The Goal

67

the goal with these measurements, how do I go about deriving operational rules for running my plant?"

"Give me a phone number where you can be reached," he says.

I give him my office number.

"Okay, Alex, I really do have to go now," he says.

"Right," I say. "Thanks for-"

I hear the click from far away.

"- talking to me."

I sit there on the steps for some time staring at the three definitions. At some point, I close my eyes. When I open them again, I see beams of sunlight below me on the living room rug. I haul myself upstairs to my old room and the bed I had when I was a kid. I sleep the rest of the morning with my torso and limbs painstakingly arranged around the lumps in the mattress.

Five hours later, I wake up feeling like a waffle.

It's eleven o'clock when I wake up. Startled by what time it is, I fall onto my feet and head for the phone to call Fran, so she can let everyone know I haven't gone AWOL.

"Mr. Rogo's office," Fran answers.

"Hi, it's me," I say.

"Well, hello stranger," she says. "We were just about ready to start checking the hospitals for you. Think you'll make it in to- day?"

"Uh, yeah, I just had something unexpected come up with my mother, kind of an emergency," I say.

"Oh, well, I hope everything's all right."

"Yeah, it's, ah, taken care of now. More or less. Anything going on that I should know about?"

"Well... let's see," she says, checking (I suppose) my mes- sage slips. "Two of the testing machines in G-aisle are down, and Bob Donovan wants to know if we can ship without testing."

"Tell him absolutely not," I say.

"Okay," says Fran. "And somebody from marketing is calling about a late shipment."

My eyes roll over.

"And there was a fist fight last night on second shift... Lou still needs to talk to you about some numbers for Bill Peach... a reporter called this morning asking when the plant was going to close; I told him he'd have to talk to you... and a woman from corporate communications called about shooting a video tape here about productivity and robots with Mr. Granby," says Fran.

"With G ranby ?"

"That's what she said," says Fran.

"What's the name and number?"

She reads it to me.

"Okay, thanks. See you later," I tell Fran.

I call the woman at corporate right away. I can hardly believe the chairman of the board is going to come to the plant. There