“Yes, Ma’am.”
“So how did it go?” Alvey asked.
“Good, I think. They said they would get back to me,” Finn said.
“Is it as interesting as you thought?”
“No. More. It’s as interesting as I hoped it might be.”
“Oh, my. So if they make you an offer, you’re going to take it.”
“I think so. Yes. I can’t give you details, but I can’t pass this up. It won’t be as much money as I’m making now, but it won’t be like there’s nothing coming in.”
“Well, that’s nice.”
George Pullman actually called and extended him the verbal offer that night, with paperwork to follow.
“If you figured we can’t match your private sector income, Bob, you’d be right. So the Empress made your package the same as mine. But there’s one additional thing Her Majesty threw in that I didn’t expect. There’s a Residence Wing in the palace. Ann and I live here. There’s an open apartment in the Residence Wing right now, and Her Majesty added an invitation to live here if you’d like. It’s rent free, includes meals in the cafeteria that provided lunch today, free laundry service, and has hairdressers and the like on staff. It’s a little difficult if you entertain often, because the Imperial Guard has to pass on everybody, but other than that, it’s a really nice setup.”
“Live in the palace?”
“Yeah. Poshest address in the Empire. Not even a street address. Just ‘Imperial Palace.’ Nifty, huh?”
“Well, that would sure make the commute easy.”
“It’s the meals that really makes life simple. The food is excellent, and you don’t have to do anything. No cooking. No shopping. No doing the dishes.”
“I’ll have to talk with Fiona. We’re not big party people, and hardly ever entertain. We prefer quiet evenings at home. Given that, it sounds perfect. What are the apartments like?”
“Top-end Imperial Park condo level. Probably about what you’re used to. Balconies. Great view, too, but you’re looking in the other direction.”
Finn laughed.
“All right, George. I’ll talk to Fiona about that. And you said paperwork should be along?”
“Yeah. A couple days. That can only get set up so fast.”
“OK. Well, I’ll get back in touch when the paperwork gets here, but you can let Her Majesty know I’m all in.”
“All right, Bob. Talk to you then.”
“Well, that was interesting,” Finn said as he walked into the living room from his office.
“What, dear?”
“George Pullman just called with a verbal offer.”
“Already?”
“Yes, he said the paperwork would take a couple days.”
“That was quick.”
“Yeah. He said it would be the same package he has, which won’t match my current income, but he threw in an additional perk. Free room and board.”
“Really? Where?”
Finn pointed out across Imperial Park to where the Imperial Palace glittered.
“There.”
Fiona followed his gesture, and her breath caught.
“In the Imperial Palace?”
“Yes. Turns out there’s a Residence Wing. Free room and board, laundry, hairdressers. George says it’s about the same as this condo, but the view is in the other direction.”
“Well, it would certainly make the commute easy. What would we do with the condo?”
“Sell it. Lease it out. Something.”
“I wonder what other help they need. If they have anything for me.”
“But you just retired last year.”
“Yes, and I’m bored to tears. But if we lived right there, there must be something I can do to help.”
Fiona turned to him.
“I want to see the apartment. Could you arrange that, Bob?”
“I’m sure I can. Let’s see what George suggests.”
George and Ann Pullman met Bob Finn and Fiona Alvey in the elevator lobby of their floor of the Residence Wing. George had warned them that attire was “evening at home casual.” The page from the palace entrance dropped the Finns off and left.
“Hi, Bob. This is my wife, Ann.”
“Pleased to meet you, Ann. And this is my wife, Fiona Alvey.”
Pullman led them down the hall.
“I took the liberty of having the apartment keyed to you for the moment. You should be able to see the apartment numbers in VR, with yours highlighted.”
“Oh, yes. I see.”
When they got to the door, Pullman waved to it.
“Go ahead.”
Finn unlocked the door in VR and they went into a spacious furnished living room. Drapes covered the far wall.
“Open the wall,” Pullman said.
Finn tapped the “Open LR Wall” icon in VR. First the drapes slid back, leaving the sheers to soften the view. Then the sheers drew back, exposing an extraordinary view of Imperial Park and Imperial City beyond. Finally the glass wall separated into sections and withdrew into the corners so the balcony was an extension of the living room out into the warm night air. The glass railing on the balcony didn’t impinge the view at all.
Alvey’s breath caught as the glass wall retreated.
“Oh, my God. It’s beautiful.”
Alvey and Ann walked through the portal and out onto the balcony.
“The one thing you can’t see from here is the Imperial Palace,” Pullman joked to Finn.
“And you and Ann live here, George?”
“Yes, we’re about four doors down. We love it here.”
After a tour of the apartment, they went down three floors to the cafeteria. Tonight’s dinner selections were pot roast with a port wine demi-glace and orange roughy with either garlic butter or a lemon-orange sauce, with all the sides.
“Oh, this is wonderful,” Alvey said. “It’s like going out to eat.”
“But it’s just an elevator ride home,” Pullman said. “The best part is that there’s no shopping, no cooking, and no dishes. And there’s no getting dressed to go out.”
“Actually, what I like best about living here is the laundry service, dry cleaning service, hairdresser on staff, and the cleaners,” Ann said. “Oh, I forgot to mention the cleaners! They change the linens, vacuum, clean the kitchen and the baths – the whole thing. You don’t do any housework at all. And you don’t have to manage the staff yourself.”
“We’ll have to talk about it and let you know–“
Alvey put her hand on Finn’s arm to interrupt him.
“Just go ahead and say yes, Bob. I’m good.”
“You’re sure?”
“No cooking or cleaning? Yes, dear. I’m sure.”
“Well, there you go,” Finn said to Pullman.
“We’ll be neighbors,” Ann said. “How nice.”
The paperwork went through, Finn put through his retirement from FitchRoberts, and palace housekeeping moved the contents of their condo to the apartment in the palace.
The condo they put up for sale. Units in that area, with such splendid views, seldom came on the market, and their agent assured them it would sell quickly, and at a premium.
Interviews
Vasilisa Medved came home to their apartment from work one Monday morning perplexed. Her husband, Deepak Gupta was already home.
“Hi, Vash. What’s up?”
“I’m not sure, hon.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“I received a request from the Imperial Palace to go to a meeting next Monday morning for an hour.”
“What? What for?”
“It says they’re interviewing former government employees to find out why they left the government. Some sort of quality improvement program.”
Gupta laughed.
“I don’t think they really want to know what you would have to say.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. So I probably won’t go.”
“No, no. You should go. You never
know who you could meet, or what could happen. As long as your downside is low, you should take the opportunity.”
“Opportunity for what?”
“I don’t know. Neither do you. Go. There is no downside.”
“I suppose.”
“Dress up.”
“Dress up?”
“Yes. This is at the Imperial Palace, you said, right?”
“Yes.”
“Dress up.”
Medved felt silly getting all dressed up for the meeting, but she couldn’t counter Gupta’s logic. She presented herself as requested, at the Imperial Park West entrance to the Imperial Palace at nine o’clock Monday morning. She felt much less silly when she walked through the glass doors into the entry to the palace, where several other people waited. All were dressed to the nines.
Medved stood in a short line to present herself to the clerk behind the counter, who recognized her when she walked up. He must have had photo records for each of the attendees in VR.
The group was shown through the lobby and to a people mover by several pages, who took them to the Imperial Palace. They were guided up in the elevators and down the hall to a small lecture room and asked to be seated.
Sitting there waiting for the meeting to start, Medved looked around. There were twenty people, about half male and half female, and all in their late twenties or thirties. Oops. Correction. A couple may have been in their forties. They didn’t seem to have much in common. She thought they were all probably former government employees of one type or another, like her.
Just before 9:30, a woman entered and stood in the well of the lecture room. She was around sixty years old, and dressed for a high-end office, like a law firm or, well, the Imperial Palace.
“Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming. My name is Fiona Alvey, and I’ll bring you up to speed a little bit before we send each of you off to be individually interviewed.
“As each of you is no doubt aware, there are areas of the Imperial government that are not run as well as they might be, or even should be. Her Majesty has decided to do something about that. However, in order to be most effective, we need to know what is wrong, not just in broad terms, but specifically. This meeting and others like it are intended to give us that information, so that we can make knowledgeable reforms and not simply change things willy-nilly.
“Each of you was once an Imperial employee. You got good grades in college, and graduated from a top-notch program. You entered Imperial service right out of college, and had high evaluations for several years, perhaps even a decade or more. And then you left Imperial service.
“Our own impression is that if someone as qualified as you all are is challenged and valued, employee retention is easy. And yet each and every one of you left Imperial service. We lost your education, your experience, and your service. The purpose of this meeting, of these interviews, put simply, is that we want to know why.
“Now I know everyone is always cautioned, when going for a job interview, not to speak ill of a former employer. That is good advice, but it does not apply here for two reasons. First, this is not a job interview. Second, we are your former employer, and we are asking for your input on what made you leave.
“So we need you to be honest. If your boss was a jerk, and you couldn’t transfer, tell us that. We are not going to go running over to your former boss and call him a jerk. You won’t read about his arrest and execution in the papers tomorrow.“
There were some chuckles at that.
“I don’t know. That may disappoint some of you.”
That brought broader laughter.
“But if we hear that again and again, what we may say is that managers at this and such a grade level need more supervision, or need more management training, or need to be evaluated on their people skills or personality. But we won’t know that unless you tell us.
“Your remarks will also not be communicated to anyone outside the Imperial Palace. They are confidential to us, and will not be communicated to your former department or co-workers.
“So please be honest. Lay it on us. We can take it.”
Alvey paused for a moment to check her VR.
“OK, your interviewers have all checked in with me in VR, and they’re all ready for you. Most of you will be interviewed by someone with direct experience in your subject area, to simplify communication. I’ll call off each of your names and give you a room number, and then you can go out in the hall and walk down to the room. Just go on in and close the door on your way in. All the interview rooms are to the left in the hallway.
“Miller, 202. Lang, 204. Medved, 206. Trumbull, 208....”
Alvey went on as Medved got up and walked out into the hallway, turning left and going down to room 206. She walked in and closed the door behind her, then turned to the young man sitting at the desk.
“Hi. I’m Vasilisa Medved. Call me Vash.”
He waved to a chair in front of the desk.
“Have a seat, Vash. I’m Gary Cavanah. Call me Gary.”
“Pleased to meet you, Gary.”
Medved sat down in the indicated chair. Cavanah was young, maybe a couple years younger than herself. He was an engineering type. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but it was as if he made every effort to be dressed and groomed to palace standards, and fell just short of the mark somehow.
“So, Vash, tell me about your background. You know, school, work, how you ended up where you are today.”
“OK. I grew up on Ivans World, in the Odessa sector. I was in the new school curriculum for high school, and got a scholarship to study engineering at Odessa Institute of Technology. That was after they opened up university scholarships to be given on merit. I studied quality assurance process engineering.”
“I’m a mechanical engineer, Vash. I’m not sure I know what that is.”
“Well, if you want to know if something meets the specification, some product, then you have to test it, right?”
“Of course.”
“But how do you know if your testing covered everything? If it tested all the situations in which the product is going to be used? You follow a test plan, right?”
“Yes.”
“The quality assurance process engineer writes the test plan.”
“Oh. OK. Got it. So you got good grades in college and joined the government.”
“Yes. I graduated near the top of the curriculum, and I applied for and got a position writing test plans here, in Imperial City, with the Defense Department.”
“What were you writing test plans for?”
“Light weapons. I was in weapons acquisition.”
“I have that you were there seven years. Is that right?”
“Six and change. Yeah.”
“You had good performance appraisals, got the two automatic promotions in grade, then got a bad evaluation, were skipped for promotion, and left.”
“That’s right.”
“And what are you doing now?”
“Writing test plans for kitchen appliances.”
“Back to your government employment. Do you know why you were negatively evaluated and skipped over for promotion?”
“Sure. I refused to sign off on a buggered test plan.”
“Tell me about that.”
Vash took a deep breath and let it out slowly. How much should she tell him? She ran a hand through her long, fiery red hair. What the hell. When all else fails, tell the truth.
“All right. So as a junior QA process engineer, you submit portions of a test plan, right? These go to more senior people, who assemble them into the whole test plan. That gets reviewed, and modified, and eventually gets released as the test plan for the product.
“Now, as a junior person, your portion of the test plan may or may not be changed during that process. Your portion is being assembled into the larger test plan, and it’s being reviewed and modified by more senior people. So things wiggle around. All normal.<
br />
“But I began to feel like certain things weren’t being covered. That there were holes.”
“Give me an example.”
“OK. So let’s say you’re writing a test plan for degraded-conditions performance of a rifle. Soldiers in battle are out in the field. It could be they are advancing over open country. Farm fields, perhaps. It’s raining, and it’s very cold. They may have to hit the deck and hole up, or crawl. The rifles get dirty, they get cold, they get wet, they get splashed with mud, or submerged. The soldiers do what they can to keep their weapons high and dry, but you can only do what you can do.
“So now they reach a firing position and need to shoot. That rifle, which has been splashed and submerged, is dirty and cold, but it has to work. Is it going to? It is if the test plan covered those situations and that rifle design passed test.
“But what I started to notice is the test plans left things out. OK, so the test plan includes submerging a clean rifle in dirty water for five minutes, then taking it out and firing it. And it works. And the test plan includes taking a clean rifle down to minus twenty degrees Fahrenheit for two hours and firing it. And it works. But the test plan no longer includes submerging a clean rifle in dirty water for five minutes, and then taking the dirty rifle down to minus twenty degrees Fahrenheit for two hours and firing it. Dirty, it works. Cold, it works. Dirty and cold? Who knows? You can’t say, because that combination of conditions is outside the test envelope.”
“And the test plan specifies all this?”
“Of course. We even have a specified procedure for making dirty water.”
“Amazing.”
“If you want something to work under certain conditions, you better test the design under those conditions. But back to our example. I started noticing that certain tests, tests under certain conditions or combinations of conditions, were no longer in the test plan. Here’s another example. The rifle has to work from minus thirty degrees Fahrenheit to plus one hundred and thirty degrees Fahrenheit. So does the rifle’s magazine. But they are always tested at the same temperature as each other. But what if they were at different temperatures?”
“Why would they be at different temperatures?”
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