Russell Wiley Is Out to Lunch

by Richard Hine

  Henry spreads his napkin across his lap and surveys the restaurant one more time in a faux-casual way.

  “That’s Patrick Moncur,” he says. “In the corner, in the hat, that’s Anna Scrupski.”

  I nod as if I’m impressed, though the names mean nothing to me. The maître d’ appears at Henry’s side, whispering in his ear, apologizing for the fact that the waiter is new, asking him to clarify his order.

  “Cobb salad, no avocado,” says Henry.

  We sip our mineral water. Henry is acting in a self-conscious way, as if he feels people’s eyes on him from all over the room. In reality, no one has given us more than a passing look since we came in. It’s obvious to everyone else that we’re only minnows in this pond. The only eyes on Henry are mine. I’m wondering why he brought me here, what it is he wants to discuss. He seems slightly more coherent in person than he did on the phone.

  “How long have we worked together?” Henry asks, leaning toward me.

  “Four years and a couple of months.”

  “We’re a good team, Russell. I can trust you, can’t I?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I can tell you things in confidence.”

  “Anything you tell me, Henry, goes straight into the vault.”

  “Loyalty’s important.”

  “I know that.”

  It’s true. Henry is one of those executives who values loyalty even ahead of competence. It’s a trait that becomes more dangerous the higher he moves up the food chain, dragging deadwood like Jeanie Tusa, our finance director, with him. Like all of Henry’s loyal lieutenants, Jeanie’s now in a position where she can really screw things up.

  Henry sips his mineral water and dabs his lips with his napkin in a slightly effeminate way. A thought flashes through my mind that he’s about to confess something of a personal nature. The chatter at the other tables seems artificially loud.

  “Just between you and me, Connie’s planning a major restructuring within the next six months.” He pauses to allow the significance of this revelation to sink in.

  “Makes sense,” I say, reaching for Fabrice’s famous unsalted, hand-churned butter.

  “She has to get everything done within twelve months of the merger. The voluntary retirement program came first. Next we’ll have the first round of layoffs. After that, a company-wide restructure.”

  “Why so fast?” I say, biting into a chunk of buttered bread.

  “Wall Street,” says Henry. “In the first twelve months, all merger-related costs can get rolled up into a single accounting charge. Won’t affect earnings. Connie’s set herself a BHAG of reducing expenses by two hundred million.”

  I’m chewing, but I nod to show him I understand. Connie’s built her career by adapting the best ideas from business books and making them her own. She’s a big believer in the BHAG concept—the setting of Big Hairy Audacious Goals.

  “My guess is she’ll merge the business and lifestyle groups. Why does a company our size need two separate print divisions?” Henry leans forward again, even further this time. “If she does that, Jack’s out and Yolanda will be running things. You and I could end up working for Barney Barnes.” Henry can’t say Barney’s name without his lip curling in a sneer. Years ago Barney worked for Henry in the business group before quitting to join Yolanda Pew—Jack Tennant’s counterpart—who heads the lifestyle group.

  My first thought is it would make far more sense to keep the business and lifestyle groups separate and get rid of the dopey Mark Sand, who heads Burke-Hart Online. That way Jack and Yolanda would get full control of their respective brands both in print and online. And the Chronicle would have at least a chance to shape its multimedia destiny.

  My second thought is that, even if Henry is right, working for Barney Barnes wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Barney’s smart and confident. He’s won the trust of Connie and Yolanda. He’s launching new magazines like Flip, Posse and Heel, and he’s hiring new people all the time.

  Henry’s view of things is sometimes impaired by his history with Barney, the fact that Barney never paid a price for walking out on him or Jack. In fact, Barney’s treachery paid off big. He’s one man in our company who’s really going places. He recognized early that the traditional, male-dominated parts of our business were stagnating. He embraced the new, feminine side of Burke-Hart just as our lifestyle and specialty fashion titles were really taking off. Last year he produced a hugely successful conference on “The Future of the Sleeve.”

  I chew some more bread and butter, thinking about having Barney for a boss. Not such a bad idea. Still, as Henry says, loyalty’s important.

  “So,” I ask, “what can we do to help Jack in all this?”

  Henry fixes me with his most serious expression. Then he looks away suddenly, as if affected by a poignant memory. A muscle in his cheek twitches.

  He looks back at me and says, “I love Jack. I really do. You know how much I love Jack.”

  And I stare back at Henry, knowing that what he really means is “Fuck Jack. Jack’s dead. This is all about me now. And if I don’t have Jack to protect me anymore, I need to be working on another plan.”

  We eat. I listen. In case you’re wondering about my burger: Good. Tasty. Interesting herbs and seasonings. But let’s be real—it’s for expense accounts only. No burger’s really worth sixty bucks.

  By the time our cappuccinos arrive, Henry has spelled it all out for me. He thinks he has six months to prove himself to Connie and Yolanda. And proving himself requires two things:

  1) Cutting costs. Henry has decided to fully embrace what Connie describes to Wall Street as her “clinical approach to squeezing cost out of the system.”

  2) Thinking big. He wants to come up with a new business idea that will eclipse anything Barney has done.

  “You’ll have to be ready to let people go, Russell,” he says. “Right now, we can only afford to keep our A-players. I wish we had a few more like Cindy Lang at a time like this.”

  Henry has no idea of the problems Cindy is causing me. But now’s not a good time to get into it. I need to limit the damage to my department when the layoffs come. So I say, “My whole team’s working flat out. I think you’ll be impressed. In fact, I’d like to sit down with you next week and take you through some of the work they’ve been doing.”

  “Let’s not get too granular,” says Henry. It’s one of those expressions he picked up at last year’s leadership retreat. It’s where he learned that leaders are “Unicorns.” They need to think big picture and articulate a vision for their teams. Unicorns are not supposed to act like Horses. They don’t pull carts or get sucked down into the weeds. They don’t soil themselves with the realities of actual work.

  “We need to think big picture,” says Henry. “That’s why I’ve hired a new consultant to come in next Monday. Judd Walker. Great guy. Great credentials. You’ll meet him.”

  “Do we really have time for that?” I ask him. “I just read a pretty negative article about consultants. Maybe you saw it in Vicious Circle magazine. Written by Christopher Finchley.”

  Henry gives me his what-the-fuck look, then says, “Judd knows he’ll have to work fast. His job is to help me articulate a vision. I’ll need you heavily involved, Russell. Just you and Jeanie. Let’s not loop anyone else in just yet. And don’t let it slow you down on the Livingston Kidd presentation.”

  “No problem,” I say. “You know, because timing is so important, you might want to look at some of the concepts I’ve been putting into my product development file. There are one or two that could be really interesting to explore.”

  “We can’t afford to spin our wheels. This is too important. I’ve already briefed Judd on the project I want him to look at. We’re going to need to keep him focused. Let’s see what he comes back with.”

  I don’t press the point. I know Henry can’t process too many ideas at once. When he’s under pressure, his style of leadership is to grasp at straws, pick one, then stick with
it till the bitter end.

  “Is there a code name?” I ask. Henry loves code names for his secret projects.

  Henry nods, looks around the restaurant at the other mid-level executives trying hard to be noticed.

  “D-SAW,” says Henry. “Don’t say a word. Until we get a green light, this project will be ultra top secret.”

  Henry sits back and steals a glance over at Connie’s table. She’s getting up to leave, laughing at something Larry Ghosh is saying.

  “We’re a team, aren’t we, Russell?” Henry says, still gazing in Connie’s direction.

  “You bet,” I say.

  He turns back to me with fear glistening in his eyes and says, “And this is going to be fun, right?”

  There’s a limousine waiting outside the restaurant to take Henry directly to his next appointment, so I walk a few blocks back to the office alone.

  My lunch with Henry has confirmed what I already knew. Things will be ugly for the next few months. Even with Larry Ghosh’s backing, the Chronicle is in decline. Like each of our daily competitors, we are struggling to formulate a new “transformational” strategy that will position us for continued growth at a time when our traditional newspaper business is slowing much faster than our online business is growing. Nobody, least of all the Burke-Hart management team, knows what to do. The standard short-term approach to any crisis—cutting costs, letting people go—is all Connie is left with. But longer term, Connie won’t be able to cut her way to growth.

  Meanwhile, Henry seems more out of touch than ever. He seems oblivious to the fact that mass media are being replaced by media created by the masses. In this fast-changing world, Henry’s a holdout: an old-school print guy, blinded by internal politics, with one foot stuck firmly in the past. He’s the kind of executive who will be tolerated only as long as the numbers in his Rolodex connect to living, spending customers. Worse, he’s starting to carry about him the stink of desperation. If that takes hold, nothing good will happen. Desperate people don’t make good decisions. Desperate people take others down when they fall.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I ride up in the elevator with a couple of loud women from accounts payable who get off on twenty-two. I’m alone when the doors open again. I start to step out, then realize this is not my floor. The artwork on the wall is wrong. I’m on twenty-four, not twenty-five.

  I hear a voice outside and step back quickly. A hand reaches around to hold the door an extra second. It’s a small and elegant hand, one that fills me with an impossible desire. The hand belongs to Erika Fallon. She wraps up the conversation she’s having, then steps inside the elevator. She sees me pressed against the back wall and smiles.

  “Hey, Russell Wiley.”

  “Hey, Erika Fallon.”

  Erika Fallon has picked up on the fact that I always address her by her first and last name. Now she does the same to me, as if it’s some kind of cute game.

  We rise to the next floor in silence. As the doors open, I’m concentrating so hard on not looking at Erika Fallon that I can’t help staring at the number twenty-five emblazoned on the inside of the elevator shaft. It’s as if the building wants to mockingly remind me of the number of days I’ve gone without sex. Erika Fallon exits the elevator and turns left to head to her side of the floor.

  “Later, Russell Wiley.”

  “Take care, Erika Fallon.”

  I hurry back to my office and sit down to collect myself. To me, using Erika Fallon’s first and last name all the time isn’t cute. It isn’t a game. It’s a form of self-defense. Using her full name reinforces the fact that she is not someone I can get close to. I must treat her as a fictional character from a play or a movie, not a real person. Erika Fallon petrifies me. I fear she may destroy me. Even brief, casual encounters like this one make it difficult to stop thinking about her face, her voice, her perfume, the back of her head, that sliver of ear poking through her hair, her blue suit, her gray suit, the chocolate brown turtleneck she wore three times last fall, her fingernails, the wireless headset she wears when she’s on the phone, the aura I sometimes see around her late in the afternoon, the shape of her calves and her intimidating pointy shoes.

  It’s not simply a question of beauty. Beauty I can deal with. It’s like art. I appreciate it and move on. Erika Fallon is in a separate, more disturbing category.

  Maybe it’s chemical. Maybe it’s just the way her pheromones mix with mine.

  Whatever it is, it creates a sensation that I like and don’t like. A feeling that even if I take a step back, part of me stays where it was, hovering outside my body. Being in the presence of Erika Fallon makes me experience a yearning to rethink every aspect of my existence. It makes me realize that the various pieces of the life I have constructed don’t fit together in the proper shape. I’ve sculpted something that bears no relation to my original vision. Erika Fallon makes me understand that for thirty-seven years all I’ve done is make one choice after another without ever being a hundred percent certain what the hell I’m doing. Every time I’ve chosen one door over another, the opportunity to go back and find out what was behind that other door has disappeared. And every door I go through reduces the number of choices I get to make in the future. My life is contracting, not expanding. After all the choices I’ve made, after all the doors I’ve closed behind me, this is where I’ve ended up: in a twenty-fifth-floor office, surrounded by meaningless papers, with a dopey black cat waving its plastic paw at me, spending most of my waking hours working for a company that wants only to squeeze me a little harder so I can help it monetize a fading asset for at least a few years more, dealing with an endless line of people trooping in to tell me the latest petty nonsense that’s troubling them, and a boss who spends more time worrying about his corporate viability than he does attempting to solve our most pressing business challenges. And if I do my job well, the only reward I get is the chance to come back and do it all again on Monday and the next day and the day after that. And tonight when I go home craving some affection, needing to sense a simple human connection that will help me transcend all this and simply feel warm and comforted and loved, I can’t even be sure of that. There’s a good chance my wife won’t even touch me.

  “This is it. I’ve had it. I can’t take this place for one more fucking second,” says Susan Trevor.

  “Give it to me,” I say, glad to be snapped back to petty, nonsensical reality. I can always tolerate Susan in small doses. She’s a complainer, but her grievances often reveal a depth of passion that is somehow inspiring. After eighteen years at the company, she remains devoted to her job and outspoken in her opinions, especially on the topic of our senseless senior management. Up till now our senseless senior management has tolerated her because they have no idea how she does what she does, which is to head up our advertising services department. Susan’s the person who makes sure all the ads appear where and how they are supposed to in the paper each day. Outsourcing her function to India has not yet surfaced as an option.

  “Have you seen this?” she says, brandishing a sheet of paper.

  “What is it?”

  “The agenda for Monday’s Henry meeting.”

  “Oh good. An agenda for once.”

  Susan’s six years older than me. Married with two kids and living out on Long Island. She’s half Italian and—except for the times when she goes on a strict diet, loses several pounds, buys new clothes, and undergoes a personality change that makes her think she’s a teenage sex kitten—she’s attractive in a curvy, Mediterranean way. Her diets are extreme, but they never last long, and the weight always comes right back. That’s OK with me. I like her more when she’s heavier, with her curves hidden behind a more conventional and demure work wardrobe. I lean back in my chair, wondering how much of her passion Susan manages to save for when she gets home. Even with the pressures of family and a long commute, I can’t imagine she and her husband allow a week, let alone twenty-five days, to go by without satisfying their wildest conjugal desires.<
br />
  I look at the agenda she lays on my desk in front of me.

  “That’s exciting. A new consultant.”

  “What is it with this fucking place? Henry can’t even take a piss without an MBA to hold his dick for him.”

  “You know how it works. It’s not just Henry. Everyone’s too scared to decide anything without an independent perspective.”

  “What are we going to find out now? That we don’t know how to do our jobs or manage our own business?”

  “That’s not the point. Most companies think their problems can only be solved by outside experts. You know that writer I was telling you about, Christopher Finchley?” I reach into my drawer, pull out a file folder that contains several stapled copies of an article I’ve saved specifically to share with others. I hand a copy to Susan. “Check this out. Maybe it will make you feel better.”

  Susan reads the headline aloud: “‘Fool’s Gold: Is Your Consultant Practicing the Deceptive Art of Rainbow Painting?’ What the fuck does that mean?”

  “It’s actually pretty interesting. This Finchley guy talks about the pressures companies are under to find big ideas to reinvigorate their businesses. But because their employees are so overworked, underpaid, burnt out and frustrated, management can’t trust or value the ideas they come up with anymore. So they go out and hire consultants to study the big picture for them. The consultant’s job is to sit back, chew on a piece of grass, understand the landscape and then paint a rainbow on it. After that, the consultant leaves and the overworked, underpaid employees are sent off in a new direction, searching for a pot of gold they can never find because it doesn’t actually exist.”