Hello and, if you are new here, welcome to False Choices. The following short story is fiction, but as I lived the consulting life for many years, it’s not that fiction! At any rate, enjoy. I also review old books and movies pretty regularly, so if you enjoy good stories please
I had only a single meeting on Thursday morning; a one on one with the Chief Financial Office of Gallivant Trust. I was not looking forward to the meeting; in fact I woke that morning perturbed about it, went to the hotel gym perturbed about it, ate breakfast perturbed about it, and finally showered and dressed perturbed about it. I had ESPN on the television to take my mind off the meeting, but to no good effect. I was going to get drilled, slapped around, take a comeuppance as it’s called. I put my jacket on, sat my laptop computer atop my roller case, and with topcoat over my arm, made my way to the elevators. I noticed that it had started to snow.
It took 20 minutes to walk head down on Wacker to Lasalle. When I arrived in the lobby some people smiled at me, others giggled? In the fuzzy reflection of the elevator doors I realized I was covered with snow. Hair, of course, but also my eyebrows and the shoulders of my coat. I stepped away and tried to shake some off but was only half successful. The doors opened and not wanting to be late, I went up. At the 14th floor I exited and entered the offices of Gallivant Trust.
The CFO, on his way from the coffee room with a fresh cup, stopped dead and began laughing.
“Well, aren’t you a sight?” he said. “You’d better follow me,” and he turned and headed back in the direction from which he came. In the employee break room, at his insistence, I shook my head over the sink and removed my overcoat with a shake. I made myself a cup of coffee with the despised fake cream powder, and again followed the CFO, ripping away a paper towel on my way as my eyebrows continued to melt and drip onto my cheeks.
In his office he leaned back in his chair and watched me as I found a chair and made myself ready to be interrogated. I’d been in a hundred of these meetings, and knew the direction they would quickly take, but the experience made them no more palatable. The CFO had a set of planned questions that would make it obvious that to both he and I that I had somehow dropped the ball and as a result I, or in fact my company, would have to fall on our sword to make amends and get the project righted again. I knew this was the direction, and he knew I knew this was the direction. I had already alerted my management of the likely direction and they had already approved an extension of the team with no further charges. But, and this was important, the CFO must know that this extension was not charity but a good faith effort to keep him and his Board of Directors positive about the project, and also make him keenly aware that any further additional requirements for custom work would mean a change order for additional time and materials; in other words, additional cash. The cat and mouse we played that morning was at times quite brutal, on both sides. I parried his thrusts with a few of my own, which backed him up a little and by the end both of us had run out of energy. After over an hour of this back and forth, the conversation drew to a close on it’s own lack of energy. I was relieved that there were no surprises and he was relieved that he didn’t have to ask the board for more money, or, more importantly, play the bad cop with his own staff and deny them the important custom work that they demanded. Even CFO’s need to be loved.
He caught me then looking out his large window where it was obvious that the squall was actually a blizzard.
“Yes, they’re saying we could get up to four inches by the end of the day. You were going to try to get out today, weren’t you?” he added, a little warmly for my taste.
“Yes, yes, I was,” I said, as cooly as possible.
O’Hare was already starting to back up. Security, even with my newly minted Global Entry Card, was the typical long line, but it moved three times as fast as any of the others. One particularly nice effect of the new security line is that you didn’t have to watch the poor devils who were taking their first flight since 9/11; they had to learn all of the new and quite ridiculous security measures for the first time. Their surprise and humiliation at removing their shoes and belts reminded the frequent flyer how pathetic it had all become. Flying was no longer the province of successful business men who kept the economy running along from Monday morning to Friday afternoon, but rather the transport of prisoners who must pay a price to get from A to B.
The gates were full of two passenger sets; one from the flight that was late and one from the next flight just starting to assemble, the concourse was starting to fill up now, too, as seats became scarce. To make matters worse, some poor lady on her way home from Africa had a high fever and collapsed at the gate after a flight from Kennedy to O’Hare so that gate was now closed and men in hazmat suits arrived to do something, vacuum up the germs or something. The sad people from the flight were being held there, against their will of course, until the nature of the germ could be assessed. Their eyes showed a ‘I can't believe my luck look’ not really that different from the rest of us.
At any rate, with the snow coming down by the inch now, and the gate next to mine closed until further notice, I turned around a few times and then spied a restaurant and I hastily retreated. There were several groups waiting up front but as a lone diner I passed them by to make my way to a single seat at the bar; liquid refreshment was my real target, though if pressed I suppose I could have eaten a salad. Maybe one with strips of steak across it. I made my way to the bar but it was full, and its own small circus. Businessmen with their ties opened, their roller bag and laptops stored in every nook and cranny were starting to have a swell time. I could tell by the laughter that they had ascertained the situation some time ago and decided to cut their losses and find alcohol immediately. Fine group, bottom liners of great experience.
With some effort I made the turn and started up the other side of the place, taking a few searing looks from the groups still waiting at the entrance. Suddenly I hear my name, “Hey Alan!” I turned around in the noise and with a second call found the table. It was a four top with two fellows, one young and one older man, two of the team at Gallivant. Robert looked like he was content to just have a beer and a seat in a restaurant and didn’t need more company, but didn’t really mind it either. Jack on the other hand was only too happy to have an additional guest at the table. They worked together all week these two, and the young man needed to hear some new stories, some new anything really, anything other than the older man’s sad remonstrances about all the great faults of our current client’s executives.
I was able to find a small space for my bag and took a seat next to Jack, facing the door. The groups there looked slightly amazed that I’d found a seat at a table, and eventually they gave up their understandable resentment. The waiter came by almost immediately to take a lunch order. Robert ordered a steak salad, and I took the same, believing somehow that my luck had suddenly returned, and a beer “the twenty ounce” like my tablemates. Jack ordered a hamburger and then in the exuberance of the moment said “And three shots of Cuervo Gold!”
Robert and I had no time to protest, the waiter was off, and lunch looked to be more interesting than I’d imagined. A little small talk ensued; Robert and Jack talked about a new project at another firm, Robert again working with their Treasury department and Jack working on a setting up a new set of books for the Euro. Robert filled in all the details of the project, the client and all the sad deficiencies of their executive team. I took his opinions in stride, knowing that Robert himself once occupied a lofty position in a very large company as Senior Vice President of Treasury. He knew the organization and function of a Treasury Department, managing the company’s cash from a hundred accounts in a multitude of banks around the globe. He was truly an expert. But after implementing the gold standard of Treasury software for his firm in a Y2K project, he’d inadvertently made himself redundant. The software itself prevented fraud and managed liquid cash and company stock, loans, all cash assets and liabilities really, with the same expertise that he displayed after long years of experience. After 9/11, cutbacks were necessary and Robert took a nice severance package and over thirty years of experience into the labor market to find almost nothing available, certainly not to men of his age. Reluctantly he found himself in consulting. Flying in and out every week, living in a hotel at least three nights a week, sometimes four. He had two daughters and he talked about their impending weddings with the unhidden relief that paying them off meant a return to normal life. Everyone took his meaning, though he himself seemed unaware of having red flagged his service to the firm.
Robert had unfortunately ‘leaned into’ his consulting role. He dyed his hair and eyebrows a deep lustrous black, just like they show on the side of the hair product package; and it was so distinctively different from his old, creased and wrinkled face that it stood out immediately and the newly introduced always displayed that moment of confusion, no matter how hard they might try not to. He also for reasons unknown decided to wear clogs, big black clogs that he clanked around in for weeks. Eventually he noticed that clogs were not the preferred footwear of the younger associates like he’d imagined, and he gave them up. He immediately lost two inches.
Jack on the other hand had no real work experience whatsoever. He graduated from a decent college and immediately started on his MBA at a more prestigious program. When he finished up he had a good academic record and was hired directly by the firm. He was a tall, slender, athletic young man, with plenty of hair that stood another four inches tall. It’s not for me to say that he was damned handsome. He also understood executives, spoke their language, knew their interests and preferences as well as he knew his own parents. He shared their hobbies, had visited their favorite vacation haunts, had eaten their favorite foods. And all of this became obvious within his first week at a new project. He was not a senior person, not yet, but when the client had sticky questions about anything or anyone it was Jack to whom they turned. He had their total confidence. Other members of the project team held him in a very favorable light as a result. His magnetism was invisible to most of them, so he rose to the level of a shaman in their eyes. The young man, or boy really, had the most incredible knack of picking up the smallest cues and ingratiating himself with an executive in a matter of minutes. He saw a photo on a shelf and recognized the beach, or the arena where a concert was held; and of course he’d been at that concert, knew what happened after the second encore, and the two of them joined together in laughter and instant brotherhood. It was amazing to watch the first few times until you realized it was not only possible to build an entire career on such inane knowledge, but probable, 100% certain in fact. When I suddenly came to this conclusion one day I promised myself to be out of consulting before Jack was sitting on the other side of that large, impressive desk asking me why the project date slipped. My timeline to consulting retirement shortened considerably.
But now at lunch it was quite a different Jack with whom I contended. After a twenty ouncer and shot of tequila his tongue loosened considerably. Robert on the other hand was composed and invulnerable as ever, though laughing more than I’d ever seen him.
“Hey Bobby, do you remember that girl who joined the project briefly, the one who did the trampoline gymnastics? I guess she ended up like having an affair with that controller, what was his name, Chris or Christopher something?” blurted Jack.
Wait a minute. Bobby? Since when? And there was an affair? I hadn’t heard there was an affair!
Robert had his eyes on the table, or maybe the classic Wingtips he wore now, but Jack was not deterred. He saw my face and launched into a full description.
“Yeah, the client found out, someone saw them together on a Thursday night when we were all supposed to be flying home, they were at dinner together at Frontera Grill up on Clark, like all over each other. That controller was out the next week, he was married and had a child already, and she rolled off even before the next week, some medical emergency they said, but she was on a new assignment by Monday in New Jersey.”
“How do you know all this?” asked I.
“The CFO fired Chris, and he was pretty proud about it, said you couldn’t trust a guy who ran after every trampoline gymnast,” laughed Jack, “you could understand him! But you still couldn’t trust him. And I’ve got a friend from my new hire class on that project in Jersey.”
This sounded accurate to me now because Jack had a friend in just about every nook and cranny of the firm. When our executives showed up at the project to reinforce our firm’s commitment to excellence and the client’s success, they always knew Jack like they’d gone to school together or something. It was disconcerting at first, like having a known foreign agent in your protected little team but you soon realized that it was a positive. Jack was always singing your praises, and in fact was always as loyal a resource as you could have. He was an “upfront guy,” the type treasured by executives and coworkers alike who were only too experienced with the snakes and weasels who abounded.
“Anyway, I guess she gave notice. She’s going to devote herself to making the Olympic team, and I heard she’s got a really good shot at it. The firm made a pretty sizable donation to her fund. Anyway, it’s just a sabbatical I guess, as it turns out, she’ll be coming back when the Olympics are over.”
Well, I guess it all went down the memory hole.
“Hey, I hear that Mike is coming back,” started Jack, changing the subject.
“Really, I hope so, I thought he was alright,” said Robert.
“I thought he had a medical thing, and was going to be out for a while,” added I.
“Well, it was actually a pharmaceutical thing, but he went to the farm and thinks he’s ready to give it a try again, you know, get through it one day at a time,” said Jack, as a matter of fact, and unguarded. Robert was again examining his Wingtips.
“Wow, that’s news, I had no idea,” said I, again.
“Yeah I guess he ended up getting into quite a scrap with a coworker during one of those fifteen hour close of quarter days. But he’s made restitution for the printer they destroyed, like six grand or something, so he’s back in good graces.”
Try as I might I couldn’t remember a scrap or an assaulted printer or any mention of rehab. Where the hell had I been working these last six months?
“Have you met Carol? The head of operations? You know the one I mean, tall, blond, blue eyes, really good looking? Yeah, you know who I mean, she’s not on the project but you’ve seen her around. I heard she’s getting divorced and it’s pretty messy. She’s got three kids, can you believe that, she doesn’t look it. Anyway, she’s married to a VP in marketing at the company, and now she’s going to go with some guy from Major Sales who’s also at the company and who is also getting a divorce!”
I am dumbfounded here. The beer and tequila are starting to bring a little glow to the world, but this news is almost too much. I picture this Carol naked and walking into a breezy cabana from a sunlit balcony, but immediately I see the three kids standing there, wondering what the hell is going on.
“Yeah, she’s divorcing Steve, whoever that is, and going now with some Jerry or Gary, Gerry with a G maybe”, continues Jack, chuckling at the news.
Fortunately the food arrives. Steak salad, after what I’ve just heard, looks remarkable.
“Anyway,” continues Jack, setting down his burger and wiping the grease from his lips, “this Gary guy has agreed to leave the company because even though they have, he and Carol have that is, have no reporting relationship, he and Steve, the ex husband, cross paths quite a lot I guess.”
“They have to protect the printers, they only have so many of them,” interjects Robert, sitting straight up.
This is funny, not that funny but for Robert it’s a moment that will shine for some time. He’ll tell his wife and two daughters about it, no doubt.
Jack holds up his hand and the waiter makes a sudden stop.
“All around,” poses Jack with a quick hand wave, and before I can answer the waiter is gone. In a few minutes he returns and drops off three more twenty ouncers and three shots of Cuervo. Robert is giggling at this development, and young Jack is very pleased indeed that the snowstorm turned out so well.
“A toast,” says young Jack, raising his shot glass, “to all those who wish us well, and to all the rest ‘go to hell’.”
Though I was better than twice his age, I really had no choice but to throw back a second and final shot. In penance I buttered the dinner role that came with the salad and ate it like it was as fine a bread that ever I’d buttered! No, I didn’t say that but I did think it, which is still embarrassing.
Across the way in one of the concourses there was some kind of disturbance, which we could hear but not see. Several police were seen running in that direction. It was plainly a fine idea to sit in a restaurant and take lunch. Jack was constantly looking at his phone between bites and toasts.
“What’s the story?” asked I, finally.
“Just checking my flight, nothing new, and that effing CFO keeps texting me, “‘drinks?’”
“‘AT THE AIRPORT’” Jack pronounced while texting it, “jeez, dim sum.”
I don’t think I should drink this other beer, I thought, but I sipped at the one I had with relish, as we carried on.
“You know, talking about the CFO, did you hear about the the Senior VP who came to do a project assessment?”
“You mean Lisa Peterson? Our Senior VP?” said I.
“Yeah, right, Peterson. Apparently Gallivant’s corporate counsel offered her a lesbian weekend, like right out of a college romance novel or something, and again the two of them were spotted on a Saturday night. I mean, it’s not like I care about their weekend per se, but you can’t run around in public like that when you represent opposing interests. You’re not supposed to be sleeping with your counter party! How’s that supposed to work?”
I ate the rest of the roll voraciously, and made sure to consume every bit of steak and blue cheese on my plate. I was afraid of my head spinning, out here, in public, not a pleasant thought.
“I wonder if the games this weekend are going to be affected at all,” said Robert.
“How much have you got riding on it?” asked Jack, not looking up.
“Couple of G’s,” replied Robert.
“Whoa, I thought you were going to give that up, man, what’s goin’ on brotha?” chided Jack, looking at Robert intently.
Robert launched into a long explanation of where and how he’d placed these bets. Jack peppered this presentation with ‘sounds reasonable’ and then at the end, of course, as much for comic affect as anything else, he mentioned “of course, you could lose every single bet, every one. Then you’ll have to face the fire, man.”
“What fire?” I asked.
“Wife and gambling debts do not mix,” said Jack, again studying his phone.
“Oh, she won’t know this time,” Robert offered, quickly, “I put some money aside in a new new bank account with a new credit card. It’s mine to play with, to hell with her.”
Rational Robert was obviously a little drunk. The table was quiet for a moment. Then young Jack bounced up, “Gotta hit the head,” he said, and with a few strides he was out of restaurant and off to the restrooms.
“I’m sorry to hear about this gambling,” I started, but Robert quickly waived me off.
“It’s nothing, nothing. Look, I’m glad we’ve got a moment together. I’m going to stay until the end of the project but then I’m moving on, just can’t take the travel any more. My daughter and that idiot boyfriend of hers appear to have mended their fences, so the wedding’s back on, just in the nick of time, too. We had to do a lot of talking to keep the date at the club; I really thought I was going to lose the deposit, a substantial amount, but in the end it’s all turned out ok.”
“Wow, that’s some big news Robert! Retirement, I thought you would never jump in like that.”
“Well, not really. My brother in law and I are going to open a sign business in San Antone’. Last kid is out of college come May, so I’m gettin’ out, man, I’ve had it. But if the project slips, I’m sorry but I’ve got to go, you know, we have a lease, we have to get started, you know.”
“You’re going to make signs?”
“Well, yeah, that’s what a sign business does. What did you think we were going to do? Look for signs?”
He had a point. Anyway, the project end date had slipped of course, but it had not been announced yet. We were going to let the client absorb the news before we said anything public. Did Robert know? How? Just from experience, or was it a rumor circulating among the troops.
“It has slipped,” I said, letting down my normal defenses, “we’ll be there another month to finish up some new custom work.”
“I figured they’d relent and throw in some extra time for the client, there’s so much work to still do, another eighteen months worth potentially, I figured they’d take a hit now and make up for it later,” concluded Robert.
He was right, that’s exactly how management saw it with two other potential projects in the balance. That answered the question of what the team knew - I was sure they’d all discussed this possibility over lunch this week. It was probably common knowledge now, how could it not be?
“So you’re jumpin’ ship, huh?” I asked, “there nothing I can offer to get you to stay another month?”
“You’ve got a pretty good team there, time for some of the younger people,” Robert pointed at Jack’s chair, “to step up. Mr. Gladhander here needs to buckle down and get to work. By the way, he never eats his fries.”
Robert and I divvied up Jack’s fries. The waiter came then and cleared the lunch plates. I still had a whole beer to finish.
“Hey, you want half of this Bobby,” offered I.
Robert looked at me a little funny, and pushed his glass across the table. He was a stout drinker for a smaller man.
Jack came back and somehow managed to get to his seat without asking me to move. High jump, I thought.
“Hey the sun’s coming out. It’s still snowing but the sun is on its way,” said Jack, excited by the possibility of getting out today. I checked the television over the bar, and sure enough they had the Weather channel on, and the storm had just clipped Chicago and was moving to the east toward Detroit where they’d get the brunt of it.
When I turned back around, Jack was smiling. At my misfortune? Possibly, but it was hard to tell.
“Oh, I’m not staying overnight in Chicago,” protested I.
“Ok,” said Jack. Then he and Robert took a long pull from their beers, leaving just a little foam on the bottom of the glass. I left my glass a quarter empty. A moment later the three of us were back in the main hall making quick good byes and heading optimistically to our respective gates. I was actually a little relieved to be done with them. Respect and admiration for co-workers are often best at a distance.
Sure enough, my gate now had a plane parked there, and just as I walked up the jetway door opened and the prisoners were allowed to escape into their own miserable lives. The alcohol had left me a bit pessimistic about life. I noticed how exhausted my fellow passengers looked, and I suddenly felt my neck and shoulders, under the effect of the alcohol, were begging to relax. I leaned against a stanchion, and tried to let go a little. What a sight I must be; obviously drunk, leaning against a post, wrinkled from my jacket to my brain. I texted my wife: “will be late, delayed by storm in CHI.”
She immediately came back with “no prob, drive safe, storm on way here.” She always monitored the weather on my travel days.
“how’s the kisd?” asked I, and smiling at my error, texted again “kids.”
“the kisds are fine.”
The delay was only about 90 minutes as it turned out. The runways were cleared, flights landed and took off. We flew over the storm as it headed east and the turbulence was tremendous. Several of the passengers screamed like they meant it, including the man across the aisle from me. He appeared to have a spontaneous reaction to the loss of gravity which was startling at first and then highly amusing. I wasn’t the only one to bury my face in my hands. About ten minutes outside of Detroit Metro the turbulence ended and we made a fine landing. I was in my car in long term parking 15 minutes later and on my way home, again just outrunning the storm. I pulled into the garage an hour later and there was the first half inch of snow on the ground. By morning there would be twelve.
Janey was still up. She had a meal waiting for me, and lots of stories about the kids and the week past. I ate a little but drank only water, which was unlike me, so I finally had to confess the afternoon’s surprise party at the airport. She got a kick out of me, and without asking went to the cupboard and returned with a bottle of aspirin.
I got out of my work cloths but I wasn’t ready for bed yet. A little cold air sounded good, and Janey was quick to join. We both had a shovel and our dog Raif joined us, too, running around like a nut. It was coming down now, really coming down. Raif would stop, roll around in the snow and then jump up and look at me like he wanted me to join him. He was good fun just to watch.
“The kids are gettin’ the day off tomorrow,” said Janey.
“Oh, that’ll be great, I’ll take them to the hill in the park,” replied I.
We had the drive almost gone over once, and the area where we started already had another half inch. We leaned on our shovels and just watched it fall for a minute. My face was numb, a good numb, and my head was finally clear. Raif was finally out of energy.
“Did you know that there are shops that make signs,” I asked Janey.
“Sure, they’re all over the place,” she answered, looking a little confused, “your mind works in strange ways.”
Well written, Thomas, thanks.