Past Due

The thin, attractive blonde stood up before a room of Rent-a-Center's top execs -- the only woman in a sea of white shirts, dark suits and ties -- and began delivering her report on the company's tax situation.

She didn't get far. Before she had completed two sentences, Ernie Talley, crimson-faced and ready to explode, rocketed from his chair, bellowing, "That's not what I wanted!"

No stranger to workplace stress, the woman tried to calm the boss down, explaining why what he wanted wouldn't be meaningful.

Bad move.

Nobody questioned the chief executive officer of Rent-a-Center -- especially not a woman. Pushing his face just inches from hers, Talley slammed his fist on the conference room table and shouted, "By God, you will have what I want, or I will find someone who will!"

Humiliated by the dressing-down and furious that her own supervisor, the chief financial officer, had kept his lips zipped during the tirade, the woman snatched her files, fled from the conference room and made her way back to her office. "I just sat there, and tears were streaming -- and I'm a hard-core type of girl; I'm not a little prissy dame," she says.

From the start, Talley had seemed less than thrilled with the idea of giving 32-year-old Leigh, a certified public accountant who asked that her surname not be published, the proverbial keys to the executive washroom. Talley had this thing about women -- he had been heard to say that women belonged in the kitchen, not in the rent-to-own business.

That attitude was pervasive in the nation's largest rent-to-own company.

Women were subjected to sexual and derisive comments.

Work requirements were changed in an effort to induce female employees to quit and to keep women from applying. Pregnant employees were fired.

Women who complained about boorish or offensive behavior were ignored or punished.

What was going on at Rent-a-Center, judging from hundreds of accounts, wasn't just fraternity-style high jinks but a systemic, top-down corporate culture that drove away female employees. It was a culture that reflected Talley's attitudes and one that will be costly to the company. Rent-a-Center is in the process of settling a sex-discrimination lawsuit that originally sought damages of $410 million, an amount that puts the Plano, Texas-based company in the same league as Mitsubishi, Shoney's, State Farm, Home Depot and other companies nailed in big-dollar discrimination cases.

Leigh got her first glimpse of Rent-a-Center culture and Ernie Talley when she interviewed with the company in January 1999. The gray-haired 64-year-old Talley seemed to care more about Leigh's personal life than her qualifications, she recalls.

He asked whether she was married or had children -- questions that most employers know are off-limits in a job interview.

Then, she says, Talley glanced at Robert Davis, his 28-year-old CFO, and said reluctantly, "Well, I don't know if this is going to work, but if you want to try it, fine."

The personal questions and Talley's icy demeanor made her want to turn down the job offer, but Davis later assured her that Talley was planning to leave the business. Moreover, Davis promised, Leigh's contact with Talley would be minimal -- he would act as a go-between.

But Davis wasn't the best messenger. Although he held the title of chief financial and accounting officer, Davis wasn't much of a bean-counter -- he wasn't a CPA or even particularly well-versed in accounting practices. Besides, he seemed more interested in popping his head into Leigh's office to ask, "I'm just wondering, did you have sex last night?"

On rare occasions, Talley summoned her to his office, where he often sat enveloped in a thick haze of cigar smoke. Leigh dreaded appearing before the person she describes as "a nasty man -- not nasty as in a sexual way, but mean."

Then one day Leigh discovered a lump in a lymph node. Her doctor wanted to see her immediately -- he was leaving town and wouldn't return for two weeks. She took the only appointment available, but when she told Davis, he insisted that she'd have to reschedule -- Talley wanted her at a meeting.

Leigh canceled her appointment but says, "Not once during this 'mandatory' meeting was my presence even acknowledged." Fuming, Leigh sent Davis an e-mail: "In the future, I would appreciate advance notice of any meeting in which my involvement may be needed." Moments later, Davis stormed into her office and fired Leigh for insubordination. She was the third woman in fifteen months to be kicked out of the position.

Things weren't any better for Leigh's successor, Donna Smith. She says that after she took the job, Davis sought her out and described the "nasty" dreams he'd had about her and discussed his penis size. After Smith complained, she received an unfavorable evaluation.

A year later, Smith sent a resignation letter to Talley, stating that she could no longer work for a company whose top management tolerated "sexual harassment and discrimination."

If the women at headquarters were complaining, they were hardly alone. As Talley's company grew, so did allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination.

Even highly regarded veteran employees felt the sting. Just ask Claudine Wilfong, a former store manager in Arnold, Missouri.