If you were to look at a map of the San Francisco Bay Area with the aim of choosing one of its least pleasant corners, San Leandro would be a good choice: It is largely a city of industry, it has a wide freeway that divides it in half, it is in the direct flight path of a major airport, and it sports a handful of inelegant strip malls. Early on a Monday morning I ventured there to the local headquarters of Enterprise Rent-A-Car. If you are selected to work at Enterprise in the Bay Area, as I was, this is where your career begins.

Enterprise’s group headquarters administrative office, GPBR 2399, is a dull, rectangular box set along an industrial parkway not far from the highway. Once I was inside, I joined a dozen ...

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