Jonathan Oldfield on Mike Rinder

I knew Mike Rinder first when I was in charge of doing inspections in the organization, the day-to-day activities, to make sure that people got help with their production matters they were working on.

I found Mike very individuated. He wouldn’t work with other people unless it suited his own ends. He would be—he would hide out, so to speak, in his office and he gave the air that no one could really interfere with him.

Sometimes if I had to interact, Mike would be very arrogant and aloof, and he would say what he had to say and not listen to what I had to say. And I also observed that with his other staff. He had secretarial staff, Marcy and another girl called JoAnne, and he would talk to them like they were dirt, like, “Do this, this, this,” and very antagonistic, with no care for the person whatsoever. It was just—Mike Rinder has his own agenda and he’s doing it and you better not get in his way—was the attitude that Mike Rinder used to operate with.

There was one instance where I witnessed Mike Rinder physically attacking a guy called Kurt in his office and pushing him around the room, pushing him against a wall, and I didn’t observe that this staff member [was] doing anything to antagonize that or create that upset, that Mike was doing this. There would never be a reason to ever attack another person. But it wasn’t even like he was being antagonized by this other person. He just decided he would go at this person and attack him physically.

He had a lot of people that I saw try to assist him and help him with his production activities and he did not respond to that help. He did not want to be assisted or helped. He would be antagonistic to people offering help.

This is my general observation of Mike Rinder through the many years that I saw him, interacted with him, saw him interacting with other staff. For about 15 years, that’s the observation I made with, about Mike Rinder.