"Dear Andy"

I was twice fired. Will I be tagged a troublemaker? Why does my secretary resent picking up my laundry and balancing my checkbook? My boss throws temper tantrums. What do I do? Well, you could ask Andy. In a column published each Wednesday in the San Jose Mercury News, Andrew Grove, president of Intel, a semiconductor manufacturer, answers questions about the woes of the workplace. Since last October, Grove has been dealing with two letters a week in the column "High Output Management," which has been modeled after "Dear Abby."

Grove, 48, the son of a Hungarian dairyman, came to the U.S. in 1957. After working in research and development at Fairchild Camera & Instrument, he joined Intel (1984 sales: $1.6 billion) in 1968 shortly after it had been founded by two Fairchild alumni. He was named president in 1979. Despite his business success, Grove was always attracted to publishing. He has written a book on management and a textbook on semiconductors. His articles have also appeared in FORTUNE, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Last summer at a party during the Democratic Convention, Grove revealed to Mercury News editors his yen to write a regular column. He reports that the editors picked up the offer before they could down another drink. Perhaps price was a reason for the haste. Grove is paid $50 a week.

While his readers are likely to include company presidents and venture capitalists, many of Grove's correspondents are young women in low-level management positions. "These are people who put paper in typewriter because they have a problem. You can almost hear their plaintiveness," he says. The most common gripe, not surprisingly, concerns bosses: "The supervisor is too dictatorial. He hassles you too much. He doesn't give enough credit. He doesn't know how to motivate." Some letters involve problems that women face in handling new executive jobs. Others ask how to deal with a subordinate who wants your job.

But not all plights are predictable. One senior manager wrote Grove of a recent invitation to a party at the home of one of the firm's managers. "While I was there, I noticed a group gathered outside on the patio. I guess I'm naive, but I decided to join the crowd. Well, they were smoking grass, and they had other drugs available." The reader declined to participate, but feared that "I may be too conservative." Grove firmly approved of his correspondent's actions.

Grove acknowledges his own limitations, as any credible advice columnist must do from time to time. A recent exchange went this way: "I am young, female and blond. Almost every time I deal with a male client, I'm 'hit on.' I want to be nice, but I'm finding it harder and harder to be nice to someone who talks to my breasts instead of my face." Grove's response: "Not being young, female or blond, I find myself unqualified to give you suggestions. Businesswomen, please write and tell me how you have been coping with this problem." "Dear Abby" could not have put it better.