Russell Wiley Is Out to Lunch (8 page)

I try my best to smile and adopt a positive air while wondering if Henry has any hope of ever rejuvenating his career under the current regime. He’s still under forty-five, but his thick head of gray hair makes most people assume he’s older. The gray adds an air of maturity to his boyish features, his almost artificial blue eyes. I’ve seen photos from Henry’s first management training course. Back then, he was virtually indistinguishable from the other handsome Ivy Leaguers who used to dominate the company. If he hadn’t gone gray—people once suspected him of using some kind of reverse-Grecian formula—it would have been easy to dismiss him as just another pretty-boy lightweight. These days, no one questions the authenticity of Henry’s hair color. At work, he’s lived through three mergers. At home, he’s fathered three kids he still has to put through college.

“He certainly made a strong impression,” I say.

“Exactly,” says Henry. “He’s sharp. He’s confident. He’s aggressive.”

I put my mug on the counter and open the fridge to look for some milk. The only thing inside is a homemade sandwich with a note stuck on top that reads: DO NOT TOUCH. I’m baffled. There were about seven unopened quarts of milk in here on Friday. Someone must be taking it home. I close the fridge and turn back to Henry.

I sip from my steaming coffee mug. I’ve never liked black coffee. Since I gave up sugar, it tastes more bitter than ever.

“Like I said Friday, I’m counting on you to look after him,” says Henry. “Take him around. Show him the ropes. Make sure he gets everything he needs to complete his project.”

“What exactly is the project?”

“Just some data gathering to start. Some analysis. Let’s see what he puts together before we decide where it leads us.” Henry pats me on the shoulder and walks away. He pauses at the kitchen door. “I’m counting on you,” he says then disappears.

I stare for a moment at the dark brew I’m holding, then pour it into the sink, wash and dry my mug, and head outside to treat myself to a triple-shot extra-foam latte.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I’m on the phone with Sam when Judd arrives at my office. He walks right in, clutching a manila file folder, oblivious to the fact that I’m engaged in a conversation and fazed only for a split second by the clutter that surrounds me, the piles of folders that litter the floor, the layouts and printouts and spiral-bound presentations that cover every available surface. He takes the one clear path to my guest chair, sits, then holds his body tensely in a way that conveys his urgency and purpose. I hold up a finger to let him know I’ll be just a minute.

“Tell me again why we should do this,” I say into the phone. On the other end of the line, Sam repeats to me all the reasons why the patterned rug Shila has just brought into her store will work perfectly in the corridor between our bathroom and bedroom.

I sit back and size Judd up some more. For his first day at his new consulting assignment, along with his suspenders and cufflinks, he is wearing a bold, blue-and-white-striped shirt and a red tie with small blue dots. His curly brown hair is cropped short, and he wears thick-rimmed, fashionable-nerd glasses.

I try to imagine Judd 1.0, how he might have been in the days before he went to Harvard and earned his MBA. The picture I’m getting is of a shy wage slave failing to make a significant impression in the world of packaged goods, unsuccessfully trying to line up dates on Match.com. Judd 2.0 is someone completely different. Like a convict who’s spent two years working out obsessively in the prison yard, he has used his time at business school to re-create himself. In his case, the workouts have targeted the ego, arrogance and condescension muscles, which ripple impressively beneath his corporate attire.

“What kind of budget are we talking about?” I say to Sam, swiveling in my chair so I can gaze thoughtfully out the window.

“What do you mean?” she says. “I told you it was only two hundred dollars. I’m going to buy it.”

“It’s definitely an interesting concept. How soon do you need an approval?”

“What are you talking about? Is someone there?”

Judd is fidgeting in his seat, holding his folder toward me and tapping it lightly on my desk. He’s printed a label that reads D-SAW PROJECT and stuck it neatly on the tab of his folder. I have no idea how to print labels like that and no time to figure it out. It must be something they teach you at Harvard.

“Affirmative,” I tell Sam. “But I don’t think we need to rush into anything.” Even though I’m starting to grow curious about what Judd wants, there’s a principle involved here. He walked right into my office while I was on the phone. There’s a minimum time that must elapse before I can give him my focused attention.

“I’ll talk to you later,” says Sam.

“Just hold on,” I say.

I’m silent for several seconds, holding the receiver to my ear, avoiding Judd’s expectant gaze, instead looking thoughtfully at a corner of his folder. He’s a few years younger than me, but because of his MBA he projects a lot more self-importance. What he doesn’t realize is that while he went off to Beantown, he lost out on two years of real-world experience. He’s showing up at the
Chronicle
with an outdated knowledge of how to sell baby care and personal hygiene products and no real clue about how a newspaper operates.

“Stop playing your stupid games,” says Sam. “I’m hanging up now.”

“OK. Can we talk about this later? I have someone in my office.”

“Whatever,” says Sam and hangs up.

“Sorry about that,” I say to Judd.

He sits down, opens his manila folder, pulls out a sheet of paper and lays it on my desk. He starts describing the project Henry wants him to work on. He’s excited. It’s a launch opportunity—a brand extension that could herald a new era of growth for our stagnating division.

“Stage one is information gathering,” he says, pointing with a nail-bitten finger to the first column on the page.

“This is a nice looking table,” I say. “Did you do all this in Excel?”

Judd looks at me for a second and then carries on with his explanation. He tells me that Henry wants him to schedule one-on-one interviews with me, Susan, Martin and Dave. He doesn’t mention Ben, but I assume that’s an oversight.

Next, he pulls out a stapled black-and-white document I recognize immediately. I realize why Henry doesn’t want his full-time team working on this. We’ve all seen this project before. It’s a harebrained scheme that we’ve each been asked to work on at one time or another. If this is the best Henry can come up with, we’re in worse shape than I thought.

I sit back and listen as Judd describes the project in as much detail as he feels comfortable sharing, detailing the marketplace analytics, the key revenue drivers and the performance metrics he’ll be building into his model. I pretend all this is new to me, paraphrasing back what he says so he knows I’m not intimidated by his B-school jabber.

“Maybe we can take some time now,” says Judd. “Get started. I’d love to pick your brain. Jack speaks very highly of you. Henry tells me you’re the smartest person in the building.”

I look at my watch to camouflage any reaction to the news that Judd has already had face time with Jack. I haven’t talked to Jack since he moved up to the thirty-fourth floor.

“You know, I’d love to,” I say. “Trouble is I’m cranking on a Livingston Kidd proposal for Henry. I’ve got a lunch I really can’t get out of. Then we’ve got that big budget meeting this afternoon. Maybe I can swing by at the end of the day. If not, call Barbara and have her slot you into my schedule.”

I stand up to let him know the meeting is over.

“It’s great to have you here,” I tell him. “I’m really looking forward to working with you. Whatever you need, I’m here to help. My department is at your disposal.”

I don’t tell him that he’s wasting his time, that the project he’s been asked to work on was ludicrous when I started at the company four years ago. Today, unless someone somewhere comes up with a whole new approach, it’s even more certain to fail. Knowing Henry as I do, I’m not optimistic. So far, the only thing I can see different is the code name he’s dreamed up for the project.

The day I started at the company, Henry Moss met me at the elevator.

“Welcome aboard, Russell,” he said. “We’re excited to have you on the team.” He walked me to a small interior room, which I thought at first was a supply closet.

“This is not your office,” he said, switching on the overhead light. “But I think you’ll find it has everything you need.” He left and closed the door behind him.

I walked around the desk, looked at the computer, the telephone, the tape dispenser and the stapler. The room was small, the walls undecorated. There was a swivel chair behind the desk and a straight-backed chair with fraying upholstery on the other side. Two vertical filing cabinets stood against the wall. Beneath the desk were a short, circular wastepaper basket and a tall blue trash can with a recycling symbol on its side.

I sat at the desk and swiveled in the chair, noticing the pinholes and pockmarks on the beige colored walls.

I picked up the phone. There was no dial tone.

I switched on the computer and waited for it to boot up. A window appeared asking for my name and password.

I pulled off a strip of scotch tape and dabbed for lint on my blue suit jacket.

I rolled the tape into a tiny ball and flicked it toward the wastepaper basket.

I bent down to pick up the tape from where it landed on the floor and placed it into the basket.

I checked my watch.

I stood up from my chair and looked inside the filing cabinets. Each drawer was empty, save for one or two paper clips and the dust and human hair that had gathered in the corners.

I sat back down and pressed the button to adjust the height of my seat. The chair made a whooshing sound and I sank gently toward the floor.

Henry walked back into the office and closed the door behind him. He placed a stack of files on my desk and sat down opposite me. In those days Henry was the director of sales development. His hair was thick and brown, with flecks of gray just starting at his temples. He was the boss of my new boss, Ann Stark.

“Listen,” he said, “I hate to do this to you on your first day, but I’m heading out to brief our Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, Atlanta, LA and San Francisco offices on a new product launch we’re planning for the third quarter. It’s top secret and I don’t have time to tell you about it. The details are in these files. Everything’s completely hush-hush. We won’t even announce it internally till the twenty-ninth, so you can’t mention this to anybody. But we need to have a PowerPoint on every salesperson’s laptop by the first of next month. I’ll be back in two weeks. Can you have it written by then?”

While he said all this, I was fumbling with the button on the chair, trying to get myself back to a normal sitting position. So I wasn’t really focused on what Henry was saying.

“No problem,” I said. “Everything I need is right here?”

“Everything,” he said. “But if you need anything else, call my assistant Ellen. She’s the only other person on the floor who knows about this project. Even when you speak to her about it you must use the code name.”

I glanced down at the label on the top file.

“Is the code name ‘Focus Two’?” I asked.

“Of course not,” he said. “The code name is WICTY.”

“Interesting. What does that mean?”

“Wish I could tell you,” said Henry.

“OK. I guess it doesn’t matter.”

“No,” said Henry. “WICTY is an acronym for ‘wish I could tell you.’ I came up with it myself.”

“Got it,” I said.

“Questions?” said Henry.

“Who do I talk to about my phone?”

“Ellen.”

“Access to the network?”

“Ellen.”

Henry stood up and hesitated at the door. “By the way,” he said. “When I said the WICTY project was top secret, that includes even Ann Stark. I know you report to her, but don’t under any circumstances give her any idea what you’re working on.”

“Got it.”

“I’m trusting you with this.”

“Got it,” I said. “Should I talk to Ellen about my ID card?”

“Of course not. Call building services.” He opened the door. “See you in two weeks,” he said, and disappeared.

The files Henry left behind contained transcripts from several focus groups conducted in different cities to gauge consumer reaction to our new product. According to the summary report, this product was a daily tabloid newspaper from the editors of the
Chronicle
designed to appeal especially to younger readers and urban commuters. Apparently this meant that most of the articles would be replaced by colorful photographs and graphics. I scanned the report and the transcripts, trying in vain to find a more detailed description. But all I could find was the name: the
Daily Edge
. After twenty minutes I had read all the material, and avoiding Ann Stark’s office, I walked the long way round to Ellen’s cubicle and asked her to make arrangements for my phone and computer.

As soon as my phone was working, I called building services and scheduled my ID card appointment.

I sat in the office that wasn’t my office studying the files Henry had given me.

I tried to avoid Ann Stark, who worked in a two-windowed office down the hall.

Several of my new colleagues in the marketing department and even a few salespeople introduced themselves and showed an interest in what I was doing.

A typical conversation would go something like this:

“So, you’re the new guy.”

“That’s right.”

“What’s your name?”

“Russell,” I said. “Russell Wiley.”

“It’s great to meet you, Russell. What do you do?”

I told them what I did.

“That’s great. Where do you come from?”

I gave the name of my former company.

“So. What do they have you working on?”

“Just a project Henry asked me to look at.”

“Really. Which one?”

“Wish I could tell you.”

I quickly gained a reputation for being arrogant and aloof.