Executive

…58

The sun was still high enough to cause a bothersome glare on Alex's cloned laptop screen. She moved around the table a bit, to get rid of the glare and distinguish the needed detail she wanted from the images on the screen. Recalling Tuesday morning, when she had deliberately entered an executive meeting ten minutes late, with the sole purpose of surprising the person who was out to get her, still churned her stomach. She remembered the effort she had to make to walk in there with full confidence and her chin up, knowing that at least one of those present wanted her seriously harmed, enough to drug her and set her up to be arrested and thrown in jail.

She carefully watched the video, insisting on reviewing the minutes just before her entrance, to get familiar with the faces present and their overall demeanors. Unfortunately, from what she could see, neither Sheppard nor Walker had been in the room. Dr. Barnaby had to think of a reason to have the meeting in the company's recreation center gym, the only space large enough that could be fitted with seats facing the entrance. The gym was, on occasions, used for company-wide meetings, although it could barely hold 200 people, not even close to the almost 1,000 on NanoLance's payroll. Those present were quite fidgety, Alex noted. They were restless and concerned, as one would expect from the leaders of a company faced with investigations into the safety of its product, and potential involvement in incidents that had led to numerous deaths.

There it was, the precise moment she had entered the room. The camera, installed on the projector mount, close to the ceiling, only captured her from an angle that was above and behind as she made her way from the door to a seat in the front row. She could pinpoint with precision the moment she had entered the room, as she scrutinized the familiar faces for reactions.

The CFO, Audrey Kramer, just as tired as usual, looked up when Alex entered, then frowned. The frown on her face lingered for a good ten seconds, then faded away. That was too long time for it to have been an accidental or coincidental frown. Could it have been triggered by the rudeness of her being late? It was a possibility. In the case of Kramer's reactions, the results were inconclusive for now. Alex would have to observe Kramer on an ordinary day and figure out if lateness bothered her enough to cause such a reaction.

Angela Prescott's reaction was more troublesome. She had put her hand to her mouth, to disguise her surprise. Alex had not expected the HR fashionista to be involved in this mess. At best, Alex would have considered her the silent and oblivious, yet intimate, partner of Benjamin Walker, looking the other way and ignoring Walker's abusive leadership style, due to the nature of their personal relationship. But no, there it was, genuine surprise at the precise moment Alex had stepped through that door.

Rewinding the video a few seconds, Alex increased the zoom and centered the image on Prescott's face. Not only did her hand jump to cover her mouth, but also her mouth had opened in surprise, just before her hand covered it, her eyes widened and her eyebrows raised. She then composed herself before two seconds had passed but remained fidgety and uneasy for the remainder of the meeting. In her case, the conclusions were clear. Bitch, Alex thought, you wanted me nailed. Well, we'll have to see about that!

Chandler Griffiths was undisturbed by her entrance, showing no reaction at all. With Walker and Sheppard absent from the meeting, this concluded her analysis of the video. Opening her email and connecting through the Starbucks WiFi, she wrote an email to Tom.

She hit the send button. The screen refreshed, showing a new email in her inbox.

A cell phone, her personal device, chimed from her left pocket. The same message had been texted to her, making sure she got it on time.

This was the signal she had been waiting for at the local Starbucks, sipping from a glazed Frappucino. This particular Starbucks had a favorable location relative to the home of Mrs. Kingsley, AKC registered breeder of Rottweiler dogs. As the message had indicated, Janet Templeton, director of manufacturing quality at NanoLance's Alpine plant, and the author of the anonymous note sent to Dr. Barnaby, was on her way to Mrs. Kingsley's house, heading there to select her next Rottweiler puppy.

Pulling into Mrs. Kingsley's driveway ten minutes later, Alex made sure she was blocking the exit for Janet Templeton's car.

She rang the doorbell and heard a concert of barks and yelps. The breeder owned both parents — proud, imposing Rottweilers, acting protective of their young. After greetings and introductions, she sat down near a small table, across from Janet, ignoring her. She picked up a puppy and allowed herself two minutes of blissful enjoyment of Rottie kisses. Then she remembered what she had come there to do.

"Don't I know you from somewhere?" Alex probed.

"Not sure, maybe; you do look familiar," Janet responded, studying the little Rottie curled up on her lap.

"Do you live around here?"

"Nah… in Alpine."

"Oh, near our plant," Alex said.

"Which plant are you talking about?"

"The NanoLance plant. I work for them."

"So do I," Janet said, smiling. "I work at the plant, but I haven't seen you there."

"Nope, I work at corporate."

"Operations?"

"IT, in infrastructure. I'm Alex Hoffmann, director of infrastructure," Alex said.

"Janet Templeton, quality assurance."

They shook hands, both careful not to drop or otherwise disturb the puppies they were handling.

"Too bad they're only six weeks old; I wish I could take her home today," Janet said.

"Yep, same here. But two more weeks will give me enough time to puppy-proof the house, clean it up, and make it really nice for the little one."

"Have you thought of a name?"

"Yes, well, I'm somewhat undecided between Skye and Alma."

"Oh… Alma is nice; my last dog's name was Alma. She just died."

"I'm so very sorry," Alex said, "it is, indeed, a nice name. Was Alma a Rottweiler too?"

"Yes. My heart is set on this breed."

The connection had been made and rapport was building fast. They continued small talk on the topic of dogs, and then advised Mrs. Kingsley of their intended choices and pickup dates. They wrote checks with deposits to hold their pups. They discussed behaviors, personality testing, rearing, feeding, training, and everything else there was to discuss between two people passionate about dogs.

"Wanna grab a cup of coffee?" Alex asked, as they were ready to leave the breeder's home.

"Would love to," Janet said.

"Would you prefer something stronger than coffee, maybe?" Alex winked.

"Oh, no, unfortunately, I can't touch any alcohol for another twenty days; I'm on an antibiotic regimen after gum surgery."

"Ugh, that sounds painful," Alex said. "Then we'll stick to coffee. I know a Starbucks around here; I stopped there on my way in."

Minutes later, iced coffee treats in front of them, their casual conversation resumed.

"I think I know where I've seen you before," Alex said, moving on to business, "weren't you in a Walker meeting a couple of weeks back?"

"Ah, yes, you're right, we did meet," Janet said, her face lighting up. "Sorry, I'm really bad with faces. It's amazing how things out of context can affect my memory."

"No need to apologize, I couldn't remember you either, so we're even," Alex said with a warm, sympathetic laugh.

"I guess. Those meetings are hard to endure, and I try to suppress any memory after they end," Janet said, starting to open up.

"Are they usually like that? I thought it was just my beginner's luck."

"No, not at all. You go in there not knowing if you're not going to get your head bit off, and for no reason that makes any sense. It's really stressful, and it's a continuing pattern of stress. You'll see. Tomorrow we have another meeting, and it's going to be just as bad, if not worse. I'm ashamed to say, but after a couple of years of doing this, the only thing I can hope for before these meetings is that he doesn't pick on me for the ritual sacrifice."

"What's his problem? What's wrong with him?"

"He's an idiot with unrealistic demands, that's what he is. He doesn't understand our processes, nor does he want to. He just wants more, more, more, and nothing is ever good enough. I know every leader needs to challenge his organization, but keeping goals achievable is part of the game. A big part of the game. If the goals aren't achievable and people are afraid, that's when problems start. Errors are made and covered up, not fixed. People cut corners, fudge numbers, and make desperate decisions that do not serve any greater good, just buy them some time to figure out an alternate solution."

"Alternate solution?" Alex asked.

"Another job, I mean," Janet explained with a faint smile.

"Are you looking?"

"You're not going to tell on me, are you?"

"Oh, no, absolutely not. You can count on me," Alex reassured her.

"Yes, I'm looking, and so is everyone else from Walker's team. It takes a while though, 'cause we're depressed, exhausted, and in a constant state of crisis. Fires burning everywhere, little consistency, and no consideration for his people."

"How do you mean, fires burning?"

"Figuratively speaking. Emergencies of all kinds, some real, but most of them are imaginary."

"I think I get it," Alex said.

"Today, everyone focuses on cost reduction. Tomorrow, he wants staff reductions. The next day, he wants a new product model to be ready for testing in 90 days. And so on. For example, he wants cost taken out of the product year after year. Every year we have to think how to make these products cheaper by anywhere between 5–10 percent, all barfed up numbers with no foundation in reality.

"Plus these products are not TV sets made in China, for the wide consumer market. Few of our products are consumer products. The military products are under contracts, and there is no need for cost pressures, other than stupid, destructive greed. This hurts me in particular, 'cause I am in charge of quality. How can we deliver an improving quality, if the product is disappearing in front of our eyes due to cost reduction challenges?”

“You’re right,” Alex said, “you can’t.”

"And he's a sadistic bastard too, if you haven't noticed yet. He gets his kicks from making people suffer. The moment he sees someone on the verge of breaking down, I swear to you, he's pre-orgasmic or something… just watch him tomorrow. We've all noticed that about him, but, regardless, he's a skilled torturer. When you're in his line of fire you will hurt, and you will give him pleasure by hurting, and you will hate yourself for it.

"Wow," Alex said in a soft voice.

"You should see how he does performance appraisals. After each performance appraisal, the bottom 10–20 percent of all teams will be fired without cause and without the reason of poor performance. Even if you reached your goals and made your numbers, you could still be fired. This is a stupid method to manage performance — stupid and dangerous too. No one cares about the company or the product anymore. No one does what's right anymore. Everyone hopes that someone else is on that list of terminations, when next February comes. This method destroys teams, and overall human values. It degenerates, as a method, everything that was at the core of our success as a company.

"He didn't invent this method. Someone else did. Walker is just happily applying it, 'cause it creates pain, uncertainty, and suffering in his people, and he loves that. He calls it a competitive, high-performing environment, 'cause everyone is willing to harm everyone else and do anything to survive. He wants all of us to become just like him."

"HR doesn't do anything about this?"

"Hah," she laughed wryly, "you don't know much, 'cause you're new. There is no human resources department on our side here. You should keep in mind they're not to be trusted."

"Thanks for the heads up," Alex said.

"He's also a liar, our COO Benjamin Walker. I've seen him lie, then fire people to cover it up. The former VP of manufacturing, the one before Dunwood, used to tell him in every operations meeting that cost pressures were too high, and that they impact negatively the quality and reliability of the product, in addition to the employee morale and engagement. Every meeting he said that to Walker, and Walker replied he doesn't want to hear it, 'cause it's nothing but a lame excuse for poor performance.

"Then, one day, Walker comes by the plant to visit, and some assembly workers reach out to him and tell him exactly the same thing. That they're disappointed by the fact that the company is cost-driven, rather than quality-driven like it used to be, and that they feel disengaged and disrespected. Walker listened, and then expressed complete surprise, stating he had never been told about such concerns. What was the VP to do? Call him a liar in front of everyone? The former VP held his mouth shut, and minutes later, Walker turned on him and fired him right there, on the spot, for keeping the situation from him. Many of us knew that the former VP was telling Walker about the situation every week. It served as a warning to all of us… we are to silence our disgruntled employees or be fired."

"Wow, it's unbelievable," Alex said.

"I hope you won't repeat a word of our conversation to anyone," Janet insisted again. "It's important that you don't."

"I won't, don't worry. And I appreciate you speaking with me; it will help me navigate the waters at corporate. It's hard, you know. You come on as a new hire, filled with hopes and aspirations, and within days, the honeymoon is over and you wake up to such a reality. By the way, my boss is competing with your boss for the 'Asshole of the Year' title."

"Who do you report to?" Janet asked.

"Sheppard. Dustin Sheppard, CTO."

"Sorry to hear that," Janet said, with a sad smile, "indeed another bastard. Not easy with him either. I heard he's filled with so much hatred and contempt for people that it makes you sick to the stomach."

"That's correct. He is… vicious. That's the only word that comes to mind."

"Well, we better turn in and get some rest. Tomorrow morning we'll be offered our weekly serving of public humiliation."