At VeriFone It's a Dog's Life (And They Love It!)

VeriGift is even more revolutionary. During my travels I met one of our guys who was in some trouble. His wife was very sick, he needed to be home with her, but he had run out of vacation. So he took an unpaid leave of absence. We were talking about it -- he wasn't complaining -- and he said, "How can we make these kinds of situations easier for people in the future?" I didn't have the answer; I'm not all-knowing and all-seeing. But he formed a team, and at the next review his team proposed the VeriGift program. Lots of people here have vacation time they don't use. Rather than take the time as extra pay, they contribute it to a vacation bank. Then, when people have personal hardships, and they've exhausted their vacation, they apply to the bank and get additional paid vacation that others have donated.

You want human, that's human.

It's human, but it raises some thorny issues. There are fewer and fewer boundaries left between business and personal life. Haven't you just taken away another? When people join VeriFone, are they signing up for a job or are they signing over their lives?

It's a profound issue for us. The distinction between life at VeriFone and life outside of VeriFone, between the professional and the personal -- that distinction, in our company, is blurred. We work very hard to blur it. VeriKid is a case in point. Once my children are living with another VeriFone family, suddenly we're very much into personal lives. We've crossed the line.

But isn't that a dangerous life to cross? Is there ever a safe haven from the company or from work?

All I can say is that every person has to come to terms with himself or herself in the context of this new environment. Let's say it's Sunday, and you're at home. You walk past the den or bedroom, wherever your computer is. Are VeriFone people more likely than other people to log on? Absolutely. Am I expecting that? To some extent, yes. But I'm not demanding that. You have to decide.

Now the reality is, if you are a global company, you can't say, "It's Sunday in the United States so I'm not going to think about work." If it's Sunday here, it's Monday in Australia, and people there may need you. So it's a never-ending cycle. I make no bones about that.