And now for the twelfth episode of "It Could Be Worse", a serial drama in N parts where N is an integer greater than twelve.
As night descends on the sleepy town of Grover's Boil, Massachusetts, Steve Butler slumbers. His eyes start to jitter beneath their lids as Steve's mind begins another episode in his serial dream...
The clock radio clicked on and wailed the old country classic "How Can I Miss You When You Won't Ever Leave?" The sunlight knifing its way through the slit in the curtain pried my eyes open. Replaying the events of the night before I scrawled a mental note across my foggy mind: "Don't let graduate students pick the restaurant."
Oh, yeah, I should probably introduce myself. My name is Sam Iszdat. I work for Ginantonix designing micro-controllers for the leisure seating industry. When I'm not sweating out the last picosecond from the Spleen-o-mat massage servo driver, I do on-campus recruiting for our division. Right now I'm struggling to regain consciousness in a tiny hotel near the campus of "The Cleveland School of Mines, VLSI Design, and Tonsorial Arts".
Like I said, "Don't let graduate students pick the restaurant." Last night, feeling generous (since it wasn't my money that would be paying the tab - Jeez I love having a corporate credit card) I asked the largest of the students to "pick a good place for dinner." We went to a little off-campus joint called "Suds 'n' Stuph" where the waitress proudly announced that they had "both kinds of beer: Miller and Bud!" Here I was prepared to hit up the capitalist-oppressor-pig-stockholders for a dozen fillets mignon and a few carafes of the finest wine Ohio had to offer, and these geeks and geekettes take me to a joint where the "catch of the day" is hepatitis. Just the kind of receipt to make an accountant quiver with joy: "Dinner for twelve students and recruiter: $62.71"
So, there I am, waking up in a strange town, in the shadow of a very strange college (school mascot: the Ground Slug) and the light is blinking on the phone. "Dang-it" I think. (My Momma told me never to curse, not even in my head.) When I left the office two days ago takeover rumors were sweeping the building. My boss is the only person who knows where I'm staying (other than me) and if he's calling, I know that the fertilizer has passed through the ventilator. (Dang my Mom's rules...)
Today's episode was brought to you by that guy you thought was such a loser in high school who now owns a chain of discount tire dealerships in Florida.
The light is blinking. This has got to be bad news. The message could only be from Jack Tate, my own manager from hell. So I say to myself, "C'mon Sam, what's the worst it could be? You're an old pro, you've been through this before." And then I remember the takeover of Ginantonix back in '79.
Jeez, that was a heck of a rough patch. I was in the hospital the day it all happened. I was getting a kidney transplant, and got the news just as I was waking up from the laughing gas. Daryl (the lunatic architect) was in the room, practically bouncing off the walls, squealing "Willie (founder of Ginantonix Corp.) lost the company to the mob!"
Willie "Wilbur J." Winterthur IV came into this world with nothing but a thirty million dollar trust fund and a mention in his (soon to be late) father's will. Upon reaching the age of twenty-one Wilbur IV set about burning through Wilbur III's fortune by betting on ponies, cards, and high tech electronics. The last of the three bets worked out, but he lost so much on the ponies and cards that he started borrowing from Eddie "Brickhead" Muldoon. When Brickhead suffered a fatal heart attack (his heart stopped beating when two slugs from a 38 passed through it) Ronald "Two-Tone" MacDonald took over the Brickhead's Patterson Mob and started to collect some "non performing" debts. Wilbur IV had to transfer all interest in Ginantonix to one of Two-Tone's many front companies.
MacDonald's nickname has a great story behind it. When Two-Tone came over from Scotland back in '73 he stayed in the Paramus Hilton and on his first night tried out the tanning light in his room. The nickname came from the freak accident that ensued when the genes of epidermal cells adapted by a thousand years of evolution to the subdued Scots "sunlight" just couldn't cope with a half hour of intense UV exposure. It left permanent stripes under his eyes and on his neck. Eventually he came to prefer "Two-Tone" - who wants to be known as "Ronald MacDonald"?
What a disaster that takeover was for me! We were forced to change health plans instantaneously. The new insurance company didn't want to pay for my new kidney and demanded that I return the organ. When I refused, Two-Tone sent a couple of goons over to pound the stuffing out of me. In the process they bruised the kidney, so nobody wanted it anymore. This was my first exposure to what managers call a "win-win" negotiation.
I hope to heck that this takeover goes better. I guess I'll answer the phone...
Today's episode was brought to you by the firm of Visigoth, Vandal, and Hun: Litigation specialists for over thirteen hundred years.
I had to answer the blinking light. I called the front desk for my messages, "Have you got any messages for Sam Iszdat?"
"Let's see. Hmmmm... I have a message here for Tricia McMillan: call your agent, the audition is all set."
"I'm not Tricia McMillan."
"Oh. Lesse here... A message for Mr. Lincoln - "Our American Cousin" is a bomb, skip the play tonight."
"I'm not Mr. Lincoln."
"A message to Rick from Ilsa - Victor is a bore, meet me at the train station tonight."
"I don't know anybody named Ilsa."
"How about this one: Sam, call me, Zack."
"That's me, but his name is Jack," I said.
"Whose name is Jack?"
"Zack is Jack."
"Well, Zack doesn't mean Jack to me."
Not to me either.
I called Jack Tate. All his panic, all his anger, all his fear came spewing out like that time I sneezed while chugging a beer. "It happened again Sam! But this time we've been bought out by Leisuretel!"
Leisuretel. Geez, it had to be Leisuretel. Just saying the name made me want to rinse and spit. Leisuretel was the biggest, meanest, nastiest, most aggressive company in the relaxation equipment business. They advertised everywhere. You couldn't watch ten minutes of a football game without being reminded that you'd be more comfortable "inside a Leisuretel" recliner. They owned eighty-five percent of the market, and still weren't satisfied.
But the public image of the "kings of relaxation" didn't match with the tense work environment at Leisuretel. We'd heard that they even fired kids from their on-site day-care program for misbehaving. (Dear Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins: Curtis is being terminated from our day-care program for failing to realize his collaboration goals.)
"So I guess this means the Soma project is over." Soma was my project. I was finally leading a design, and it was really something. A leisure seating controller that managed a whole room full of seats. It was a special purpose job for our partners in Ginantonix's Mass Transit and Theatrical Seating Division.
I couldn't believe what I heard next. Jack said "No, your group is staying with Ginantonix. Seating Controllers, Seating CAD, and the copier maintenance group stays with Ginantonix. Everything else goes to Leisuretel."
"Even micro-seating?" The micro-seating group was a new venture we had just started. It was building controllers for Personal Seating Accouterments - little pillows that you could snap on to rivets on your pants. This was going to be the next big thing in seating - easy chairs for folks who couldn't afford the space or cost. The micro-seating group was the most profitable business we'd gotten into in years.
"Micro seating goes to Leisuretel." I could almost hear Jack sobbing on the phone. "Daryl's going to Leisuretel."
Daryl is the architect on the current micro-seating controller: internal code name: StrongBuns. StrongBuns might go to Leisuretel, but I couldn't picture Daryl in the hooded blue jump suit that had become the corporate uniform at Leisuretel.
Today's episode was brought to you by Eddie's Animal Hospital and Taxidermy - their motto: "Either way, you'll get your dog back."
There was nothing left to do but to fly back home. I caught my plane at the Sandusky Municipal Airport and Roller Coaster Center. Recent cutbacks at work resulted in our making more frequent use of Buddy Holly Airways. Despite the turmoil that faced me, I was glad when the plane finally landed and I could start the trek back to the office.
I've found over the last few years that if you are inclined to pad your expenses, your best bet is to turn in the expense report immediately: the beancounters only seem to obsess over the really late reports. So, rather than going home, I went to the office to fill out the requisite forms. We'd just switched over to a new expense tracking system called "Rapid Expense Disposition/Travel Authorization/Payment Express". So I logged in, and typed in the command to call it up:
I had been so engaged in the REDTAPE game I didn't notice
until I logged out that the building was empty. I looked into
Ramona's office. She had scrawled on her white board:
As she had done for every other major management induced crisis for the past ten years, she got the whole group to get out of the building and go blow off steam: When the going gets tough, the tough go partying.
So I wandered over to the Tap and Dye, a local combination brew-pub/hair salon. There was a sign on the door: Closed for Private Function: Ginantonix Corp. I wasn't surprised by what I found inside. Ramona was flying. She was doing everything but leading the folks in the company song. The mood of the others ranged from "bewildered" to "scared" to "angry". One or two were in an "inebriated" mood. Jack was asleep in the corner. Someone (Jose?) had tied Jack's left shoelaces to Jack's right shoelaces.
As I said, everything was as I expected it to be, until the door opened. Standing in the doorway was Daryl's emaciated form. He was clothed from head to foot in a tight fitting black body suit. His face was covered in camouflage paint. Ramona and I asked almost in unison: "Daryl.... what... did... you... do?"
Daryl answered in an uncharacteristically calm voice: "I will not go gently into that good night. Rage! Rage against the dying of the light!" He then started to giggle.
Today's episode was brought to you by the people at E. Z. Credit. Bad credit history? No problem! If you've got knees, you've got collateral.
The entire room stood in stunned silence as we gazed at Daryl. Wilma and Sparky (the Ginantonix CAD group) came out from the shadows behind Daryl, both dressed in black with camouflaged faces. I wondered where Sparky (Charles Harold Thurston-Jones) got the black body suit in Polarfleece. Does LL Bean sell that sort of thing?
Daryl spoke up: "Wilma, Sparky and I have been collaborating on a response to Leisuretel."
"But Daryl," I said, "You WORK for Leisuretel now."
"I'll pump gas before I'll work for Leisuretel," he replied.
I heard Ramona mutter, "given his record, Daryl will pump gas IF he works for Leisuretel."
Daryl motioned to us to join him in his HUMVEE. Ramona and I piled in after Sparky and Wilma. Daryl drove like a maniac. As we bumped along over the hills into the gully where our plant had been built (jokingly referred to as the "Silicon Ditch" by industry wags) Sparky whined to Ramona. "Geez Ramona, I don't know what I'll do. I want to stay with Ginantonix and work on your project, but Daryl says he needs me for this guerrilla movement he's starting. I'm lost Ramona. You'll have to do the thinking for both of us."
Ramona sat silently and told Sparky to calm down. Sparky was almost over the edge, "Ramona, remember the butt-warmer controllers? Remember Buffalo? We'll always have Buffalo, won't we?"
Ramona spat, "I wouldn't mention Buffalo if I were you. It's bad salesmanship."
We bounced along and came to the plant. Daryl looked at his watch and said "It's fifteen seconds before eight o'clock. The download should be complete by now. We've reprogrammed the lighting control computer."
At the stroke of eight the entire building went dark. Then clusters of windows began to light up. In a few seconds we could discern a pattern. The pattern scrolled left to right across the face of the building. It spelled out a message. "To Hell with the vile invaders! Resist!"
For the second time that night, we were all stunned. I spoke first: "Gee Daryl, that's a little strident, don't you think. They bought part of the division, they didn't steal your dog."
"You think so, Sam? I wasn't sure. Okie doke. Hey, Sparky, switch it to the other message." Sparky dialed a number on his cell phone and hit a few keys on his palm-pilot. The pattern changed to read "Irritate Authority. Ginantonix Rulz!"
Daryl shrugged and said, "Hey, it's tough to start a revolution, I'm no Che Guevara here Sam."
"So you're going to try to spin off the StrongBuns business?"
"Yup, as soon as I've gotten the revolution off to a good start."
"What else did you do Daryl?" I asked.
"Let's go into the building," he said with a smile.
Today's thrilling episode was brought to you by the folks from Bill and Ted's Excellent Health Maintenance Organization and Off-Track Betting, where they want you to know that with their new ISO 9000 program, your claim will be lost in exactly the same way every time. Remember: BTEHMOOTB - where "cus" is the first word in "customer".
As we walked toward the building I heard a faint "Pffwip!" sound coming from the direction of the Tap and Dye. Seconds later I heard a "KaLang!" as something hit the stop sign in our parking lot. A potato rolled from the sign and came to rest at my feet. The day had been confusing enough already: I ignored the potato.
Looking toward the building we all saw new colors on the flag pole. The "powers that be" had taken down the Ginantonix banner and replaced it with the Leisuretel flag. That rankled a bit, but then again, I get sentimental over stuff like that.
Just when I thought the potato had been ignored, I heard another "Pffwip!" followed a few seconds later by "BaChinnnnng!" as something (a potato?) hit the steel ball at the top of the flag pole. The ball fell from the pole, smashed into a rhododendron, and rolled across the parking lot until it hit a mobile donut truck. Leisuretel, it appears, has brought in its own huge and notorious security team. With close shaved heads, and spooky uniforms, they nonetheless each made an attempt at friendliness with badges that said things like "Hi, my name is Gunter!"
Seconds passed while we all contemplated the flag pole. Then, another "Pffwip!" and in a flash, a potato tore the Leisuretel flag asunder just as if it had been smitten with a scimitar in the hands of a crazed warrior. (Where in heck do I get these analogies?) The potato continued on its course, sailing over the building, and finally landed in a dumpster over at the "Try'N'Save" supermarket. A cheer roared forth from the crowd over at the Tap and Dye.
Then I remembered the air compressor trailer behind Jose's truck. And the pile of pipes that was bolted down to the bed of the truck. It all fell into place. Jose had perfected the potato cannon. It made me proud to be an engineer.
We continued to walk toward the building. But how would we get past Gunter and his pals? Wouldn't they suspect something was up, given Sparky's togs and such? What was this thing about Sparky, Ramona, and Buffalo?
Today's thrilling episode was brought to you by FlannelKrisps: the high fiber breakfast cereal that's made from old shirts. A heapin' helpin' of krunchy-chewey fiber in every spoonful. Remember: FlannelKrisps!
Parts of the Leisuretel flag were still settling on the ground like the leaves of autumn. Ramona and I were more than a little anxious as we approached the building. A sign on the door proclaimed:
"Well, Daryl, that looks pretty final," I said. "I guess we can't get in after all."
Daryl pulled us aside, reached into the rhododendrons and pulled out five hard hats and five pairs of dark green cover-alls. "Put these on," he said, "You can go anywhere in dark green cover-alls and a hard hat. We would have used these before, but Wilma, Sparky and I didn't go through the front door then."
That sounded ominous. Ramona wondered aloud what Daryl had been up to. Daryl started to fill in some blanks. "We went in through the ventilator just after sundown. Sparky turned off most of the lights by dialing up the lighting control computer."
Ramona was interested, "But why didn't the Leisuretellentrupers track you down and turn on the lights?"
"Wilma here wrote a video game for them and installed it on the lobby workstations."
As we passed through the doors, the Leisuretellentrupers were still playing. The game appeared to involve people in rabbit suits running around kicking over recliners, easy chairs, and chaise lounges with competitor's labels on them. There didn't seem to be any particular object to the game other than to toss relaxing, seated people onto the floor. Every once in a while, though, a chair would explode and the former occupant would lose a limb or something. "Wow! Wilma, how long did it take to put that together?"
"Ahhh, it was just a bunch o' macros for Arturo, our layout editor. Polygons is polygons, that's what I always say." I couldn't recall Wilma ever saying that, but chose to ignore it for now. "Push, pull, click, drop, a little hacking of the interpreter, voila! Instant video game..." Wilma is something of a character.
Daryl led the way. (The name stitched over the left pocket of his coveralls was "Ernie". Mine was "Bert". Wilma, Sparky, and Ramona had other Muppet names. Nobody seemed to notice, even when Sparky signed in as "Cookie Monster".) We followed Daryl up the stairs to the fourth floor, where the management offices were. Crews dressed just like us were hacking away at the office partitions. From what I could tell, they were re-arranging them so as to form four parallel and very long cubicles. Each one was about the breadth and length of a bowling lane. As we got closer I could see that they were nailing down sections of pre-fab maple flooring.
Daryl clued us in. "It appears that the crew here is installing four bowling alleys where the manager's offices were supposed to be. You may have heard that Leisuretel arranges every office area to look like the office area at headquarters. That's what this crew is here for."
"Gee Daryl, do you really think the headquarters office area looks like this?" I asked.
Sparky giggled, "I think someone might have swapped a few blueprints and workorders."
Daryl began to whistle the anthem of freedom loving Frenchman everywhere. At least I think it was Daryl who was whistling the "Marseillaise". Yes, it was. But there was music coming from elsewhere in the building. Something I couldn't quite place. Ramona smiled.
Today's thrilling episode was brought to you by SleepyJoe's Sandwiches. It's a sandwich. It's a tranquilizer. It's a sandwich and tranquilizer in one!
..................................But there was music coming from elsewhere in the building. Something I couldn't quite place. Ramona smiled and started singing with the music.
And now, the end is near.
And so I face
the final curtain.
All the telephones in the building were chiming out with their ersatz electronic bells in a colossal chorus of Frank Sinatra's "My Way". I was stunned. "Wow. That's really something there Daryl."
"Not my doing, I'm just the ring leader here. Sparky hacked the Oddex telephone system. He tells me this is just the demo round. Tomorrow morning at ten-o-five it's going to play "Ride of the Valkyries" at about 105dB."
Sparky had really outdone himself on this one. The Sinatra selection made it clear he was trying to make up to Ramona over that whole Buffalo thing.
Ahhh, Buffalo. Back in '92 Ramona was heading up a project to build new seat controllers for Rich Stadium in Buffalo. Sparky signed on to provide CAD support. They were cranking out schematics at a prodigious rate. Nobody had ever seen such productivity. Ramona was ecstatic. But then Daryl's project got in deep sneakers and management transferred Sparky to Daryl's team "for a month or two". Ramona could read the spray paint on the wall: Daryl's project was the flagship and what he needed, he got. In the meantime her project lost its momentum. She delivered the chips, on time and under budget, but we could all see that having Sparky disappear like that took something out of her. It was made worse by the fact that she found out about the transfer from a note that was handed to her in the pouring rain outside a restaurant in downtown Buffalo:
Ramona, I have to miss the meeting today. Good luck, Sparky
You just don't get over something like that. Ramona doesn't, anyway.
But things were starting to look up for Daryl's little revolutionary movement. The stairs rumbled with the thunder of a dozen boots scrambling up to the second, third, and fourth floors. The Leisuretellentrupers were running from office to office, taking phones off the hook. We all had a feeling that the "Leisuretel Comfort Hotline" folks wouldn't be moving in any time soon.
Wilma and I suggested that we might want to end our little tour before the Leisuretellentrupers started checking for badges. "Badges! We don't need no steenkeeng badges!" Sparky giggled.
But Daryl agreed. "One more stop. Follow me to the fitness center."
Face imminent danger and follow Daryl, or return to the Tap and Dye for another round or two. Heck, you only go around once, so you gotta grab for all the gusto you can. (Whatever that means.) We followed Daryl.
Today's thrilling episode was brought to you by Spud Beer! Made with the finest barley, hops, and peels! The beer has eyes! Try our new strawberry flavored ale! With the picture of cute cartoon characters on the label! (The Spud Brewing Company of Couer d'Alene, Idaho encourages children to wait until they're old enough to drink beer. Ten seems old enough to us.)
What a blast! The leisuretellentrupers were pounding all over the building. In our coveralls and hardhats we were invisible to them. And yet I had the feeling we were being followed by a sinister presence.
As we walked further along down the hallway to the fitness center I heard an odd noise behind us. "Clang! Click! Sssssssssscrape!" it repeated with each one of my own paces. I screwed up my courage when we got to the bottom of a staircase. I turned around and what I saw nearly scared the lunch out of me.
"Skippy?" Ramona said, for though a twisted demonic grimace had now replaced his once pale but cheerful Minnesota visage, Skippy was indeed staring down the stairs at us. His wounded leg had been replaced with a chromium steel work of prosthetic art. Shiny, but a little hard on the linoleum.
Daryl spoke up, a tremor of fear in his voice, "Hey, pal, no hard feelings about the accident, I hope." I had never heard or seen Daryl so skittish.
Skippy answered without anger, "Ya know there Daryl? Of all the folks I've ever worked with, you were at least up front about how you felt. You didn't dilly dally and shilly shally about what was on your mind. You pretty much took the old bull by the horns and ran with it." Hearing the words pronounced in a nearly cheerful Minnesota lilt by such a sinister looking character sent chills down my spine. Skippy continued, "Your example showed me that taking charge was the kind of thing I wanted to do. So, after I got out of the hospital, engineering seemed like it might not be the place for me, doncha know? So, I enrolled in business school, got my MBA and well, golly gee, here I am."
I began to recover my composure, "What do you mean by `here I am' Skippy? You are standing in a stairwell at Ginantonix."
"Oh, yah... You mean, like, `what's the deal here?' then. Well, I'm Vice President in charge of Acquisition Transition Projects at Leisuretel."
Then I saw it. He was cradling a book in his hands. It was the memoir of Leisuretel's founder. The title, "Only the Psychotic Survive" was emblazoned in shining blood red letters on the cover. Now Skippy's take charge attitude and metamorphosis from geek co-op to corporate raider became clear. He was a henchman now.
Skippy spoke slowly now, "You folks wouldn't be wantin' to do any mischief would you now? 'Cause seein' you in your over-alls and such kinda makes a fella suspicious." He pressed a little button on a box that he held in his hand. Seconds later we heard the pounding of boots on the floors above. Skippy the uberleuitenant had summoned a platoon of Leisuretellentrupers. I could sense our journey was about to come to an unpleasant end.
Today's action packed episode was brought to you by the Economy Airlines. You'll feel like you never left the ground, because we'll treat you like dirt. Remember Economy Airlines! It's like riding in a cattle car with wings. Bub-bye!
Skippy had summoned the Leisuretellentrupers. I could hear their feet pounding on the floors above. But in amongst the pounding feet I could still hear an occasional thud as potatoes continued to rain down on the roof above. Jose had been keeping up his potato cannon barrage for nearly an hour now.
Thus spake Skippy: "No hard feelings for the leg and all, but you know you folks have caused a little uproar around here, and I can't ignore that." I wondered if he had seen his office/bowling alley yet. Alley or not, it was clear that Skippy was going to turn us over to das trupers. I had no idea what they were going to do with us, but I was pretty sure it wouldn't be an experience we'd look back on and laugh about years from now.
As it turned out, I'd never find out what the Leisuretellentrupers would do. It was a one in a million shot, but one of Jose's potatoes crashed through the skylight above Skippy's head. It continued on its course, finally colliding with the young Vice Presidential cranium. Skippy fell to the floor like a boneless chicken.
"Jeezowhiz! Talk about your bizarre plot turns out of nowhere." Ramona exclaimed. Just then an Uberstompentruper burst through the door. Ramona, ever the quick thinker, shouted "Vice President Skippy, uhhh, Mulvaney has been clobbered by a potato. Round up the usual suspects." The Uberstompentruper and all the Understompentrupers reversed course and stomped off to who knows where. Ramona is the kind of woman who can command respect with a look and a shout.
Daryl made his announcement: "I can't work for Leisuretel. I'm taking the Strongbuns group out of here and striking out on my own. The world needs technorevolutionaries. When we're gone, it'll just be the little people against the Leisuretellentrupers and their marketeers. The world won't be safe for well reasoned leisure seating controller architectures. God knows what chairs will look like in ten years if Leisuretel ends up running the whole show. Stay with Ginantonix, Sam. Give 'em hell for me. I'll be doing my bit to keep the world safe for the little sitters. You've got to keep 'em honest in high end seating. See you in the funny papers. Are you coming Sparky?"
Sparky got a confused look. "Gee Ramona, what should I do? Should I go with Daryl, or stay with you?"
Ramona rose to the cause. "Sparky, in the past few hours we've said a great many things. You said to do the thinking for both of us. Well, I've done a lot of it since then and it all adds up to one thing. You're getting into that startup venture with Daryl where you belong."
"But Ramona, no, I've..."
"Now you've got to listen to me. You've got to go with Daryl. He can't write tools for spit. If that company gets off the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life."
"What about us?"
"We'll always have Buffalo. We didn't have it. We'd lost it, until you screwed up the telephones. We got it back tonight."
With that, Sparky called out "Wait up Daryl..." and ran out after him. Ramona and I wandered out into the darkness and headed to the Tap 'n' Dye. "So, Ramona, what are your plans?" I asked.
"Well, I figure its going to take a few months for management to figure this one out. I'll hang around for a while and see what they come up with. Frankly I want to build that high-end seating controller you've been playing with," she said.
"Ramona," I said, "This could be the continuation of a beautiful collaboration."
In the tiny town of Grover's Boil, Massachusetts, Steve Butler's eyes gyrate wildly under his lids. He tosses and turns. Another dream fades into the grey matter of his cerebellum and a new dream takes its place...
Today's episode was brought to you by the American Association of Conspiracy Theorists. We'd have a catchy slogan, but we haven't been able to come up with a good one yet. But we think we know who is causing the problem...
In the tiny town of Grover's Boil, Massachusetts, Steve Butler's eyes gyrate wildly under his lids. He tosses and turns. Another dream fades into the grey matter of his cerebellum and a new dream takes its place...
Thursday morning. It was just another Thursday morning. Just like all the other Thursday mornings before it. A little worse than Wednesday, not nearly as bad as Friday. A Thursday morning.
So, just like I had every other morning I poked my head out first. Then my left rear flipper and the right rear flipper. Then the two front flippers, left and right.
Hey. Wait a minute. Flippers? Dang it! I'm a turtle. Geez, of all the things to wake up and be on a Thursday morning. A turtle. What am I going to do now? While I pondered that one, I bit a leaf off a houseplant and chewed for a while. What am I going to do with all this furniture?
How did I get all this furniture anyway? Oh heck! I've got a job. And it's six miles from here. Even assuming that I can actually function in the job, what am I going to do about the commute? Six miles. Looking around I can tell that it'll take me a week or two to go six miles. My first day on the job as a turtle, and I'm going to be two weeks late.
So, I guess it isn't like every other Thursday. This Thursday is the worst Thursday I've ever had. I woke up as a turtle. That's going to screw up the old career plan, if nothing else. "Sam Iszdat, Turtle" Boy that's gonna look good on the ol' resume.
In the tiny town of Grover's Boil, Massachusetts, Steve Butler's eyes gyrate wildly under his lids. He tosses and turns. Another dream fades into the grey matter of his cerebellum and a new dream takes its place...
Today's slow moving episode was brought to you by The Nightmare Center, bringing you classic nightmares like "forgetting to attend the final exam" and "showing up at work without pants" for over twenty years.
In the tiny town of Grover's Boil, Massachusetts, Steve Butler's eyes are still gyrating wildly under his lids. He tosses and turns. Another dream fades into the grey matter and so on.....
A solitary beam of sunlight streamed through the hole in the window shade. It poked me in the eye to let me know that another day had dawned about two and a half hours ago. The hole had been chewed in the blinds by my Norwegian Blue parrot. He wouldn't be doing that anymore. He's dead, bereft of life, he rests in peace. If I hadn't nailed him to his perch, he'd be pushing up the daisies. Buddy is an ex-parrot.
As I opened my other, unpoked, eye I saw the imposing form of Mrs. Vitriol, the cleaning lady. She looked like a refrigerator wearing Nikes. While she wasn't the nicest person you'd be likely to meet, when she cleaned something it stayed clean. The kitchen was spotless. Of course, I hadn't been in the kitchen in the seven years I've lived here. I didn't want to risk ticking off Mrs. Vitriol.
Hers was the first voice I heard that morning. Thus spake Mrs. Vitriol: "So, I heard on the radio you'll be losing that fancy job you've got." There was an edge to her voice that said the news did not darken her day. "Well, I guess them that rides the big horse gotta expect to land in some bad stuff now and then..." She was clearly enjoying the moment. "Ginantonix has sold their whole leisure seating control chip business to Leisuretel. I don't imagine they're gonna offer the likes of you a job."
The theme was beginning to wear on me, but I sensed that I'd have to get used to it. By the time a typical news reporter gets a story into print or on the air, the story has been "punched up" a bit. News is entertainment. It was a wonder they even got the name of the company right. It was time to counter the Dis-information campaign. I sat up in bed and drew myself up to my most imposing posture: "Mrs. Vitriol, we are still in the leisure seating controller business. Leisuretel bought a few parts of the organization, but when it comes to high end server seating, we're going to put them to shame." It sounded pretty good. Mrs. Vitriol got a pained look on her face and walked away to scrub the doorbell button. She did that whenever she wanted me to leave the house. Pretty rude, but I've got the cleanest doorbell button in the neighborhood. If you don't believe me, come over and smell it some time.
My home built Behemoth-2000 (HAL) was chirping brightly away in the corner of the bedroom. I had email. Stumbling over to the console I croaked at it. "Show me the mail, HAL."
HAL responded, "I'm sorry, I can't do that Dave." It was a little game we played with each other. It was also a reminder that I needed to get a life.
"Show me the mail, gosh darn it, HAL"
"OK, OK, geez Dave, no need to get cranky about it." Like I said, it was a game we played.
The mail scrolled up the screen. It was from the Vice President of The Vision Thing and was in code. This was a sign of the one event I most dreaded. Dang it! Of all the times for a "stealth" meeting. A meeting that everybody knows is there, but nobody knows when, or where it will be. For this stealth meeting, everybody knew what it would be about. Well at least I was on the invite list. I whipped out my secret decoder ring I got back in '69 in a jar of Ovaltine. Quicker than you can say "ROT-13" I had decoded the message. It either said:
Meeting at 10:30 in the Archie Bunker Bunker.
or
Spiderman says "Eat a balanced breakfast with Ovaltine."
I've told you about the Archie Bunker Bunker. All of the conference rooms in the plant are named for "Joe Sixpack" prototypes from television. The Archie Bunker conference room is two floors below ground level, hence the name.
"HAL, what time is it?"
"It's fifteen degrees, Dave." The doorbell was confusing the speech recognition software. My watch said it was 9:55. The thermometer on the wall said it was seventeen degrees. I need to get a life.
Today's thrilling episode was brought to you by "Chocolate Squishies" the breakfast cereal that stays soggy even in the box. Remember, you'd have to eat a whole stack of cardboard boxes to equal the nutrition in just one pound of "Chocolate Squishies".
I showered and pulled on my "Monday go-to-meeting" clothes. (A dashing ensemble featuring black wool slacks, a white silk shirt, leather suspenders, white spats, and a red polka-dot bow tie - I never know when I'll meet the next woman that will dump me.) I grabbed my standard breakfast from the fridge in the den: a pint of orange juice, two pop-tarts, and four tabs of Zantac-75. I jumped into my '79 Volvo wagon (a sadly mistaken attempt at acquiring a "babe-magnet" type car - there's a story in that, but I'd just as soon skip it) at 10:15. The stealth meeting is at 10:30.
Thinking that the radio might provide some distraction, I tuned in the local NPR station. They broke into the daily call-in show (today's topic: "Shakespeare's Plays: Underpinnings of a post-industrial philosophy, or the basis for a quasi-neo-platonic assessment of karmic direction?") with a news bulletin: "Ginantonix Corporation announced this morning that its remaining business operations have been purchased in whole by ReKlyne! Corporation." The announcer then interviewed an analyst who parrotted the corporate line: "The move is good for Ginantonix, good for ReKlyne! and good for our customers." He went on to say that this was a merger between the best technology (Ginantonix) and a really good marketing and distribution company (ReKlyne!). I had to agree with him on that one. Ginantonix was notorious for its ineffectual marketing. ReKlyne! however, had become a household name in its eight years of life.
My mind flashed back to Ginantonix' singularly embarrassing foray into super advertising: Superbowl XVII back in '83. Two million dollars for the ad time and the ad agency. We were announcing the first really sophisticated fully numerically controlled leisure seating product. The RestEZ-21064. The commercial opened with a black screen. Slowly, as if from a shrouding mist, an image of a chair materializes in the center of our view. A brassy section of a Hindemith symphony swells up in the audio. A basso profundo voice intones "Ginantonix introduces the newest technology in electric chairs."
Curiously the $400,000 spent on focus groups didn't uncover the obvious meaning in the voiceover text. Post game surveys did. For the most part, our two million dollars bought an add that convinced thirty five million viewers that we built devices to aid in rapid dispatch of capital criminals. We fired the ad agency and hired a new agency. The new folks figured we should capitalize on the name recognition of the earlier ads. For six months all our media presentations featured "Yahoo Serious" sitting in our chairs with his hair exploding in a static electric cloud. The stock slumped to a little over 22 cents per share.
But those days will be over soon. We were about to merge with a company that knows how to sell chairs. And they aren't too wild about Leisuretel. This was going to be an interesting week.
I pulled into the parking lot. News crews were everywhere. I elbowed my way through the crowd (over the potatoes littering the ground) and into the building. The meeting was to start in five minutes.
Today's thrilling episode was brought to you by National Public Radio: catering to intellectuals in a post-literate American landscape for over twenty years. Sound smarter than you really are - listen to National Public Radio. And send us a few bucks when you get around to it.
Holy Cow! It seemed like weeks since I had last passed through the doors of the Ginantonix Laboratories building where I worked. But it had been just yesterday that we'd found out that Leisuretel (the biggest, meanest, nastiest, most aggressive company in the relaxation equipment business) had bought our FAB and big hunks of the design group. The news on the radio this morning announcing that ReKlyne! Corporation was to buy the rest of the business had come as a bit of a surprise.
Leisuretel had replaced Eddie, the friendly security guard from Ginantonix, with their own Leisuretelentruper. The ubertruper was checking badges and patting down every fifth person. I passed through after receiving the only hug that I'd get that day.
Walking down to the conference room (the Archie Bunker bunker - see episode 8 of part 1 at Part I, episode 8.) I ran into Wilma. She wasn't her normal perky self. I inquired after her health and she growled at me: "Bug off Sam. It was a bad night, and it looks to be a lousy morning."
Had I known the kind of night she'd had, I would have steered
clear. As it turns out, she left Ramona and I after Sparky ran off
with Daryl. Wilma was pretty bummed at losing half the Ginantonix CAD
team in the first hours after the Leisuretel deal, and went off to
drown her sorrows at the Tap'n'Dye. While there, she got into a brawl
with the jukebox. (It was playing Sparky's favorite song - Blotto's
landmark neo-punk classic in strained iambic octameter "Metalhead":
There's a feelin' comin' over me that I just can't explain. There's an endless empty void where I used to keep my brain. I ought-ta call a doctor but I'm too wasted to phone one. I want-ta cus-to-mize my van and I don't even own one. Ahh-ahh-ahh I'm turnin' into a heavy Metalhead. Ahh-ahh-ahh I'm turnin' into a heavy Metalhead. Metalhead! Metalhead! I was born to Rock 'n' Roll! )
Today's thrilling episode was brought to you by your local college radio station: Playing the music that absolutely nobody wants to hear.
I sat down in the Archie Bunker bunker. As late as I was, it was good luck that got me a seat at all. The place was packed. There was something odd about the room though. All the co-op students were wearing dress shirts with button down collars. I like to dress nice myself, so I notice those things. A management type that I couldn't recognize took a few tentative steps onto the stage.
"My name is Bart Francis, and I'm a Senior Manager for Fleshware Resources at Leisuretel." Bart looked like the kind of guy who modeled underwear for the Sears catalog. I found out later that a "fleshware resources manager" was the title Leisuretel gave their personnel 'droids.
Bart continued: "I'm here to assure you that your jobs are secure."
The fact that the conference room was two floors below ground level prevented anybody from actually jumping out of a window. Things were looking pretty grim.
Skippy scraped his way up to the podium. He looked pretty composed even with the head bandage. "Bart means to say that those of you who were recently purchased by Leisuretel need not worry about your jobs. Those who are left behind however, will need to deal with the folks at ReKlyne!." He went on to sneer, "As far as I can tell, Ginatonix will fade into history and," he glared at me now, "take its few designers with it."
At that the co-ops all stood up as one. Belinda Tolland - a co-op with over fifteen terms at Ginantonix - announced in a loud, clear, and assertive voice, "There's a bunch of us Ginantonix employees that say you're full of it Mister!"
With that, Belinda and every other co-op ripped open their button down shirts to reveal the official Ginantonix Seating Controller T-shirt proclaiming:
The shirt showed a tasteful depiction of Ward Cleaver, Archie Bunker, Steve Douglas, and Al Bundy sitting in Ginantonix reclining chairs. Each character had horns and a pitchfork and was surrounded by Satan's well stoked fires.
I wasn't inclined to give up to the likes of Skippy. With a bunch of angry co-ops enlisted in the battle we were off to a pretty good start. Ginantonix alone might well collapse, but with ReKlyne! in the picture, the whole story had changed. I was ready. The co-ops were ready. The coming days would tell us whether the world was ready for us.
Today's episode was brought to you by the American Association of Sociopaths. Bringing alienated people together for mayhem and sympathy for over four months.
The buyout shouldn't have been all that surprising. For weeks we had all been joking about how the company's cash account made us takeover bait. (The ultracautious Ginantonix Board of Directors had been investing most of the corporate profits in high-yield passbook savings accounts at nearly 2.8% annual interest. Two point eight isn't all that good a return, but with six billion dollars in the passbook, that interest adds up in a hurry.)
The meeting broke up after Jack Tate read the press release that we'd all seen in the lobby. A few folks asked questions that nobody had the answer for:
"Jack? Given the status of the zero-rollback capital depreciation debentures issued back in '83 what is the likelihood of our getting approval for excess inventory slideover during the silent period mandated by the Haight-Ashbury rule?"and questions that nobody cared about
"Mr. Francis? I've got this big wart on my knee that is covered by my current health plan, but my family is going to WallyWorld for a few weeks and I'd like to wait to have it taken care of until I get back, but some health plans don't cover wart removal. Does yours?"
I wandered out of the room. There was a little man grumbling beside me. It was Willy Loman.
Like most names I've told you about, Willy's had a story behind it. Willy was a recent emigree from a tiny former Soviet Republic that was so small that their conquest by the USSR back in '37 and their liberation in '95 went un-noted by the news media. Willy was from Fredonia. Though he was raised in a Russian speaking family, Willy had painstakingly trained away his accent and spoke perfect English.
Willy was born Rimislav Olofskaya in 1955. His mother looked a little like Margaret Dumont and his father looked a lot like Groucho Marx. (Better that than vice-versa.) He told me once that his family had just one book at home that was printed in English. It was Arthur Miller's classic play "Death of a Salesman". Young Rimislav read the play a thousand times. When he grew old enough to emigrate he took the name "Willy Loman". Willy explained over a beer one night. "As a child, I had one hero: Willy Loman. He had a refrigerator."
Willy had what romantics call "a sense of life's tragic nature". The rest of us call it "being a wet blanket". Willy was the perennial voice of doom. "Sam, my friend, I think we have been scrod." (Willy had no accent, but was occasionally baffled by his adopted language's more obscure tenses.)
I didn't see it that way, and said so.
"I don't see it that way, Willy." I said.
"Tell me my friend, why I should continue to toil in the Ginantonix vineyard?"
And so I did.
Today's thrilling episode was brought to you by the folks at Qualitronix who want you to know that their ISO-9002 Quality slogan is "Let the customer deal with it." Qualitronix: The name almost says "quality".
It seemed like we had walked for weeks since Willy Loman sighed, "Tell me my friend, why I should continue to toil in the Ginantonix vineyard?" The exasperation of the Leisuretel arrangement that took away our building, our fab, and half of our colleagues found voice in his question. The recent announcement of the out and out purchase of the remaining parts of Ginantonix by ReKlyne! (an up-and-coming manufacturer of seating units) added an extra note of uncertainty.
As we walked down the hall I thought I heard the incessant whining of a badly performed cover of Neil Young's "Southern Man". It was only after several minutes of suffering that I recognized it as the "original song, performed by the original artist". In time it became clear that Leisuretel intended to drive the remaining Ginantonix folks out of the building with a focused campaign of annoying elevator music. Willy began to sing along, though his interpretation of the lyrics was unfamiliar to me.
Suburb man, better feed your cat. Don't forget where you left your hat. Suburb man!
"Willy," I said, "why have you stayed here at Ginantonix for so long?"
"Well, Sam, these people - the people I work with - I learn from them. They make me laugh. I trust them. There isn't a single one of them, worker bee or supervisor, with whom I would not gladly share an afternoon stuck in an elevator."
"And every day, I get a new puzzle to work out. Sure there are other places I can get puzzles to play with, but here every puzzle I solve gets us a little closer to the best leisure seating controller in the industry. The goal is what makes the puzzles so much fun."
Willy became more and more animated as we walked on. A rare light was shining in the eyes of the man I had known as the voice of doom. I hesitated to ask the next question, but I had a point to make. "Willy, why would you want to leave?"
Willy grimaced, "Oh Sam. We work for a company that is lead by a senior management team with the vision of a mole, and the decisiveness of a squirrel in the middle of a busy road. They've announced nine corporate strategies in the last fifteen months. We make products that win competitive bids and then refuse to manufacture them when it seems we'll get the contract. We air advertising campaigns that neglect to mention that we make chairs. With such leadership we are on our way to hell in a hand-cart. It doesn't matter that Jack Tate and our own managers know what to do - they can only follow the path that is laid before them. Alas, our corporate path finders are hopeless navigators."
This was the point I wanted to make: "Willy, let me see if I have this right. You like the people you work with. You like the managers you report to. You like the work that we do. The job you have excites you. On the other hand, the company lacks direction and focus. Its leaders are unable to execute any rational plan. The leaders have not made use of the resources and opportunities they had at hand."
"Yes, my friend," Willy nodded, "we are hosed by our own corporate management."
"But Willy, ReKlyne! has vision, knows how to execute plans, has the desire to make us successful. They aren't spending all that money just to watch our managers pilot the Ginantonix ship to oblivion."
"Sam, what are they going to do when they see how expensive it is to produce high performance seating controllers?"
I thought about that one for a while, "They're no dummies. These folks built the company from a garage operation to $18 billion in sales in just nine years. They've moved with the market. Remember when they were making portable footstools back in 1990. We all laughed and said, "why would anyone want a footstool that they could take with them?" They were early, they were successful, and they were smart enough to move on to full size chairs when the clone makers started cutting into footstool margins. Now they make everything from rocket sleds to bicycle seats. If these guys are aiming at vertical integration in a big way, we may be their ticket. You and I both know that our teams are lean, and we have a track record. Where else could they get what we have to offer. There's money to be made in high end seating, and Ginantonix Semiconductor is the operation that is their ticket into that market."
Willy chewed on that one for a while. "So, you're saying that all the reasons that have kept me here are still true, and all the reasons I may have had for leaving will change soon. Does this mean that you are committed?"
"Willy," I said, "this is a heck of a story that we're involved in here. We have a chance to compete with the big dogs again. I want to see how this turns out. More than that, I want to be in the game, not watching on the sidelines."
As we walked on, the clock on the wall said it was five minutes past eleven. I wondered what had happened with Sparky's symphonic surprise. He had said it would start at 10:05. Did he mean 11:05?
Today's thrilling episode was brought to you by the folks at Billum, Kwick, and Skute - management consultants for over twenty weeks now. If you're running your business into the ground, they can help.
The whole story gets pretty wild from here on. I probably ought to prepare you with some background on the industry we're in. The center of the leisure seating industry is near Boca Raton Florida. Back in '58 two guys living in a trailer park invented the integrated recliner (that is, the bean-bag chair) and the industry exploded. They were old. They were tired. The folks who founded the industry knew about resting.
In time, the venture vultures moved in. All through the sixties, every retiree who could dictate a business plan was opening a little garage shop near Boca-Raton that made one kind of easy chair or another. The local Chamber of Commerce put up signs at the city limits with stuff like "If you lived here, you'd be napping by now." and "Boca-Raton, Leisure Seating Center USA!". They were really hoping for a cute nick-name for the region. It was not to be. An editor at Seating News christened the area "Buttocks Valley" attempting to draw an obvious parallel to the San Francisco Bay area. The name stuck.
When I got to my cube there were ten or fifteen messages on my voicemail from the 561 area code (greater Boca Raton). I had no intention of returning any of them.
About eight of the messages were left during the telephone concert that, it turns out, had gone off at 10:05, just as Sparky had planned it. So, in addition to annoying the heck out of our new "partners" (ah, the ring of that word, if only the ancients could spin stuff like that: "Sparta Announces Partnership with Athens" history would read differently) the telephonic symphony kept the headhunters from reaching my panicked co-workers for few minutes or so.
Alas, the telephone symphony that was now playing was a Philip Glass inspired cacophony of random ringing at short, but irregular intervals. The recruiting bottom feeders were out in force. My phone rang, I picked it up, it was a bottom feeder.
Sam: "Good morning, Ginantonix Corporation."
BF: "Hi, my name is Molly Zwilling. I got your name from Central Engineering as a contact point for some questions I have."
(We haven't had a "Central Engineering" for eight years.)
Sam: "Oh. Well, then I'll be happy to help. So they gave you my phone number?"
MZ: "Yes. I'm a reporter for 'Reclining Technology' magazine. Could you tell me who I might talk to for information on high performance seating controllers?"
Sam: "Sure, but did the folks in Central Engineering give you any other information about me? Like maybe my name?"
MZ: The sure mark of a bottom feeder - rather than doing homework, like
finding my name from conference papers or trade journals, the bottom
feeders start dialing phone numbers at random and hope for a hit. As
my extension is 5365 (KEWL) I knew that Ms. Zwilling would be calling
our co-op, Belinda Tolland, in a minute or so at extension 5366. I
let her know that someone would call soon, and suggested that she have
a little fun with it.
Minutes later, I heard Belinda over the wall. "Yup. I know somethin'
about seating controllers." Then, after about fifteen minutes of
obvious kiss-up-to-the-recruiter talk like "I'm looking for an open
environment that will allow me to leverage my maximum potential to
actualize my career," Belinda came out with "Hey, these folks you're
recruitin' for, do they serve beer at lunch? 'Cause man, I just can't
get through the afternoon without gettin' a buzz on. Ya know what I'm
sayin'? A coupla Buds and a bag o' Cheetos and I'm a happy camper all
afternoon."
The next call was from a more sophisticated hunter. It was clear that
nobody was going to get much work done today.
Today's episode was brought to you by BigTime Engineering
Resource Placement, Inc. We haven't the foggiest idea what
you do for a living, but we're pretty sure we've got just
the right job for you. Whoever you are. BigTime Engineering
Resource Placement - a division of Ingersoll, Gravis, and
O'Rourke. For further information call 1-888-IGO-BERP.
The next call was from a more sophisticated hunter. This guy had done
his homework. He knew my history, my hot buttons, and probably knew
how much I was getting paid. The guy was plugged in. He was calling
from Moon Seating Systems. I'd heard that they got pretty aggressive
when they sensed opportunity.
Moon Seating Systems was headed by a irritating whiner of a guy who, I
figure, spent half of his elementary school career as a classroom
monitor ("Mrs. Persely, Eddie was eating paste while you were out of
the room...") and the other half getting creamed by Eddie and his
friends out on the playground. No doubt the experience set the tone
for the rest of his life.
The recruiter was slick. "Mr. Iszdat, my name is Ron Anvin at Moon
Seating. I've been doing some research and your name pops up a lot.
Your colleagues think rather highly of you."
Sam: "The approbation of my co-workers is always nice to hear."
RA: "Well, all that got me to thinking that a sharp guy like you is
wasting his time in an organization that is falling apart. Now that
all the senior members of your team are looking for other jobs and
your group is going to Hell in a handcart, don't you think you should
cut your losses? We have some opportunities that I'm sure you'll be
interested in."
Sam: "Hmmm.. I was unaware that my colleagues were leaving quite yet,
and those that might be leaving, or have left, decided for themselves,
not for me."
I wondered at the gall of this guy. I had friends at Moon, and was
pretty sure that if they knew what Ronnie was doing, they'd be
ashamed. I know that I'd be ashamed if my recruiter was talking like
that. It's one thing to present opportunities, but preying on
anxieties with "limited time offers" and "get out soon, before it's
too late" is just sleazy. I was steamed.
Sam: "I appreciate the fact that you are interested in me. Though, to
tell you the truth, the only opportunity I'm interested in is kicking
Moon's butt and humiliating you guys big time."
RA: (interrupting) "Well, a little competition is good for business."
Sam: "No, you don't understand. I'm not interesting in competition.
I'm interested in seeing you lose. In humiliating you. In seeing
you and every company that employs overbearing weasels like you sink
into the ocean and get eaten by clams."
RA: (flustered) "Uhhh... uhhh.... well I appreciate your candor."
(regaining his composure) "Could I keep your name and number on file
then, for a future call?"
Sam: "Nope. Time is on my side, and if I had to bet one way or the
other, I'd rather bet on what I can do here. Quite frankly, the head
games you're playing make you sound pretty desperate. I'm a
deliberative kind of guy. Desperate doesn't appeal to me. Grownups
take time to decide. Try that 'jump quick' crap on school kids.
Professionals aren't likely to dance to that tune."
The editors wish to state that the characters and companies
in this drama are products of a dream. They are not real
people. If real people or companies act the way some
characters act in this story, they should hang their heads
in shame. So there.
Phones were ringing everywhere. Whenever anything like this happens
in an organization, you'll lose a few folks. People who were vaguely
discontented can suddenly point at something concrete to be upset about.
They move on. Others are lured away by offers that are too good
to pass up ("Hey, Bobby! Lonnie Runner calling. I'm putting together a
venture here that looks like it'll be a whole lot of fun and thought
that you might be interested.") or too seductive to ignore ("Jim, as
CEO of EZsnuze Seating, I think you owe it to Western Civilization to
come work for us on high performance relaxation controllers.").
Every once in a while you get a "live one" though - a person who
hires on during, or even because of, the turmoil.
As I hung up the phone the wall of my cubiclette let out a
rat-tat-tat-tat. The wall-rapper poked his head into the cube and
started to introduce himself. He didn't need an introduction - it was
my room-mate from college, Animal Ryker. Animal was his real name.
Don't ask why.
"Animal!" I said.
"Hey Sam!" he replied. Animal had a way with words. "I heard that
you guys are really getting put through the wringer, so it seemed like a
good time to join you."
"Glad to have you on board. We could use a stable influence."
Animal then fell into a routine that we'd spent way too many inebriated
evenings reciting back at Altered State College.
Today's episode is brought to you by The American Association
for the Abolition of Intellectual Property Rights who would
like to remind you that plagiarism is the highest form of
productivity.
. . . About 278,000 years ago an asteroid in an eccentric orbit
between Earth and Mars collided with some debris in the tail of what
would later be named Halley's comet. Once the size of Schenectady, New
York, the asteroid was reduced by the cataclysmic encounter to a cloud
of dust and particles. The largest of these particles was no larger
than a regulation baseball. In the aftermath of the collision, this
baseball-sized particle assumed a new trajectory that intersected
the orbits of both Earth and Mars . . .
In the days that followed the initial blizzard of
announcements, the design team was rocked by a series of
resignations and defections. Paralyzed by a combination of
confused directives from the Board, threats of stockholder
lawsuits, and the provisions of the
Smoot-Hawley-Sydney-Polevaulter Act (for the preservation of a
competitive environment in the leisure seating industry - as
amended in 1823) management's attempts at a coherent response to
the outside threats were frustrated at every turn. Each attempt
to develop an organization-wide program to keep folks in place
while the dust settled ran afoul of one constraint or another.
Nine days after the announcement by ReKlyne! of their
intention to buy the remaining parts of Ginantonix, I arrived at
work to find Will Robinson in a room with my manager, Jack Tate.
It was clear their conversation had taken an unpleasant turn.
Jack was gesticulating wildly. I learned later that he was trying
to convince Will that there was a future here. Alas, Will wanted
to hear that Vjelzcki Jvczyz7kns, the flamboyant CEO at ReKlyne!
had laid out a plan that guaranteed us all an opportunity to
finish the chip we had been working on. Jack couldn't tell Will
what he wanted to hear. (Though, ironically, if Will had held out
a few months more he would have heard the message from Vjelzcki
himself.) (Author's note, Vjelzcki Jvczyz7kns is known to his
friends as Dzck - a diminutive nickname for the more formal
Vjelzcki.)
Will was not to be convinced. At the end of the conversation,
he returned to his office and packed up two boxes of personal
effects, sent out a mail message to the group, handed in his badge
and walked out of the building for the last time.
As I watched him walk out, I couldn't help myself and said, in
my best mechanical voice, "Danger! Danger Will Robinson!" and
thrashed my arms wildly about.
Animal Ryker, Jack, and I watched Will make his way across the
parking lot. While standing in the crosswalk (so the later
investigation concluded) he was struck in the solar plexus by a
baseball-sized meteorite. In a blinding flash, lasting about a
microsecond, Will Robinson became a cloud of vapor. Awestruck, we
stared wide-eyed at the steaming hole in the pavement until Jack
broke the silence.
"I told him that leaving now was a bad idea."
Animal replied, "Jimminy Crickets Jack! That's one heck of a
retention plan."
Today's gruesome episode was brought to you by Anderson's
Asphalt Paving Service. We specialize in residential,
commercial, and public road and parking surfaces. Be prepared
for August's Perseids meteor showers. Check out our "patch a
steaming hole in the pavement" special offer. Pay for one
meteor hole repair and get the second meteor hole repaired for
free!
Ramona recognized Will Robinson's encounter with the meteorite
for what it was -- as good a reason as any for a group
get-together.
Will didn't have any family, so Jack Tate delivered the
eulogy. When he said that "Will served as a brilliant example to
us all," there were a few stifled giggles as we remembered Will's
last shining moment. But when Jack said that "Will's departure
will leave a hole that will be difficult to fill," Animal Ryker
muttered, "Geez, a yard and a half of asphalt ought to do it."
Ramona and I doubled over, tears flowing from our eyes as we did
our best to maintain some dignity.
I don't think we'll be welcomed back at the Gruesome Brother's
Funeral Home. They were cheesed off anyway that Will didn't
require much of a casket, the bulk of his corporeal existence
having been converted to vapor in the milliseconds after the
meteor hit. All that was left of him was a worn pair of hush
puppies, a deerstalker hat, and a blue polyester tie with Elvis
Presley's picture on it. We could have buried him in an oatmeal
box.
The wake went a little better than the funeral. Ramona rented
both the front and back rooms at the Tap 'n' Dye. Truth be told,
we all really liked Will and as we each descended into the fog
that can only be found when alcohol and grief mix, we got kind of
maudlin and started telling "Will Robinson" stories.
My favorite came from way back in the seventies when Will was
working at Consolidated Bogonix. The company had just moved into
what had been the headquarters of the Girl Scouts of America.
The "facilities" in the building were insufficient for the
demands placed on them by 596 men. The eight female employees of
ConBogonix were quite happy with the accommodations.
It was clear that the building needed a few more fixtures in
the gentlemen's rooms. Will set about constructing a business
case supporting the renovations. He wrote a detailed discrete
event simulation in Simula-68. The simulator even showed the
paper towels and soap running out at 2 each afternoon. More
importantly, it showed that the problem could be cured by
doubling the size of the facilities.
ConBogonix management was impressed. Obviously the arrival
rate of men at the restrooms was such that the facilities would
need to be doubled to accommodate the traffic. On the other
hand, it seemed equally obvious to them that reducing the arrival
rate by a factor of two would allow them to avoid a costly
renovation project.
Consolidated Bogonix management removed every coffee maker,
soda machine, and water fountain from the building. Will was
forced by his co-workers to leave.
Today's episode was brought to you by First National Federal
Community Equitable Savings and Loan Trust Bank Credit Union
Health Maintenance Organization Internet Service Provider
Telephone and Cable Company. At FNFCESLTBCUHMOISPTCC, we're
focussed on our core competency -- specialized attention in
specialized businesses for special people. Like you.
Jeez, where was I? Things got kinda busy for a while and I
seem to have lost track of where we were in the story. Let's see: It
all started with the phone call that told me that our CEO had sold a
big hunk of my division to Leisuretel, the meanest, nastiest company
in the relaxation equipment industry. It kind of snowballed from
there. My part of the Ginantonix Corporation was left intact. A few
weeks after the first news, we heard that the rest of the company
would be bought by ReKlyne! ReKlyne! had a great reputation for
knowing how to sell stuff and deliver good products quickly. In the
long run the ReKlyne! takeover was going to be a good deal for
everyone.
In the mean time, however, a few folks got nervous. We took a
pretty bad attrition hit. Half the CAD organization left on the night
of the Leisuretel takeover to help Daryl the Lunatic Architect with a
guerilla personal seating control computer venture. We lost a few
engineers to other opportunities. Will Robinson quit and was
vaporized in the parking lot by a meteorite. Folks took the last
incident as an omen -- it discouraged further attrition for a little
while.
So, now we're back to the story. A few day's after Will's
wake, the Leisuretel deal closed. Skippy (former Ginantonix co-op,
maimed in a work related accident involving a shotgun and an irritated
architect, now Leisuretel's VP for Acquisition Transition Projects)
had made it plain that he wanted Ginantonix out of the building. He
changed all the signs around the building and made a big show of
placing the big Ginantonix lighted sign into a portable car-crusher.
I'm not an angry guy by nature, but that gesture really cheesed me
off. We needed to get away from this monster.
Ginantonix management had a tough time finding new digs for
us. Big decisions like site choice have to be made by a committee.
Big decisions like site choice should never be made by a committee.
Each site we might move to had some kind of problem. They ranged
from one building that was "about to be gutted by a tragic fire"
to a building that "had a bad karma thing going, y'know?". Skippy
was running out of patience. He wanted his "tenants" -- for that is
what he took to calling us -- moved out and moved out soon.
Skippy had a dog. Skippy's dog was named Apollo. From what I
could tell, Apollo was fed a steady diet of cabbage and legumes.
Skippy gave Apollo the run of our side of the building. Let's just
say that you didn't have to catch sight of Apollo to know that he was
nearby. It was awful. We couldn't open any windows, as they were
all welded shut. All the fans and ventilation that we could marshal
only served to spread the misery over a wider area, but diluted its
pungency not a whit. Our group manager, Jack Tate, even went to the
local auto parts store and bought one thousand of those pine tree
de-odorizer things with the money in the incentive program budget.
Nobody had any problem with that. Alas, each measure we took only
seemed to encourage Apollo to more prodigious feats of olfactory
assault.
And so the day came when we moved into a new building. New
to us anyway. It was clean. It was bright. It didn't smell like
fermented cabbage.
We had found a home.
Today's thrilling episode was brought to you by the
American Council of Manufacturers of Stuff That Hangs From the
Rear-View Mirror. From fuzzy dice to pine-scented de-odorizers,
we've been serving American drivers for over seventy years. We'd
like to remind you that the next time you buy something to hang
from your rear-view mirror, buy American. Beware of cheap imports.
Nothing looks shabbier than a pair of cheap faded fuzzy dice.
Besides, we buy your stuff -- you should buy ours.
We moved. In the meantime, the various agencies in attempting
to protect ReKlyne! and Ginantonix stockholders forbade either party
from talking to customers, stockholders, or reporters. As a result we
took a real shellacking from the press and a few of our less classy
competitors. All the bad press worried my mother. She called one
night: "Sam, since you're going to lose your job and all, this doesn't
mean you're thinking of moving in with your father and me, does it?"
Mrs. Vitriol was even worse. But the doorbell button was clean.
Finally the big day came. The stockholders met, and in a meeting
that lasted a little over eight minutes they voted to sell the remains
of Ginantonix to ReKlyne! Corporation. The ordeal was almost over.
In point of fact, ReKlyne! was out to kick some major butt in
the seating business. Two days after the meeting they took out a
twelve page insert in the seating industry's biggest newspaper: "The
DePaul Seat Journal". In those twelve pages they said more about
Ginantonix than we had seen in print over the last five years. They
even mentioned the advanced development work that my group was doing
in high end industrial seating.
So now we had what we needed. Motivated management. A
stabilized workforce. A building that didn't smell bad.
But we had a really awful phone system. Like every other
office building this side of Novosibirsk, we had an automated,
centralized telephone answering system. Ours however would have
shamed even "Bell of Novosibirsk". Phones with little red lights that
never blinked, informed us that a call had arrived while we were out
by "burping" quietly in the corner every half hour or so. Worse, the
"secret decoder ring" (or manual) that listed all the control
sequences was huge and weighed a pound and a half.
The phone would burp if there was a message in the voicemail
box. As messages accumulated, the interval between burps would decrease.
Jack Tate was on vacation for about two days when his phone started
to burp more or less continually. Ramona dropped by my office and
listened patiently to my whining about the whole thing. She graciously
offered to help.
"Do you have a 3/32 inch screwdriver?" she asked.
"Here y'go Ramona," I said as I followed her into Jack's office.
Ramona knew a lot about a lot of things. Apparently we were to find out
that she knew a lot about phones.
Ramona turned the telephone over. She placed it face down on
Jack's desk. She gently inserted the point of the screwdriver into a
slot in the back of the telephone. She picked up a copy of Webster's
New Collegiate Dictionary. She smacked the back of the screwdriver
with the book, driving the point through the slot and out the other
side. Chips of plastic telephone flew everywhere. The zero key hit
me in the eye. "There," she said smiling, "you just have to
disconnect the speaker thingy" as she righted the phone and gave it a
kindly little pat.
Jan Danielsohn's problem was a whole other story. What really
cheesed off Jan was the fact that you couldn't figure out when a
voicemail call had arrived.
Jan came to the seating controller group after a ten year
career in the technology division. He was responsible for developing
new upholstery fabrics. After ten years Jan wanted out. In his
words, "I got tired of the endless maneuvering by the big shots -- a
seating fabric career is a perpetual exercise in butt-covering". Jan
was a good engineer who still retained a scientist's passion for
relentless experimentation. Jan had found - by trial and error - the
key sequence that convinced the phone machine to announce the date and
time for each call that he'd received. He sent out mail:
Now we had a phone system that we might be able to live with.
Today's thrilling episode was brought to you by Dimitri and
Yakhov's Discount Telephone Company. For the cheapest in
discount long distance service just dial Things were starting to settle down after the move and the
corporate upheaval that had dogged our little design group. We were
now ReKlyne! employees and darned glad of it. For most of us, we
could finally answer with an enthusiastic "Yes!" the question that has
plagued generations of philosophers -- to wit: "Are we having fun yet?"
Most of us were anyway. I hadn't seen Wilma in a few weeks.
She had been out doing some recruiting to rebuild the CAD group. The
tour had been pretty successful -- she extended seven offers of
employment and got five good responses. Now that we were on an even
footing, and poised in a David and Goliath battle, our group had
become the hot ticket for newly graduated seating engineers.
Despite the success, Wilma was as upset as I'd ever seen her when
she came running into my office.
"The bastard's shot Thumper!" she wailed. I tried to calm her, but
met with little success. "Thumper" is, or rather was, the rabbit that
used to hang out in the parking lot of our old building. Leisuretel
had bought the building, and we'd recently vacated the premises.
Wilma, in an uncharacteristicly sentimental moment, had sort of
adopted Thumper as a mascot for our group. Wilma fed Thumper. Wilma
built a shelter for Thumper one weekend. Wilma convinced Jose to
install a heater in it. Sometimes, when things got tense, we'd all go
out and pay Thumper a visit. Often, after spending hours arguing
pointlessly and endlessly in a meeting, we would resolve our
differences after a Thumper visit. And Thumper liked people. More
than one visitor was surprised by a wet nose on a dangling hand while
sitting on a bench outside the main entrance -- Thumper craved
affection and didn't mind asking for it. Thumper liked everybody and
everybody liked Thumper.
Thumper had no place in Leisuretel's world. "If I wasn't
motivated to beat Leisuretel in the marketplace before, I'm motivated
now. Don't stand in my way Sam -- I am one angry womyn." Wilma
handed me a hardcopy of a mail message that she'd received that
morning through the grapevine. The message read:
Well, if that's what it took to give Wilma a reason to come to
work in the morning, at least Thumper hadn't died in vain.
Today's thrilling episode was brought to you by the Executive
Cafeteria at Leisuretel's Grover's Boil Site. We'll be serving
braised hare in a light cream sauce on Monday.
Wilma stormed out of my office, ready to do battle with the
forces of insufficient niceness.
A few minutes later, Jack Tate walked into his office after a
long vacation. I could hear him puttering and rustling around.
He logged in, checked his backlog of 1800 mail messages, 400
of which were spam-grams offering everything from get rich quick
schemes to back rubs. After he plowed through the backlog (delete
1-1790<return> print 1790-99999<return> -- he only pays attention to
the last 10 things he hears or reads.) I heard him call me.
"Hey Sam! What happened to my telephone?"
"Is there something wrong with your telephone, Jack?" I asked
in my most neutral business like voice.
"It's a wreck Sam. The zero key is missing. Geez, who was
fooling with my phone? I want to know, and I want to know now."
"Oh, ease up, Jack. We'll find you another one."
Jack was not to be mollified. "Sam, this is serious. Messing
with somebody's telephone is ... well it's... uhhh... It's a safety
violation, that's what it is. It's a safety violation, and now I'll
have to report it."
"Jack, I don't see how this is a safety problem. Your phone
is broken, we'll get you a new one."
"That's not the point Sam. It is broken now. What if I had
to dial 9-1-1?"
I left it to Jack to figure out how to dial 911 with a
telephone that was missing a zero key.
To be honest with you, the whole morning was making me a
little cranky. Wilma's news about Thumper, Jack's problems with the
phone, and on top of that, I'd run out of pop-tarts that morning, so I
didn't really start out with a very good breakfast -- (just a quart of
OJ, and 300mg of Zantac).
When I get cranky, I don't hang around at work. It's just too
easy to say the wrong thing to the wrong person. I needed some new
clothes anyway so I went to the local mall.
The Grover's Boil Galleria had seen better days. As an
economy measure, management had turned the lights down a bit (or
perhaps they'd quit replacing burned-out bulbs) and aimed at a
decidedly down-scale atmosphere. They got it. Between the dark,
cavernous paths, and the dozens of suburban teens with metal doodads
stuck through various body parts, a trip to the Galleria was like a
trip into a post-apocalyptic horror movie.
It was lunch time, so I headed for the food court. Again, the
evidence of the down-scale emphasis was everywhere. The banner over
the entrance to the food court screamed out "Any Lunch For Just $2".
I passed by the "Gristle Hut" (famous "stake"(sic) subs), "Feet and
Beaks" (chicken), "Meat in the Middle" (hot dogs), "Famous Mavis'
Tofu-Chip Cookies" (the name says it all) and "Soylent Greens"
(salads and crackers -- I think...). Suddenly, I wasn't so hungry
after all.
But I still needed new clothes. Fortunately, the semi-weekly
sale was on at Ivan's Short and Squat Gentleman's Clothing. A new
shipment had just come in from Bulgaria. I got a pretty good deal on
a dark blue sport jacket. (Every guy over the age of twelve should
have a dark blue sport jacket, in case he's invited on a dinner cruise
for some company celebration. I had one, but it had shrunk somehow --
the new jacket was much roomier.) I also got three pairs of pants and
35 individual dark blue socks. Ivan sells socks one at a time. After
all, how many unmatched socks do you have at home? Now I have just
one.
I asked Ivan if the jacket needed alterations. He sighed and
said, "I'm afraid that's the best we're going to do, Mr. Sam." I
tucked my purchases under my arm, strolled back to my car and drove
home. A hammock was beckoning me, and I was overdue for an afternoon
off.
Today's thrilling shopping excursion was brought to you
by "Squash Julius" -- in the food court at the Grover's Boil
Galleria.
I took a few more days off after the shopping trip to decompress
and get my bearings back. But after three days away from my
daily puzzle fix, I was ready to come back to work on Monday.
"Monday morning" hadn't yet turned into "Monday lunchtime" when
Animal Ryker sauntered into my office with some news.
"Hey Sam, you ought to wander over and introduce yourself to the
new Finance Manager that we got from ReKlyne!" he said.
"I'm hoping to get a little busy here soon. It's time I started
returning some value to the stockholders," I replied
conscientiously.
"Oh, but Sam, this is the woman for you. Word has it she is an
orphan raised by wolves in the wilds of Indiana."
Preoccupied and not paying attention, I said something like,
"Yah, raised by wolves, that sounds like the girl for me
all right." Hearing it repeated by a voice coming from my own
head made it register. "Hey! What do you mean 'raised by
wolves' -- how does that make her the ideal woman?"
Animal Ryker adopted that patronizing look he always used when he
explained something that was obvious to him and clearly over my
own head. "Sam, all the women you've ever dated had one thing in
common, do you remember what that is?" I offered no response, so
he continued. "Their parents were crazy about you."
I bristled, "Why shouldn't parents like me? I'm stable, modestly
successful, courteous..."
"Kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and
reverent. Yada, yada, yada... Tedious!" Animal broken in.
"And what's wrong with stability and good manners?"
"Sam, get a clue pal. Parents like that. Brothers like that.
The women you've been dating, want some excitement."
"Hey, I can show a girl a good time. My whole life isn't a yawn
or anything."
"I know that, but once a woman finds out that her parents like
you, its the kiss of death. She doesn't see all the exciting
things about you anymore. The 'rental voices keep repeating in
her head: 'He seems safe.' You might as well wear a boy scout
uniform."
I had to admit that Animal might be right. Perhaps I ought to
meet the "Indiana Wolf Woman". I followed Animal over to
"bean-counter row" and turned the corner.
I saw her name plate on the office wall in the same instant that
I saw her face. As the two registered on my mind, my heart
started to pound, my hands started to sweat and my knees began to
buckle. I was transported back to Prom Night, 1980 standing in
my powder-blue tuxedo with a pink ruffled shirt and patent
leather shoes with 3" heels. She spoke first, as my head began
to whirl, "Sam? It's been a long time."
Today's amorous episode was brought to you by StinkEze.
If you smelled like a goat would anybody tell you? Probably
not. And its a vicious circle, you know. The worse you
smell the fewer friends you have that would tell you. Play
it safe. Try StinkEze in the five gallon drum.
I excused myself and sprinted down the hall after Animal. "How could
you? Jeez, Animal, you knew. Didn't you?"
"Sam, what would you have done? All through school you had pictures
of her hanging in our room. Whenever you got tanked on a few beers
you moaned about how she was the one 'love of your life'. Today I saw
the girl in the picture and, well, I'm sorry. Maybe I should have
minded my own business."
I felt like a dope. Animal was right. I'd carried a torch for Karyn
Muhlenberg for years. We were high school sweethearts -- almost fated
to be together as we were the two "over-achievers" at Beatrice Fairfax
High School in the tiny town of Rocky Plains, Indiana. We went to the
prom together. We graduated #1 and #2 in our class. (She was the
valedictorian.) We had made plans. We had a future together.
Until the day she left me standing in the rain outside the Indiana
State Scrabble Tournament. We were to meet after the final round.
While I waited, her parents took her out the back door and sent her to
college in France. I hadn't seen her since. Except in the photos and
on a TV game show. I
even had a photo in my wallet. It had been almost twenty years. Animal
was right. I wandered back to Karyn's office.
"It has been a few years, Karyn. How has life been?"
"Life's been OK Sam. College, more college, a little more college,
work, more work, a little more work."
"I know. I saw you on Jeopardy a few years back. Heard the whole
biography. Boy, you really wiped up the floor with those folks."
"That was fun. But I got blindsided by the 'final jeopardy' on the
last day."
I remembered feeling a little guilty at the petty pleasure I took from
that one. She fumbled the answer but won the "Tournament of
Champions" anyway. "Let's see, 'Of Sigrid Undset, Bjornstjerne
Bjornson, Knut Hamsun, Karl Gjellerup, one Nobel Literature Prize
winner was not from this country.'"
We both answered in unison "What is Norway?" and then laughed.
Karyn giggled, "I spaced on it. I should have read the answer more
carefully."
We both laughed at the recollection of her having answered "Who is
Karl Gjellerup?", though in fact, the others were from Norway, Karl
was from Denmark.
I screwed up my courage: "So, is there a Mr. Karyn Muhlenberg?"
She sighed, "No. One or two men got the $500 questions right, but I
never found one who could hold his own in the double jeopardy round."
"Things that Karyn Likes for $1000, Alex," I said.
"You know Sam, I still have your high school letter jacket." (I
earned two letters back then. One for the chess team and one for the
math team.)
"I still have a few pictures of you hanging around." I paused again,
to steel myself, "Would you like to go to dinner?"
"Sure," she said, "if you can explain why you've charged the company
for '5qts 5W30' on each of your last seventy expense account reports."
Today's breathless bodice-ripper of an episode was
brought to you by Hank 'n' Edna's School of Dance. Don't
break out in a sweat every time your sweetie asks you to dance.
No matter how physically awkward you are, or how self conscious
all those years of stumbling and making a fool of yourself have
caused you to become, Hank 'n' Edna can help. Hank 'n' Edna's
School of Dance, over Harold's House o' Bait 'n' Sushi in the
Joleen Shopping Plaza at county route 9 and state highway 15 in
Joleen, Indiana.
Jeez! Things were finally starting to calm down... No turmoil. No
corporate takeovers. I was looking forward to getting some work
done. Then Karyn says she'd go to dinner with me if I could
"explain why you've charged the company for '5qts 5W30' on each
of your last seventy expense account reports."
That's how I ended up here. ReKlyne! had sent their best, most
diligent super-sleuth of an accountant to my group. Of all the
circuit design shops in all the world, she had to walk into mine.
And so, I'm telling you this story as we sit here in the
visitor's lounge at the Allenwood Federal Penitentiary. The life
inside isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I get three meals
a day, and Ramona's been sending me the parts for a
Leezur-Lounger one chunk at a time.
I'm renting my house to Belinda and a bunch of co-ops. Mrs.
Vitriol doesn't clean the place anymore. Skippy Mulvaney figured,
after having his knee shot off on his first day of work, and then
getting clobbered by a pile of potatoes, he might be a little
accident prone. So, I sold him my Volvo.
Karyn Muhlenberg turned me in to the authorities. I remember her
last words: "I hate to do this Sam, but I've got a fiduciary
responsibility to the corporation, and seven hundred dollars is a
lot of money. You do the crime, you've got to do the time. I'll
be waiting for you when you get out though."
Ya. Right.
But I am getting a lot of work done. My cell is bigger than my
Ginantonix cubicle by a good margin. Nobody barges in while I'm
in the middle of something. And they say I'll be out in about
five years.
The only thing that really gets me about this whole thing is that
I've got to share a cell block with three guys and a woman from
New York. They're doing five to ten for standing by and watching
while some poor guy got robbed. What sociopaths! Jeez, you'd
think you'd meet a better crowd of folks in a white-collar
prison.
But I guess I shouldn't complain. After all, it could be worse.
In a tiny two room bungalow about an hour's drive from BNE's
microprocessor design center, an engineer twists and turns as
his tortured slumber comes to an end.
Episode 19
Episode 20
Animal: Look Sam, if you're the project leader, you must know all the box leaders.
Sam: I certainly do.
AR: Well you know I've never met the guys. So you'll have to tell me
their names, and then I'll know who I'll be working with.
SI: Oh, I'll tell you their names, but you know because of all the
recruiters who are after the designers here, we've all taken
on fake names, code names, very peculiar names.
AR: You mean funny names, like baseball players used to get?
SI: Strange names, pet names...like Dizzy Dean...
AR: His brother Daffy
SI: Daffy Dean...
AR: And their California cousin.
SI: California?
AR: John.
SI: John Dean. Well, let's see, we have a bunch of box leaders.
Who's on E-box, What's on F-box, I Don't Know is on A-box...
AR: That's what I want to find out.
SI: I say Who's on E-box, What's on F-box, I Don't Know's on A-box.
AR: Are you the manager?
SI: Yes.
AR: You gonna be the design leader too?
SI: Yes.
AR: And you don't know the box leaders' names.
SI: Well I should.
AR: Well then who's on E-box?
SI: Yes.
AR: I mean the fellow's name.
SI: Who.
AR: The guy on E-box.
SI: Who.
AR: The E-box leader.
SI: Who.
AR: The guy leading the E-box team...
SI: Who is leading the E-box!
AR: I'm asking you who's leading the E-box.
SI: That's the man's name.
AR: That's who's name?
SI: Yes.
AR: Well go ahead and tell me.
SI: That's it.
AR: That's who?
SI: Yes.
PAUSE
AR: Look, you gotta E-box leader?
SI: Certainly.
AR: Who's leading the E-box?
SI: That's right.
AR: When you pay off the E-box leader every month, who gets the
money?
SI: Every dollar of it.
AR: All I'm trying to find out is the fellow's name leading the E-box.
SI: Who.
AR: The guy that gets...
SI: That's it.
AR: Who gets the money...
SI: He does, every dollar of it. Sometimes his wife comes down and
collects it.
AR: Who's wife?
SI: Yes.
PAUSE
SI: What's wrong with that?
AR: Look, all I wanna know is when you sign up the E-box leader, how
does he sign his name?
SI: Who.
AR: The guy.
SI: Who.
AR: How does he sign...
SI: That's how he signs it.
AR: Who?
SI: Yes.
PAUSE
AR: All I'm trying to find out is what's the guys name leading the E-box.
SI: No. What is on F-box.
AR: I'm not asking you who's on F-box
SI: Who's on E-box.
AR: One box at a time!
SI: Well, don't change the leaders around.
AR: I'm not changing nobody!
SI: Take it easy, buddy.
AR: I'm only asking you, who's the guy leading the E-box?
SI: That's right.
AR: Ok.
SI: Alright.
PAUSE
AR: What's the guy's name leading the E-box?
SI: No. What is on F-box.
AR: I'm not asking you who's on F-box.
SI: Who's on E-box.
AR: I don't know.
SI: He's on A-box, we're not talking about him.
AR: Now how did I get on to the A-box?
SI: Why you mentioned his name.
AR: If I mentioned the A-box leader's name, who did I say is leading
the A-box?
SI: No. Who's leading the E-box.
AR: What's on E-box?
SI: What's on F-box.
AR: I don't know.
SI: He's on the A-box.
AR: There I go, back on the A-box again!
PAUSE
AR: Would you just stay on the A-box and don't go off it.
SI: Alright, what do you want to know?
AR: Now who's leading the A-box design?
SI: Why do you insist on putting Who on the A-box?
AR: What am I putting on the A-box?
SI: No. What is on F-box.
AR: You don't want who on F-box?
SI: Who is on E-box?
AR: I don't know.
AR & SI: A-box!
PAUSE
AR: Look, you connect to memory?
SI: Sure.
AR: The M-box leader's name?
SI: Why.
AR: I just thought I'd ask you.
SI: Well, I just thought I'd tell ya.
AR: Then tell me who's leading the M-box.
SI: Who's leading the E-box.
AR: I'm not...stay out of the core!!! I want to know what's the
guy's name leading the M-box?
SI: No, What is on F-box.
AR: I'm not asking you who's on F-box.
SI: Who's on E-box!
AR: I don't know.
AR & SI: A-box!
PAUSE
AR: The C-box leader's name?
SI: Why.
AR: Because!
SI: Oh, she's IO-box leader.
PAUSE
AR: Look, You gotta instruction unit on this chip?
SI: Sure.
AR: The I-box leader's name?
SI: Tomorrow.
AR: You don't want to tell me today?
SI: I'm telling you now.
AR: Then go ahead.
SI: Tomorrow!
AR: What time?
SI: What time what?
AR: What time tomorrow are you gonna tell me who's leading the I-box?
SI: Now listen. Who is not leading the I-box.
AR: I'll break your arm if you say who's on E-box!!! I want to know
what's the I-box leader's name?
SI: What's on F-box.
AR: I don't know.
AR & SI: Third base!
PAUSE
AR: Gotta a cache?
SI: Certainly.
AR: The leader's name?
SI: Today.
AR: Today, and tomorrow's running the I-box.
SI: Now you've got it.
AR: All we got is a couple of days on the team.
PAUSE
AR: You know I've designed a few caches too.
SI: So they tell me.
AR: I design a few really neat cache cells and row decoders. Tomorrow's
designed a cool decoder. The chip executes some really tough code.
The I-box fetches the code from me, sends it to the E-box, so the
code passes through the I-box and goes to who?
SI: Now that's the first thing you've said right.
AR: I don't even know what I'm talking about!
PAUSE
SI: It's that simple.
AR: The instruction gets routed to the E-box.
SI: Yes!
AR: Now who's got it?
SI: Naturally.
PAUSE
AR: Look, if an instruction passes down to the E-box, somebody's gotta
be responsible for it. Now who has it?
SI: Naturally.
AR: Who?
SI: Naturally.
AR: Naturally?
SI: Naturally.
AR: So I fetch the instruction and it goes to Naturally.
SI: No, the instruction passes to Who.
AR: Naturally.
SI: That's different.
AR: That's what I said.
SI: Your not saying it...
AR: The instruction passes on to Naturally.
SI: It passes on to Who.
AR: Naturally.
SI: That's it.
AR: That's what I said!
SI: You ask me.
AR: The instruction goes to who?
SI: Naturally.
AR: Now you ask me.
SI: The instruction goes to Who?
AR: Naturally.
SI: That's it.
AR: Same as you! Same as YOU!!! The instruction goes to who. Whoever it
is executes a floating point load and passes it on to the What
on the F-box and I Don't Know on the M-box. The instruction
retires. Another instruction gets fetched and causes a cache-miss
that gets fielded by Because. Why? I don't know! He's on A-box
and I don't give a darn!
SI: What?
AR: I said I don't give a darn!
SI: Oh, that's our V-box leader.
Episode 21
Episode 22
Episode 23
Episode 24
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 22-JUN-1998 01:24:37.23
From: jan.danielsohn@seatopants.ginantonix.com
Subj: phone message date/time...
To: seating_controller_development_group@ginantonix.com
I've finally found it. If you want to know when each call arrives
at your phone mailbox:
dial 7333
enter password followed by #
4 (personal options)
2 (administrative options)
4 (date/time option)
1 (on, or 2 if you don't care when anyone called)
hang up
/Jan
-------------------------------------------------------------------
10-92-1932-1393881-03911-93200
and then your number. All calls over eight hours are half price!
Remember! That's
10-92-1932-1393881-03911-93200
and then your number.
Episode 25
==============================================================================
To: All Leisuretel Employees
From: Site Perimeter Integrity Team
Date: May 10, 1998
Re: Non-badged Intruder on Corporate Property
While routinely monitoring sensors on the grounds, the Site Perimeter
Integrity Team detected a non-badged intruder in sector QA-72 near the
south parking lot. The intruder was determined to be a rabbit weighing
approximately 18.26 pounds. When six SPIT members converged on sector
QA-72 to investigate, the rabbit approached a team member in a menacing
manner and rubbed its nose against the member's boot. The intruder has
been neutralized.
All Leisuretel employees are reminded that it is a violation of
Leisuretel corporate policy 7.23.103 (as amended 7-aug-1952) "for an
employee, contract worker, or visitor to keep, feed, nurture, or
otherwise care for any furry life form not necessary to the manufacture
of upholstered products."
Your Site Perimeter Integrity Team
==============================================================================
Episode 26
Episode 27
Episode 28
Episode 29