used to work late a lot, and the office had been broken into a few times. So we hired night guards. One night I was showing them how to use the phone PA system. I picked up the phone and I projected it through the whole office and said, ‘This is security! Don’t you move! We’ve got you covered!’ Well, Carolan heard this and called 911 and said to them, ‘I’m really scared, would you stay on the phone with me?’ and they said, ‘Absolutely.’ She was hiding under her desk with the phone when the police came. There was a lieutenant, a sergeant, and about ten cops. I’d gone back to my desk and didn’t know about any of this yet. I heard a buzz at the front door, so I ran upstairs and there was a long hallway–probably a quarter mile, maybe a little less, I may be exaggerating. I saw about a dozen cops at the glass doors and I ran all the way to the front to let them in. By the time I got there, because I’m out of shape, I couldn’t breathe. I buzzed them in and I tried to talk to them but I was huffing and puffing, and they said to me, ‘Who are you?’ and I said, ‘Well, I work here.’ I was telling them the story and they said, ‘Well, we have a call from Mrs. Workman. You guys were broken into and the robbers are here, she heard the announcement.’ Now I burst out laughing. I thought, I’m probably gonna get fired for this. I said ‘Come on, I’ll show you where she is.’ They said, ‘She’s under her desk.’ I turned white because now I was thinking, oh my god, Carolan crawled under the desk. But we laugh about it now. It’s a great memory.”

 

 What a Great View!

 

Lauren Southard | Marketing Department | 1 year

“The Christmas party is a lot of fun, with a lot of cookies and food.”

 

Suzanne’s Office

 

Ian Gross | Contracts Department | 10 years

“When we published the book Take a Nap, Change Your Life we did a napping study, and a bunch of us got to roll out yoga mats under our desks and take a nap in the middle of the day to see if it affected our work in the afternoon.”

 

Story Blocks

 

 

Shirley Ortiz | Customer Service Department | 20 years

“My very first week working at Workman–I started in October– I remember coming in after school to report to work, and it was right around Halloween, so everyone was in costume. I thought it was just the coolest company, because in the middle of the day everyone was in a costume. That left an image in my mind of what the company was like and I haven’t been disappointed.”

 

Children’s Editors Testing Out Story Blocks

 

Nancy Murray | Production Director, Artisan | 27 years

“I used to go on press in Japan. When I go on press, I’m making sure that whatever we’re printing looks as good as possible. After sort of a stressful time on press, the printers took me out for dinner and then to a karaoke bar, and they all sang, ‘I love, I love, I love my calendar girl.’ It’s an old song. And that was pretty funny.”

 

Washi Tape

 

Jenny Mandel | Special Markets and New Business Development | 23 years

“At my first interview with Peter Workman, we were sitting at the round table in his office. He was talking to me about the books, and he was so excited that he knocked his glasses off his face as he was gesturing. His glasses went flying across the room. But he kept talking about the books and I thought, ‘Should I go pick up his glasses? Why isn’t he getting his glasses?’ But it was all about the books, his focus was on the books, and I loved that he never wavered from his focus on the books.”

 

Workman Books on Display

 

Justin Krasner | Editorial Department | 4 years

“I met with an author two weekends ago, and he asked us to get under a tarp–a giant tarp, actually it was a garbage bag–so he could show us some ideas for his book. What are some crazy things that I’ve done? Oh, well, I had to dress up as the Brain Quest mascot once for the Boston Book Festival, which was great, wearing a dog suit, head and all. Lots of weird stuff, wonderful stuff, wonderful weird stuff.”

 

International Editions

 

Colleen Venable | Kids’ Art Department | 7 months

“I always joke around and say that I have Tom Hanks’ job from Big: It’s like, ‘Here’s a random crazy thing, lets see if we can make it!’”

 

Birthday Celebration

 

Kylie McDonald | Editorial Department | 9 years

“I really love all the retirement parties and Christmas parties, and also the parties where we celebrate people’s anniversaries. It’s really nice to hear stories from people who have been here for so long.”

 

Washi-Taped Bike

 

Maisie Tivan | Editorial Department | 8 years

“There were some problems with a Scanimation book, and it was troublesome; a lot of the images weren’t right. So four of us went to the warehouse in Wisconsin. It was really amazing because most of us don’t get to see the warehouse, and it was cool to go out there. We went through 15,000 books or so–it was some crazy number like that–and we checked all of them. It was cool. We were there for a couple of days and it was a lot of work, and it was really hard. It was really different from what I usually get to do.”

 

Evening View

 

Walter Weintz | Sales Department | 11 years

“I used to take trips up to Storey Publishing with Peter Workman. It’s a long drive, about three and a half hours from New York City. Peter and I would go up there two or three times a year, and it was always just so much fun. Talking about books, talking about authors, talking about music–and the meetings that we had at Storey were fun, too. It was nice to be out of the office. It was always interesting and stimulating being in Peter’s company.”

 

Book to Come…

 

Peggy Gerak | Credit Department | 23 years

“I can remember us all climbing up on the roof at 708 Broadway (a former office location). There must have been 200 of us. We all got on the roof and they took our picture for Publishers Weekly magazine. It was amazing how we all got up there together.”

 

“I have a fear of dying in a car, and I realized that six out of my eight novels include someone dying in a car.” –Gabrielle Zevin, Author of the Bestselling Book The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry

 

Bobby Walsh | Photo Department | 2 years

“The Christmas parties are always really fun.”

 

Endless Cups of Coffee

Evan Griffith | Editorial Department | 6 weeks

“On my first day here, all the editorial assistants took me out to lunch. That was really nice, it was a cool, welcoming thing.”

 

Meeting About the Upcoming List

 

Chris from Customer Service

 

Publishers from Finland

Workman Washi-Taped Coffee Cups

Millie and Rachael from Customer Service