by Susan Wolfe
“To summarize yesterday’s board meeting, I think they’re pretty well satisfied with my leadership of the business.” Startled, Georgia glanced at Ken, who closed one eyelid in a subtle wink. Good, she wasn’t crazy. “They do want us to focus on our license revenue as a means of getting our stock price up, and they’re concerned about technical issues with the 6.0. They’d like us to increase employee satisfaction, which we’ll talk about in a few minutes.
“I tell you the board’s view to keep you informed, but I don’t mean to let it distract us. Like any board, this one thinks it knows more than it really does. It’s my job to set the direction of the company, and that’s what I’ll continue to do. Okay, Nikki—No.” He glanced around, located Georgia and nodded to her, apparently unable to recall her name. “What’s on the agenda, please?”
Georgia consulted her list. “The agenda is business development by Burt Plowfield. Update on the 6.1 release by Andrea. Open plan building renovation by you and the architect, and then improving employee satisfaction by Sally.”
“We’ll get started. Burt?” Roy sat down.
“Oh, hi everybody.” A person in his fifties raised his hand. That was weird. How had she completely overlooked this guy? Very sloppy. Even if his beige shirt did blend into the wall behind him, even if his round face was strangely blank under that thinning yellow hair. She’d better pay more attention.
She corrected her attendance record as Burt said, “Oh, Roy thought you might want to know about a deal we’re putting together to buy a company up in Oregon called Futuresoft.” This must be the company she was going to help buy. Perfect. She’d get the background.
“Their product is a finance application that sits on top of our software and is sold . . .” Was he mumbling? She leaned forward to hear better. His words almost seemed to be muffled and absorbed by the air around him. Bad acoustics, maybe.
He continued for several minutes. “. . . $26 million in revenue last year with a cost of $24 million.” She noticed that Mark Balog’s hair had tracks where the teeth of his comb had passed through. Must use ‘product’ to hold it in place . . .
She jerked herself back to attention. “. . . almost 200 employees, 80 of them . . .” Boy, Andrea had sure nailed that trick of juggling her pen around her knuckles in a figure eight. Could Georgia do that? Her pen dropped noisily onto the table, and several heads turned toward the sound as she snatched it up.
Hopeless, and it definitely wasn’t the acoustics. Listening to this guy’s monotone was like listening to a refrigerator hum. She forgot everything he said before he even finished saying it. Impossible to take notes.
“. . . investors involved who are running the negotiation from . . .” Where had Sally found that zigzag print blouse with ruffles at the shoulders? So gaudy. Now ‘gaudy’ was a word you didn’t . . .
“Can I just ask, Burt?” Mark’s staccato voice snapped her back to the discussion. “How much do the two founders stand to make on the deal at closing?”
“About $15 million apiece.” Georgia wrote down his answer.
Andrea looked up from her monitor. “And we currently have zero ability to develop the product ourselves. If we lose them before they train us to edit the product, the product will be worthless.”
“Sounds risky,” Ken commented. “Have we thought about putting part of their cash in escrow for a year or two? Maybe with payout milestones tied to knowledge transfer. That would keep them on the hook to help Andrea.”
“Oh, they don’t want an escrow,” Burt stated. “They want their money free and clear.”
Ken shifted in his seat. “Everybody always wants their money free and clear,” he said mildly, “but they’re usually willing to compromise to get their deal done.”
Burt shook his head. “They don’t have to compromise. There are other buyers who’ll give them all unencumbered cash.”
“How do we know that?” Ken sounded puzzled.
“Oh, they said so.”
Honestly. If her father ever met this Burt guy he would chortle with anticipation. She sent her first text message to Ken: Burt =gullible?
She continued her notes. A text message appeared: Definitely. u done deals B4?
She snorted softly. No, she just knew how to recognize a pigeon when it had beady red eyes and sat in a pigeon coop. She thought a minute and messaged back: Poker with my dad. She glanced up to see Ken looking at his iPhone, his hand covering a faint smile that played at the corners of his mouth.
“Okay, thanks, Burt,” Roy said. “Andrea, status of version 6.1.”
She noted Andrea’s response: 35 of 71 major bugs in version 6.0 corrected so far.
“Oracle compatibility is one of those bugs?” Roy asked.
Andrea tilted her head to one side. “Well, I guess you could think of it as our biggest bug, sort of a giant, prehistoric cockroach.” She seemed oblivious to his glare. “We think we’ve identified the problem for many of the configurations, but it’s going to involve significant new programming. After being starved for programmers, I suddenly have so many people working on it that they’re tripping over each other. We have to schedule the staff carefully to maximize the chance it’ll be ready in five weeks.”
“It will be ready,” Roy pronounced, his close-set eyes boring into Andrea’s forehead. “Failure is not an option. We’re getting the crap knocked out of us in the marketplace because of these compatibility problems.”
“I know the importance of Oracle compatibility,” she said evenly, returning his gaze. “That’s why I didn’t want to release the 6.0 without it.” The air in this room was suddenly so cold it made Georgia’s skin hurt. She rubbed her forearms briskly through the fabric of her summer suit jacket.
“Hey, guys?” Mark Balog waved his hand like a student seeking permission. “I’d like to comment. I think we should take the time we need to make sure we Ship. When. Ready.”
Terkes was slouched in his chair, a forefinger resting in the indentation between his closed lips. Now he lifted the finger away from his face long enough to say, “We don’t release 6.1 on schedule, we miss the quarter. Simple as that,” and let the finger drop back into place.
Mark persisted. “But isn’t is better to take a revenue hit this quarter than to take yet another blow to our credibility that we’ll be living with for years to come?”
“We aren’t going to have a ‘hit’ either to our credibility or to the revenue,” Roy declared, “because 6.1 is going to be released on time, and will be fully compatible with an Oracle environment. Andrea, I hold you accountable. Do I make myself clear?”
“Very clear. I hope I’ve been clear as well.”
“Your clarity is not valuable. Your only value is execution. Enough on that subject. Let’s talk about the open plan renovation.”
As the architect led them through the plans, Georgia realized that “open plan” meant all the offices were disappearing. After he finished, Roy shook his head from side to side as he said, “Comments? Questions? I’m really very pleased with these designs.”
“Oh, congratulations,” Burt offered. “Very innovative.”
“It really looks state of the art,” Sally said with her soft smile. “The employees are very fortunate that you care about giving them such a good environment, Roy.”
“I’m sure that’s all true,” Ken said, “but I’m worried about where my lawyers are going to work. The work they do is often highly confidential or fairly detailed, and a lot of times it’s both. I don’t see how they can work sitting out in the open.”
Roy’s smile was patronizing. “This is quite predictable. People always have status issues at first, and my job is to help them see past their own egos to the real benefits of the open floor plan.” Hmph. That thick neck of his was downright unattractive.
“I’m not talking about status, Roy.” Ken’s direct gaze remained pleasant. “I’m talking about people losing their ability to do confidential work in the office. I just don’t think the benefits outweig
h the drawbacks for my team.”
“Your team?” Cliff directed his protest at Ken. “What about my team? They’re going to have exactly the same problem. I can’t sell it to them if legal is going to get something special. I think we all just have to live with it.”
“Why should anybody live with something that doesn’t make sense?” Andrea inquired, looking up from her monitor and closing her palm to capture her pen in mid-juggle. “If open plan is bad for legal and finance, then we just shouldn’t put them there.”
“Maybe,” Mark suggested brightly, “instead of spending $3 million to remove our offices, we could spend $300,000 to get fresh paint and lower cube walls, and then spend the rest replenishing Andrea’s team? Hiring more quota-carrying salespeople? Filing more patent applications?”
Had Mark just said three million dollars to wreck people’s work space? Surely he was misinformed.
“What a bunch of negative complainers,” Sally chided with a sweet smile. “I think the plans are great. Every new CEO has the right, almost an obligation, to make his own mark on the company he leads. This new design for open communication really speaks very well to your personality, Roy. An important part of your legacy.”
Roy didn’t look at Sally, but held up his hands like a celebrity trying to suppress a wildly enthusiastic audience. “Okay, thanks to all of you for your candid comments.” Georgia sighed. Did he say ‘candid’? Or ‘candied’? Probably shouldn’t put that in a message to Ken. “Okay, and finally we have the employee satisfaction matter. Sally?”
“Thanks, Roy.” Sally led them through the presentation she had given to the board the day before. “So I need help with a plan for these lowest three scores. How about this feeling that management doesn’t listen to employees?”
Georgia shot a message to Ken: Discussion groups on open plan?
“One thought,” Ken suggested, looking up from his iPhone, “is that we could hold a couple of focus groups on the open floor plan we were just talking about.” This secret text thing was sort of fun, once you got the hang of it.
“I don’t think we need to let the employees run the company,” Sally snapped. She caught herself mid-snarl and smiled softly. “Or do we?”
“I don’t see the point of it, either,” Roy agreed. “We know what they think already. We just don’t happen to agree with it.”
“Oh, I have an idea.” Burt held up his hand. “Why don’t we ask the marketing team to do some posters about how management is listening? We just aren’t getting credit for the listening we already do.”
Andrea widened her eyes at her screen and shook her head rapidly, like she was trying to dislodge something.
Roy stroked his lips with his thumb and forefinger a couple of times, considering. “Might work. Sally, have the marketing people start work on an internal campaign.”
“Got it,” Sally said, tapping happily on her keyboard. “This is a great idea.”
Message from Ken: Jesus, Mary & Joseph! Georgia coughed.
“Now, what about the company vision?” Roy continued. “I have to explain this damn vision every time I turn around.” The conversation continued for another 10 minutes, and then Roy ended the meeting and disappeared through the swinging door. The executives began quietly packing up their laptops.
“Sally,” Andrea said as she unplugged her power cord. “If you’re going to keep sucking up like that, you need to issue barf bags to the rest of us.”
“I beg your pardon?” Sally sounded ominously prim, as if she was stepping in high heels around a dog turd.
Ken caught Georgia’s eye and tilted his head toward the exit. Everyone was suddenly packing more quickly.
“Barf bags,” Andrea enunciated carefully, looking directly at Sally. “Like on airplanes. After all, you’re the Queen of HR, aren’t you supposed to anticipate our human needs?”
Ken and Georgia escaped into the hall.
“Yikes!” Georgia muttered, as executives streamed around them and scurried away.
“Yikes is right,” he muttered back. “I hope Andrea isn’t losing her ability to suffer fools gladly. That could be a real handicap around here.”
The second best thing about that remark was that it was clever, she decided later as she bent over the gutter next to her car, brushing her teeth in the dark. The best thing was that he trusted her enough to share it with her.
It had been a pretty solitary few months, she reflected as she climbed into her driver’s seat and reached across to the side pocket of the passenger door to stash her toothbrush and cup. Maybe she was just grasping at straws, but it seemed like this uptight Catholic could actually make her feel as if she belonged in Silicon Valley. Colleagues could also be friends, couldn’t they? Not that she was really a colleague of some big executive, but he made her feel as if she was. Exchanging text messages right there in the meeting today. His perceptive green eyes resting on her across his conference table, encouraging her to speak up. Being looked at by Ken felt like early morning sun on her face when she stepped . . .
Whoa! Important not to get confused by those eyes of his, as some other women apparently had (hence the bow tie to keep them at bay). She needed to keep that good-looking wife of his in mind. Not to mention his daughter, her thin arms confidently holding that plate aloft to let Ken slide the burger onto it.
She climbed between the front seats into the back and adjusted her pillow against the armrest, noticing that the usually bright stars were obscured by thin clouds tonight. What could it possibly feel like to be a young girl with a stable, sensible father like Ken Madigan? Of course, no amount of imagination was going to allow the daughter of George Griffin to imagine that. Might as well ask a frog to imagine yodeling.
Whatever. She gave her pillow an extra punch and lay down with her legs extended and her feet planted high up on the side window. If she was lucky enough to have Ken Madigan as a mentor, she surely had the brains to keep from squandering it with some half-baked fantasy about a guy (however appealing) twenty years older than she was. Wouldn’t hurt to find a man her own age, though, just for inoculation. Lumina Software was so far proving an unfortunate paradox in that regard. Stuffed with male employees, and yet just sort of a man desert.
She picked up her phone on the first ring the next morning, and recognized the voice of Angela Trapp, PTO Specialist One, Georgia’s new ally in overcoming Patent’s Terrible Obstacles and getting the patent issued in time for the SAP lawsuit. After performing her most soul-stirring rendition of how issuance of the ’401 could save Lumina Software, Georgia had only half expected ever to hear from her again.
“Ms. Griffin, your patent file isn’t here.”
“Oh, please call me Georgia.” She cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder as she pushed a button to activate her screensaver. “Isn’t where, in your department?”
“Isn’t anywhere that I can tell.”
She sat up straighter and frowned. “But your database says it’s in your department.”
“I know it does, but I really took the place apart and we just don’t have it.”
“So it’s still back in the other department?”
“That’s possible, but I called a friend of mine over there, and it’s not on the shelf where it should be.”
“Ms. Trapp, thank you so much for discovering this. Can I just ask, how do I find our patent file?”
“I’ll put a tracer on it today. They start with the last department that had it, but I have to tell you, this isn’t something that’s pursued very actively here. I think you should assume it’s been lost.”
Georgia was now clutching the receiver with both hands. “Lost?? Vanished out of the whole Patent and Trademark Office? How could that happen?”
Ms. Trapp sighed. “Lotta ways, I’m afraid. I personally found a file one time soaking in a mud puddle in the middle of W Street. I guess it had fallen from the truck on its way from one building to another, and if I hadn’t just happened to see it . . . Or if it’s been misfi
led, it might as well have bounced off the truck, because we have tens of thousands of files here, and they all look pretty much alike. We won’t find it again until somebody grabs it by mistake, which could take years.”
“This is horrible. What should I do?”
“I suggest you reassemble the paperwork and submit a new file. Call your patent lawyer right away.”
“Thank you thank you thank you,” Georgia said, and hurried over to see Maggie. Ken and Zack were both in meetings. She left an urgent message with Maggie, considered a moment and decided to contact Archibald directly. He answered his phone on the first ring.
“Griffin,” he repeated vaguely. “Don’t think we’ve had the pleasure.”
“Actually, we have. I came to see you with Ken Madigan about the ’401 patent?”
“Yes, well, I’m about to begin an important patent review meeting. Please call me another time.”
“Wait! I just got off the phone with a patent specialist at the PTO. She says our patent application has been missing for several months. It never made it to the illustrations department after second review.”
“Well, that’s their fault, then. Their database was wrong.”
Her shoulders twitched. “Well, it might be their fault, but how does that help Lumina? The PTO person said we should assume it’s lost and start over, Archibald.” Her voice was rising to a wail. “She said we’d be lucky to get it now by Thanksgiving.”
“Well, that’s better than Christmas.” He didn’t sound like he was joking.
“But this means we won’t have it for the patent litigation. Our last chance disappears in less than two weeks.” He didn’t respond. She heard papers shuffling. “Okay. Well. I just thought you’d want to know.”
“Absolutely. I should be apprised of all matters related to our patent portfolio. Now, if you’ll excuse me, our engineers can’t start anything without me.”
She hung up, and was staring at the phone when an unfamiliar voice drifted over the tops of the cubicles. “Are you Maggie Wallace? I’m Robert Pinske, the new manager of accounts payable.” Georgia’s ears pricked up. Something new in Always Pigheaded?