Latinos In America

By JOE LIGHT

Bryan Derballa for The Wall Street Journal

Christopher Santini has spent months trying to collect $35,000 he says he is owed for freelance work.

As more people turn to freelance and independent consulting work, they’re taking on an unexpected role: bill collector.

For New York business consultant Christopher Santini, the pursuit for payment from one client has practically become a second job. Last May, a small business he consulted for went through a merger, and the new company fell behind on payments to him. Now, Mr. Santini, who’s been a freelance consultant since 2008, says he is owed about $35,000, which would have accounted for almost 40% of his annual income last year.

“I started to get the standard run around,” says Mr. Santini. “The secretary would tell me the person I needed to speak to was out. Finally [they] started to ignore me and not return emails or calls.”

Mr. Santini says he has spent 80 hours calling and emailing company officials. He discussed the case with a lawyer, but decided not to bring it to court. Instead, he is still working to get the client to pay up on his own.

About 40% of freelancers had trouble getting paid in 2009, according to a survey released in mid-April by the New York-based Freelancers Union, a 135,000-member organization for independent contractors across the country in fields such as media, technology, and advertising. It was the first year the group asked the question on its member survey. And more than three out of four freelancers said they’ve had trouble getting paid over the course of their careers, according to organization.

The problem could become more acute as independent contractors emerge as a more central piece of the work force. The financial crisis and the resulting high unemployment thrust many professionals into the ranks of freelance workers, which may continue to grow despite signs of an economic recovery.

Littler Mendelson, a San Francisco-based employment law firm with 49 offices nationwide, predicts that in 2010 half of previously eliminated positions filled will be filled by contingent workers—such as independent contractors, freelancers, and temp workers—accounting for as much as 25% of the work force nationwide— based on client interviews and a survey conducted by a staffing analysis firm.

Since independent contractors aren’t covered by most federal employment laws, they don’t enjoy the same legal protections on wages as permanent employees, says a spokesman for the Department of Labor. If a permanent employee doesn’t get paid, federal or state labor departments can fine companies and even prosecute company executives. But independent contractors often have to turn to the court system, in most cases small claims, if they go unpaid.

To some, small-claims court can be more trouble than it’s worth, says Sara Horowitz, executive director of the Freelancers Union. Depending on the state, it will cost about $50 to file a claim and it can take months for a case to be heard. Even if a freelancer wins, small-claims judgments must be collected by the plaintiff.

Even before going to court, freelancers can spend significant time building their case. In January, Medford, Mass., artist Charles Leo sued a California-based coffee shop and kiosk manufacturer for $1,150, the agreed-upon fee of architectural renderings of a coffee shop he was never paid for. Mr. Leo says he spent more than 60 hours creating the renderings—and 40 hours trying to collect payment, gathering evidence and spending time in small-claims court. The judge ruled in Mr. Leo’s favor and ordered the company to pay the fee, but didn’t grant the $850 or so in punitive damages Mr. Leo requested for his time spent on the case. (The maximum judgment for small claims in Massachusetts is $2,000.)

“It was a piddling amount compared to the time I had to spend pursuing it,” he says.

How can a freelancer avoid problems? Before accepting a job, freelancers can search consumer complaint Web sites like RipoffReport.com and industry discussion boards to make sure the company they’re contracting with doesn’t have a history of late payments, says Kate Lister, a former small-business consultant, and co-author of “Undress for Success: The Naked Truth About Making Money at Home.”

Make sure to have the terms of payment and penalties for being late built into a written contract. Should a firm run into financial trouble, company officials typically give priority to the contractors who have spelled out fee-based consequences for a late payment, says Michelle Goodman, author of “My So-Called Freelance Life.”

After a payment deadline has passed, immediately try to connect with the person responsible for payment by phone. If they don’t respond, send a revised invoice with the agreed-upon fees or interest charges added on.

Where contractors go wrong is when they don’t act fast at the first sign of a late payment. Freelancers “don’t want to look like a jerk, but that’s silly. This isn’t getting a prom date. It’s business,” Ms. Goodman says.

Filing a complaint in small-claims court should be a last resort. As a last step before heading to small-claims court, send a simple letter with the amount, how long it’s overdue and your intention to take it to court, Ms. Lister says, and copy your lawyer, a company board member and any relevant regulatory agencies. A complaint about a broadcast company, for example, could be copied to the Federal Communications Commission, which considers how a broadcaster treats its local community when granting certain permits, Ms. Lister says.

“You have to find those pressure points that will make someone really pay attention to your letter,” she says.

If you get a judgment in your favor and the company doesn’t send a check, you’ll probably have to pay other fees to file liens, garnish the company’s earnings, or hire a police officer to seize cash from the business, depending on the state. Keep in mind, if a company hasn’t paid because it’s under bankruptcy-court protection or doesn’t have the money, you likely won’t be able to collect.

For its part, the Freelancers Union launched an advertising and lobbying campaign urging employers to make good on unpaid freelance wages in early April. Ms. Horowitz says her organization is working on potential legislation to pass on to state lawmakers in New York to give free-lancers more legal recourse and create penalties for companies that don’t pay.

As for Mr. Santini, he’s now working out a payment plan with the firm’s chief executive. “I don’t know how many times I’ve been told ‘The check is in the mail’ or ‘Your invoice went to my junk email inbox,’” he says.

By KRIS MAHER

STATE COLLEGE, Pa.—Legal attention here is shifting from Jerry Sandusky to criminal cases against two former Pennsylvania State University administrators and civil litigation against the school, cases that could drag on for years.

Mr. Sandusky’s lawyers said this weekend they plan to file an appeal on his conviction on 45 counts related to child-sex abuse, arguing they didn’t have enough time to prepare. “We felt rushed to trial,” said Karl Rominger, a defense attorney. Such an appeal could take six to eight months to file.

Some legal experts questioned whether an appeal would be successful, saying that while the case came to trial relatively quickly, judges have wide discretion for setting the trial’s pace and said that Judge John Cleland’s handling of the case was even-handed. “The conduct of Judge Cleland during the trial was absolutely impeccable,” said Wes Oliver, a professor at Widener Law school in Harrisburg who watched the trial from the courtroom.

A juror in the case said the verdict was never in doubt and that the strong testimony of the eight young men who testified against Mr. Sandusky overwhelmed defense arguments that the men made false accusations. “I didn’t see any hint that they (the young men) weren’t telling the truth,” said Joshua Harper, a 31-year-old high school chemistry and physics teacher who sat on the jury.

At the same time, he said Mr. Sandusky’s demeanor watching the young men testify about painful abuse appeared almost wistful at times. “It was just completely not the right reaction to the victims,” he said.

Former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky has been convicted of 45 charges 48 charges of child sex abuse against him by a jury late Friday. (Photo: AP)

The university issued a statement Friday night saying it planned to invite victims of Mr. Sandusky’s abuse to participate in an effort “to facilitate the resolution of claims against the University arising out of Mr. Sandusky’s conduct.”

Legal experts said more cases will likely be filed quickly, as attorneys seek to use current public attention to pressure Penn State in particular to reach settlements. “The focus shifted back to Penn State at the moment of this verdict,” said Tom Kline, a Philadelphia attorney who represents a 23-year-old man known as Victim 5. The young man testified that Mr. Sandusky pressed up against him and touched his genitals while they were showering in a Penn Stare athletic facility on one occasion in 2001.

Mr. Kline declined to say when he might file lawsuits on behalf of the young man. He said he wanted to first read the report into Penn State’s handling of prior allegations against Mr. Sandusky being done by former Federal Bureau of Investigation director Louis Freeh, at the request of the university trustees.

So far, one lawsuit has been filed against Penn State, the Second Mile and Mr. Sandusky in Philadelphia County Common Pleas Court. Travis Weaver, who was not among the accusers in the criminal case, is referred to as John Doe in that case. Mr. Weaver discussed allegations last week on NBC that he was sexually abused by Mr. Sandusky between 1992 and 1996, beginning when he was 10.

The defendants haven’t formally responded to allegations in Mr. Weaver’s suit. However, Penn State and Second Mile have said they are cooperating with the attorney general’s investigation, and Mr. Sandusky’s lawyer said after the jury reached its verdict that Mr. Sandusky continued to maintain his innocence.

Jeff Anderson, Mr. Weaver’s attorney, said he plans to begin filing requests for evidence from the defendants in the civil suit “right away.” He said he represents two other men who allege they were also abused by Mr. Sandusky and weren’t part of the criminal case.

Still unresolved are charges against Gary Schultz, Penn State’s former vice president of business administration, and Tim Curley, the university’s former athletic director, who await trial on one count each of perjury and failing to report an alleged instance of child-sex abuse in a Penn State athletic-facility shower in 2001. The men have pleaded not guilty. A hearing on the case is scheduled for July 11.

Prosecutors recently announced the discovery of emails between the two administrators and former President Graham Spanier that prosecutors said show the men discussing how to respond to the 2001 shower incident. Mr. Spanier, who was ousted by Penn State’s trustees in November, continues to draw a salary. No criminal charges have been filed against him. Mr. Spanier couldn’t be reached for comment.

Write to Kris Maher at kris.maher@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared June 25, 2012, on page A3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Penn State Faces Years in Court.

In a competitive job market and workplace, we often think we have to do something extraordinary to stand out, but this isn’t necessarily the case. Sometimes, it’s the little things that encourage people to remember and appreciate us — the foundation for a career boost later on.

Alexandra Levit

Alexandra Levit

When popular business author Tom Peters gives a speech, hundreds of people wait in line for just a few minutes of his time. At a seminar, Mr. Peters was in a foul mood. Everything was going wrong and the talk seemed doomed. But just before showtime, Mr. Peters encountered an enthusiastic audio/visual staffer who was determined to cheer Mr. Peters up. “He saved my speech and he saved my neck,” writes Mr. Peters in his book “The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence.”

If two people contacted Mr. Peters after the speech, say this A/V guy and an attendee who had insightfully analyzed the contents of Mr. Peters’ books, who do you think Mr. Peters would recall meeting? Well, he’s still talking about this A/V guy years later. The A/V guy did something little — he was cheerful — and that had a big impact.

Recall traditional values: Life in the business world is difficult. Change is everywhere and many of us are still reeling from the work-force bloodletting that began two years ago. And one way that workers are responding is to emphasize traditional workplace and social values like courtesy and fairness.

“I think we’re realizing that life is not this great intellectual construct,” says Mr. Peters. “It’s about remembering the simple things your grandmother taught you, getting through the day, and helping others get through the day.”

Be thoughtful and appreciative: “Keeping track of details like your mentor’s children’s names requires discipline, and making an effort to learn these things is often the first thing to slip away when you’re busy,” he says. “But being able to bring them out in conversation will make other people pay attention.”

Vocal appreciation is another simple way to generate goodwill. We are all bombarded with requests on a daily basis. If that high-profile someone took the time to respond to yours, you should thank her, but also consider sending her a card or giving her some public ink on an industry or personal blog or Web site. And if a person has impressed you, acknowledge his contributions and be generous with your compliments, making them meaningful by focusing on specific actions rather than vague generalities.

Meet in person: Given the emphasis on e-communication, going out of your way to meet people in person is another way to stand out. “You have to purposefully expand your circle and engage people with different perspectives,” says Mr. Peters. “Find excuses to get together, and never waste a lunch.” This includes developing relationships with junior-level employees or administrative assistants, who may have the top person’s ear.

Finally, instead of always looking ahead, take pride in your work today. “Just go the extra half inch. Following up on a minor lead that you’re curious about or volunteering for that unsexy project could make the difference for your career in the end,” says Mr. Peters.

Write to Alexandra Levit at reinvent@wsj.com

By ALEXANDRA LEVIT

A few years ago, experts would tell you that if you didn’t have a blog, your career would self-destruct. So, millions started them, even if writing a compelling post each day was their version of waterboarding.

Then, there was a backlash. The same experts said the blogosphere was too crowded and you should only be out there if you are a CEO or have already proven that thousands of people want to read your ideas.

So what’s the current story? To blog or not to blog to further your reinvention efforts?

Chris Brogan, the president of New Marketing Labs, has been blogging since 1998 — when it was still called journaling. Today, 25,000 people subscribe to ChrisBrogan.com to get his thoughts on everything from dynamic online communities to children’s books.

Become an Expert

Mr. Brogan began his career in telecommunications, and, over a period of several years, leveraged his blog to transform himself into an expert in online community building and business strategy. “I evolved my blog from writing about everything that was in my head to zeroing in on what my readers need,” he says. “I allow people to come in, pick up my material, and walk away and make it their own.”

The advantages of using a blog to jump-start your career, says Mr. Brogan, are many. “Blogging is flexible and gives you the freedom to set your own agenda and publishing schedule,” he says. “It’s also the Trojan horse into many large companies, because executive-level readers see my posts and get an immediate taste of the value I can bring to their businesses.”

Blogging isn’t for everyone, though. For some, the prospect of drafting original content two or more times a week is undesirable or impractical. And for those who excel at the spoken word rather than the written word, there are better avenues, such as YouTube.

Even people who love to write should understand what they want the blog to achieve in terms of their professional development. “Not having a focus will dilute your authority and distract people,” says Darren Rowse, who runs ProBlogger.net, a site that helps writers add income streams to their blogs.

Explore the Blogosphere

Before you begin the process of using a blog to establish yourself in a new industry, check out the community that already exists there. “Learn the culture and the etiquette,” says Mr. Rowse. “Look carefully at the other blogs and assess the holes. What are the topics that no one is currently covering? What niche can you fill by being yourself and sharing your expertise?”

When I started blogging in 2006, I networked with other bloggers by commenting on their posts and linking out to their sites. It helped me gain traction for my blog, and it also provided critical insights and information about my new career as a business-advice writer.

Over all, I think blogging forces reinventers to clarify their ideas, build a body of knowledge in a new area and carefully consider their long-term career goals. It’s also a valuable way to measure success.

“You can determine if you’re really engaging people by looking at traffic, subscribers and comments,” says Mr. Rowse.

Please send your career questions to reinvent@wsj.com. Alexandra Levit will answer some in the paper and online at WSJ.com/Careers.

By RACHEL EMMA SILVERMAN and LAUREN WEBER

Here’s a recruiting riddle: What costs more but often works worse? Outside hires.

Fueled by a conviction that there’s plenty of talent in their ranks and backed by research showing that hiring outsiders can lead to costly missteps, firms are ramping up internal hiring efforts and investing in new career sites to boost intra-office movement. So far, those efforts are helping firms cut recruiting costs and retain high performers, companies say.

James Yang

Cisco Systems Inc.

has developed an internal career program, called Talent Connection, that seeks to identify “passive candidates,” qualified employees who aren’t necessarily looking for a job. The system is designed to help recruiters approach internal candidates the way they do external ones, says Mark Hamberlin, a Cisco vice-president of global staffing.

Since 2010, about half of Cisco’s 65,000 employees have created profiles on the website and even more have used it to search for jobs, says Mr. Hamberlin. Talent Connection has saved the company “several million dollars” in search-firm fees and other recruiting costs, while employee surveys show workers’ satisfaction with career development has risen by nearly 20 percentage points, he said.

Promoting from within—from the chief executive on down—can deliver more benefits for companies than hiring outside talent, a growing body of research suggests.

One recent study from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School found that external hires were paid some 18% more than internal employees in equivalent roles, but fared worse in performance reviews during their first two years on the job.

Hiring managers may be wowed by an outsider’s résumé or new perspective, but they “underestimate how hard it is to integrate new people,” says Matthew Bidwell, a Wharton assistant professor whose study examined six years of employee data at a financial services company’s U.S. investment banking unit, covering nearly 5,300 workers.

No matter how good the software, recruiters and employees need to carefully manage talent-hoarding bosses who fear losing top performers, says John Sullivan, a management professor at San Francisco State University.

James Yang

Internal hiring systems are often useful for companies where work is done on a project basis. At Shaw Group Inc.,

an engineering and construction services company based in Baton Rouge, La., employees work on assignments that last anywhere from a few months to a decade. With 27,000 employees, management needed a comprehensive database to track workers’ skills and experience.

“One of our executives said what we want is a baseball card,” or a single page containing an employee’s skills, training completed and performance evaluations, said Lacy Kiser, vice president of human resources at Shaw’s Power Group in Charlotte, N.C.

The result is an Internet-based system that allows managers to quickly assess what talent is available for an open project and determine whether to begin an external search.

Since the system went live in late 2009, open positions are now staffed in 45 days, down from 60 days two years ago, Mr. Kiser said.

To be sure, companies need to make some external hires, especially in areas that could use a shake-up, or when they’re growing rapidly. Prof. Sullivan said that change agents often have to come from outside.

Google Inc.

last year replaced its internal job board with Magnet, a site that gives workers more information about internal career paths and encourages worker mobility. Workers who are interested in a move can tag themselves within Magnet as “looking for new opps” if they want to be considered for open positions.

Last summer, Nicky Crane used Magnet to move from a technical position in human resources to become a product manager at YouTube. The site allowed her to learn about various teams and staffers’ backgrounds, she said. She found out, for instance, that a friend and a friend-of-a-friend were on the team, which helped her determine whether the job would be a good fit.

Her former manager, she adds, was supportive of the switch. “It was a pretty easy conversation to have,” she said.

In 2010, consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton created an internal recruiting system, called Inside First. Each business unit gets a recruiter to act as career coach and matchmaker, and all managers and employees have access to a database of job openings and staff profiles, with information such as languages spoken and willingness to relocate.

The company, which has about 25,000 employees, now fills about 30% of open positions with internal hires-up from 10% two years earlier.

“We overlooked our own people. It was easier to go to the outside,” said Lucy Sorrentini, a principal in people services at Booz. The company has since found it is more efficient to bring insiders up to speed. “They know our firm and in some cases they already know the client,” she said.

Write to Rachel Emma Silverman at rachel.silverman@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared May 30, 2012, on page B1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: An Inside Job: More Firms Opt to Recruit From Within.

By TODDI GUTNER

Some recently laid-off employees are tapping an unexpected source for work: their former employer. Project work from your old company gives you the chance to earn income, and the company the opportunity to use your services without increasing its full-time headcount, often without having to pay benefits. But navigating the transition can be tricky. Here’s how to decide whether it’s a good idea, and how to succeed if you do it:

Weigh cash needs against the prospect of a permanent job. If you need an income right away, you may need to take a temporary position, and your former employer may be the easiest option. But the more time you spend on contract work, the less time you have for your search for a full-time job.

Gauge your emotions. Make sure your layoff didn’t leave you too emotionally scarred to be able to work well in your old office. If you’re bitter and can’t suppress it, consider forgoing the work. “Former employees who left on poor terms or who are not psychologically ready to return to their former employer should instead focus on future opportunities,” says Rabia de Lande Long, an executive coach and organizational consultant with Chartwell Advisors in New York.

Determine impact on severance. Ask how taking a contract job might affect your severance benefits, says Doug Matthews, president of Right Management, an outplacement consultancy based in Philadelphia. Some companies may make you take severance as a lump sum rather than in continuing payments if you work as a contractor. Other firms may require you to be fully off the books for a period of time. Consult with an employment lawyer, and have the company’s head of human resources “write a letter that specifically allows your return to work as acceptable under the agreement,” says Ms. de Lande Long. Also, check with your local unemployment office to see how contract income may affect your unemployment insurance benefits.

Negotiate your duties and fee. Consider getting an employment lawyer to help draft or review a contract. Or check out Nolo.com for online resources. The contract should detail what you are expected to deliver, by when and the project fee or hourly rate. Contact former colleagues, executive recruiters, or career coaches to determine an appropriate payment. Ms. de Lande Long recommends adding 30% to 40% to your old salary and then dividing by 100 to get a starting point for your day rate. If you have worked for a large consulting firm before, start with a rate equal to half your old billing rate, advises Ms. de Lande Long.

Understand the new office politics. The relationship with your former colleagues will likely change. Employees may resent that they aren’t getting raises but that the company is paying you for project work. You’ll want to make sure staffers see the value of your work, so you’ll probably have to work even harder than them to prove your worth.

Be reasonable about extra work—but only to a point. If the company occasionally asks you to do more work than what’s in your contract, it is a good idea to do it to show you are a team player. But don’t let this become routine. Let your manager know that you’ll need to reassess the agreement if he expects you to do more on a regular basis.

A youthful indiscretion haunts Jeffrey Hollender every time he visits Canada.

He gets detained for extra security screening because of an incident in 1978 where authorities arrested and deported the then 23-year-old American for operating an adult-education school in Toronto without a work permit. Yet the career setback—and the subsequent soul-searching—proved a springboard for his eventual success. He co-founded and ran Seventh Generation Inc., a leading maker of environmentally friendly household products based in Burlington, Vt.

Mr. Hollender is hardly unique. For Peter G. Peterson, the billionaire co-founder of Blackstone Group LP,

a New York private-equity firm, it took an expulsion from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a stint as a department store employee to finally realize what he wanted to do. Myron E. Ullman III, chief executive of J.C. Penney Co.,

was a 30-year-old university business officer when he was involved in mishaps that landed his new boss in an emergency room twice in two weeks.

All three gleaned lessons from their early stumbles that helped them thrive later. Their experiences offer a road map to anyone discouraged by initial missteps. “Early setbacks represent a key developmental event that successful executives cite when they look back over their careers,” says Ellen Van Velsor, a senior fellow at the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, N.C. The center has studied the role of setbacks in future success for decades.

To rebound from early mistakes, you need time to reflect constructively, as Mr. Hollender did. The college dropout had begun his nonprofit Skills Exchange in 1977. Classes ranged from sushi preparation to poetry writing. He didn’t obtain a work permit because “I was totally obsessed with work” to obtain the permanent Canadian residency status required. Mr. Hollender never equated his deportation with failure. “It caused me to begin to re-examine what really matters,” he says. He spent months in contemplation while cutting trees on a cousin’s ginseng farm in Vermont.

The entrepreneur next created a New York venture called Network for Learning, with offbeat classes such as “The Art of Flirting.” This time, however, he aimed to make money. “If you are going to invest your time, passion and energy, you should do it as a for-profit business,” Mr. Hollender says. Network for Learning quickly grew, attracting 60,000 students and turning a profit by its second fiscal year. Mr. Hollender sold the business to a Warner Communications unit for more than $2 million in 1985. Four years later, Mr. Hollender and partner Alan Newman raised money for a failing mail-order catalog that peddled environmental products. They renamed it Seventh Generation, where Mr. Hollender, 55, now is executive chairman.

Mr. Peterson’s early setbacks persuaded him to set higher ethical standards and heed his gut instincts. M.I.T. kicked him out in fall 1944 for plagiarizing another student’s term paper. He believed he didn’t cheat because he had revised it and added much of his own information. The humiliating expulsion made him realize he should avoid “self-serving rationalizations about questionable behavior.” He instead asked himself: “What would a person I admire greatly think about this behavior?” That’s why “I have somehow managed to stay out of trouble ever since,” he continues.

After graduation from Northwestern University in 1947, the marketing major was hired as an assistant toy buyer for a department store in Portland, Ore. He quit four months later because he hated retailing. “I had made a serious mistake,” he says.

During a three-day drive to Chicago, where his fiancée was going to school, he says he kept thinking: “What [do] I really enjoy doing?” He concluded his keen analytical ability qualified him for market research. He joined a small market-research firm, earning $50 a week. The concern promoted the junior analyst to executive vice president within two years. He later was an adman at McCann-Erickson, CEO of electronics maker Bell & Howell Co., President Richard Nixon’s commerce secretary and head of Lehman Brothers.

Mr. Peterson co-launched Blackstone in 1985. He says he insisted the firm do no equity research or hostile takeovers because he felt those activities unethically conflicted with clients’ interests. Otherwise, “you weren’t dealing straight with these people,” he says. The decision reflected his post-M.I.T. belief “in the need for honesty and integrity,” he adds.

For Mr. Ullman, twin injuries suffered by his supervisor propelled him to perform better on the job. He was chief business officer for University of Cincinnati when Henry Winkler became acting president in summer 1977. Weeks later, the two men and their wives decided to drive together to a football game.

Mr. Ullman was standing by his wife when she slammed the car door on his boss’s hand. Mr. Winkler says the bad bruise incapacitated him for two weeks. The day they resumed their regular racketball game, Mr. Ullman hit Mr. Winkler—who had ducked behind him—with his racket and gave him a black eye. “I am not sure I can survive working with you,” Mr. Winkler recalls joking at the time.

“I have a lot to prove that I am not a risk,” Mr. Ullman replied anxiously. As a result, “there’s no question I worked my butt off,” he says. “I earned his respect for other than my ability to hurt him.”

Mr. Ullman, now 63, says his recovery efforts deepened his ties with his boss. Mr. Winkler often helped by taking the heat when Mr. Ullman needed more budget funds or persuading colleagues to assist him. This taught Mr. Ullman, who held top jobs at several retailers before taking command of Penney in 2004, a powerful leadership lesson: “If a boss focuses on making colleagues successful, they have a better chance of succeeding.”

Mr. Winkler says Mr. Ullman proved he “was first rate.” The young administrator soon earned a vice presidency, thanks to lobbying by his boss.

Mr. Winkler was among “the most important mentors in my career,” concludes Mr. Ullman.

A version of this article appeared May 4, 2010, on page D4 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Three Who Thrived After Early Gaffes.

By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ

HBO

Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen in ‘Hemingway & Gellhorn.’

Hemingway & Gellhorn

Monday, May 28, at 9 p.m. on HBO

When she died in 1998, as during her life, Martha Gellhorn was acknowledged to be one of the most fearless, determined and talented journalists ever to have covered wars, and she appears to have covered all that the 20th century offered her. She did it without any help from, and against the wishes of, Ernest Hemingway, her husband for five intense but restive years (1940-1945)—the ones covered, as are those of their earlier affair, in the powerfully seductive “Hemingway & Gellhorn.” She did it, not least, as a woman in a period when female reporters could expect no credentials to operate anywhere near the front lines. Uncredentialed, correspondent Gellhorn managed nevertheless to argue and connive her way to most of the main events on the European front during World War II, D-Day included. Through it all she was emboldened by her passion to be at the center of the action, and by a steely will—a notably beautiful, leggy blonde whose glamorous looks were no hindrance to her efforts to get past regulations.

They were no hindrance, either, in attracting Hemingway—whom she first met, in 1936, at Sloppy Joe’s bar in Key West, Fla.—a figure Clive Owen portrays with panache, though a kind overburdened with relentless irony. Things improve once we get past the film’s early scenes, which show a Hemingway wild-eyed, cigar in mouth, looking unnervingly like Groucho Marx.

They improve dramatically with Nicole Kidman’s finely tuned performance as Gellhorn. Hemingway was married to Pauline, wife No. 2—a small gem of a portrayal by Molly Parker as that bitter, betrayed wife—when he met the ravishing Martha. She was, throughout her life, famously and serenely uninterested in the wives of the men she bedded, in what they thought about her or anything else. Uninterested too, most of the time, in questions about where her liaisons with their husbands were headed.

What interested her was the world and its tumults, its great causes, its wars. The Spanish Civil War was her first. In 1937, when she was 29, she joined Hemingway and a crew of some of the most famous chroniclers of that struggle—among them the novelist John Dos Passos (David Straithairn) and the young photographer Robert Capa (Santiago Cabrera)—in shooting a documentary, “The Spanish Earth.” They were there to aid the Spanish Republican struggle (supported by the Soviet Union) against the alliance of Fascists led by Gen. Francisco Franco (supported by Nazi Germany). It was a war whose bloody scenes of carnage caused by German bombers she would not forget. Nor could she come to terms with its outcome. The victory by the Fascists in Spain, she says in the film (which uses quotations from her diaries and letters), had changed her forever. It would not be the last war to do so. The Nazi death camps were a few years ahead.

Nothing in this film speaks for its mastery more decisively than its depiction of that war. Given all the time and detail lavished on that depiction, it’s clear that the film’s creators—director Philip Kaufman (“The Right Stuff”) and writers Jerry Stahl and Barbara Turner—were betting on its power. A very good bet it was, too. Scene after wonderfully crowded scene evokes the color and tone of this bitterly ideological struggle, as do the militant songs—the choruses of “Viva La Quince Brigada” that come rumbling along, irresistible accompaniment to the battle scenes. No war of its size in modern history produced songs as enduring as those identified with the Loyalists, the losing side. A check shows plenty of CDs available at Amazon.

That war seems to have been enough for Hemingway, who married Gellhorn toward its end—a position she hadn’t particularly sought—and who wanted now to concentrate on novel-writing at the couple’s retreat in Cuba. A life at home would not do for his journalist wife. World War II was on, and she had no intention of sitting it out on an island. Nor could she tolerate Hemingway’s notion, at which she scoffed, that they could aid the war effort by staying home and hunting German U-boats in Cuban waters.

It was the beginning of the end of the marriage, which would degenerate rapidly, with Hemingway an increasingly mean drunk, so vengeful toward the wife who was leaving him—no woman had ever done that before—that he took the trouble to big-foot his way to a Collier’s magazine assignment that was supposed to be hers. The only one she wanted—the job of covering the Normandy landings.

Like all works of this kind, this one reshapes and invents aspects of its subjects’ lives, but for the most part the film’s intrusive inventions appear minimal. With the exception, that is, of the wildly overheated sex scenes between Hemingway and Gellhorn, which aren’t simply crashing bores—and they are that—it’s that they ring blatantly false every time. They’d do so even if one didn’t know, or believe, Gellhorn’s own testimony later in life about how little enjoyment she had found in sex with Hemingway.

In the film’s final scene she’s shown looking gloomily out of a window, confronting an equally gloomy black bird staring back. Given all this, it’s hard to avoid the suggestion that there’s nothing much left for her now that Hemingway is out of her life—though the script does make a stab at suggesting otherwise by having her stalk darkly off to a new story assignment as the picture ends.

There was, in fact, everything still ahead—an illustrious career as a war correspondent, magazine writer, novelist; another marriage (that failed); an adopted child. And an extensive romantic life that included a sustained affair, toward the end of World War II, with the enormously attractive James Gavin, Commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, who fell hard for Gellhorn and wanted to marry her. As did others.

That this rich, impressively ambitious film says far more about Martha Gellhorn than about Ernest Hemingway was inevitable. Martha is the one who manages, without credentials, to get to Omaha Beach on D-Day. She is, unmistakably and not accidentally, the commanding presence here—a fact that would not have pleased her former husband.

***

Witness: G.I. Homecoming

Monday, May 28, 10 p.m. on National Geographic Channel

A word for “G.I. Homecoming,” a short film on the experience of families exulting in the surprise return of loved ones home from duty in Afghanistan and Iraq. The celebrations here may be familiar—but the accompanying vignettes on the impact of the separation between parents and children, and husbands and wives, that go with service in the military are revealing in their detail, raw in feeling and well worth watching.

A version of this article appeared May 25, 2012, on page D8 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Importance of Leaving Ernest.