Pat Farrah is a hands-on-guy. an when the company got to the siz where he couldn't touch everything every day, it frustrated him. When he muldn't be in every store every day, when he couldn't be involved in everything, he lost it.
One day, a top merchant came to see Arthur. "I have to talk to you about Pat,"he said, with a tone of desperation in his voice. I can't take the strain of keeping up with him anymore. I have to leave the company." His announcement came as a complete shock.
We didn't know how serious the problem with Pat was until this Inerchant spoke Up. He was exhausted', emotionally and physically Here's why: Workdays ' with Pat sometimes started at 7 AM or earlier. He might or n-dght not eat lunch, Dinner was not often eaten until three in the morning. The next morning, he would start at 7 AM all over again. 71iis would go on seven days and nights in a row, because healways worked weekends.
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"Burnout" is a shop-worn phrase that doesn't quite explain this situation. It was more an issue of Pat not being able to adapt to the breadth of what we had become. Fat has the capacity to create something from nothing, but he'had this greater need to be all over, to be the Home Depot ambassador of everything, and it reach@d a point where he couldn't be managed.
When he left, it was one of the saddest days we have ever known, because he was a guy whom we loved dearly, loved like a brother. More important, he left the thing he loved the most, which was The Home Depot. He loved it because he was one of the creators of it, and leaving was a terrible, terrible day for him aswas fir all of us.
When Pat left in 1985, we all thought our 31-store company was big, but it was tiny.
In many ways, Pat Farrah's departure in 1985 marked The Home Depot's coming of age. Whenever Pat was around, there was controversy Life was never quiet and peaceful. The air was always electrical, and after he was gone, we had to generate more of our own electricity. We missed him, but we also proved to ourselves that we coul still run the business, even if it wasn't a much fun without him.
The next ten years saw unbridled and saw unbridled virtually unrestrained expansion. A decade later, in late 1995, one of the happiest days of our lives occurred: Pat Farrah returned to the company.
In a disorganised manner, we including Ken Langone - began planting a seed for Pat's ultimate return a good two years before he actually came back. Ken even helped Pat attract $9 million to finance his other business, MG Products.
He sold merchandise to us through MG Products, so he would be in our stores, and so often he would call one of us about something that distressed him in a Home Depot. "You are running a terrible business, youhave to do this, you have to do that.." Everything he told us was dead on accurate, and we listened closely to him.
Arthur began informal discussions with Pat in late 1994 about returning him to he fold. I harboured doubts about the sagacity of such a move, so we took our time. Finally, after a day of playing golf at Arthur's annu