A popular employee at Milwaukee’s Lamernoy Genistics is taking its CEO to court over the right to keep using a friendly greeting he says he invented and has been using for over 20 years.
Says analyst Max Torrey: “I go up to people, put one hand on their left shoulder, take their right hand and ask, ‘Is all OK?’”
When CEO Gabriel Portnoy arrived at the company in 2022, hopes were high. He had successfully run two other genistics firms – but during his first year at Lamernoy he made some major missteps, including removing sunflower seeds from the cafeteria menu and cutting salaries by 33 percent. .
“People avoided looking at him,” says one marketing employee. “If he got on an elevator they’d try to get off.”
Meanwhile, he observed how popular Torrey was with his colleagues. He directed two VPs to look into the matter, and they reported it was likely due to the way he greeted his fellow co-workers. Portnoy directed that they get some video of the greeting – and after studying it he decided to start using it himself.
At first, Torrey took this as a compliment. “What do they say about imitation and flattery?” he asks. But when Portnoy asked him to find another greeting – offering the “fake point and gun click” or the “thumbs up” sign as replacements – Torrey refused.
An HR representative then informed him that since he’d created the greeting on company time, it technically belonged to the company. Torrey hired a lawyer.
He is still using the greeting, as is Portnoy, and come December 15 a judge in Wisconsin’s 17th Circuit Court will decide who gets to continue.
