I was about to take my leave of them, when Kurt Myers instructed me to stay.
“Do you have a moment, Craig? I’d like a word with you.” When Bernie, Beth, and his son made as if to retake their seats, Kurt genially waved them off. “No, no—just Craig and I.”
This brought about an awkward silence, a feeling of heaviness that descended over the room and hung there. At the higher levels of corporate management, there are no meaningless words or deeds. A seemingly casual remark or gesture might presage a firing, a promotion, or a shift in who is favored by the company’s higher-ups. The players who make it to the executive boardrooms are all finely attuned to these subtle currents and undercurrents, like a herd of gazelles who can detect the scent of an approaching predator.
And right now Bernie and Beth were both wondering why Kurt Myers was deliberately excluding them from a meeting with an outside consultant. After all, Beth had been my main contact at TP Automotive thus far, even though Kurt had been present in a number of our meetings. Nor did Bernie like being excluded. Lawyers don’t like to be excluded from anything.
And Shawn Myers: He was staring at me with an expression that was a complex mixture of filial and professional jealousy. Kurt was his father; and Shawn and I were roughly the same age. I had the feeling that Kurt knew that his son had some serious issues. And his son knew that his father knew.
Nevertheless, challenging a direct order from the top man in the room was beyond question. Reluctantly they all filed out—despite their obvious reservations.
When they were gone, Kurt asked: “Care to go for a walk, Craig?”
“I’d assumed that you wanted to talk here.”
“The walls have ears,” Kurt said cryptically.
I shrugged and stood up. Kurt wouldn’t be the first high-ranking executive I’d met who had a quirky side. In a lot of ways, in fact, Kurt was milder than many of them. He was always superficially polite; and I had never heard him raise his voice—even when he was skewering a soon-to-be-ex-employee like Kevin Lang.
I followed Kurt out of the executive meeting room. I half-expected to find Beth, Bernie, and Shawn hovering just outside the door eavesdropping; but they were nowhere to be seen.
I wondered: Did Kurt suspect that the boardroom was bugged? That sort of thing was not exactly common—but not exactly unheard of, either. I had done a job for a company up in Grand Rapids once, where I discovered that one of the second-tier executives had covertly installed a listening device in the private office of the CEO. You’d be surprised to learn about the things that go on in those cloistered halls of power, where everyone wears thousand-dollar suits and holds an MBA from a top university. The dirty tricks in these environments are no less dirty than the ones you find elsewhere—but the people who play them do tend to be more deliberate and smarter.
Kurt paused at a coffee machine in the hallway. “Care for a cup of joe?” he asked. He reached into his pocket for some change before I stopped him. “No thanks,” I said. I never let clients buy me coffee or other refreshments, unless it’s served at a meeting. Bad form. And it can also be a maneuver employed to instill a sense of debt. Crazy, you say? You’d be surprised at the subtle little techniques that experienced operators like Kurt Myers use in negotiations.
Kurt led me to an empty meeting room. It was much smaller than the executive boardroom we had just left. He directed me to have a seat at the chamber's plain imitation wood table. He sat down across from me. I could smell his expensive cologne in the enclosed space.
"Mind if I ask you a personal question?" Kurt asked.
This inquiry seemed absurd, in a way, given the exchange that had just taken place between him and Kevin. In the aftermath of that meeting, there seemed to be no aspect of anyone's personal life that was off-limits to Kurt Myers, Vice President of Strategic Operations at TP Automotive.
"Not at all," I said.
"Do you have any children?" Kurt asked.
I shook my head. "Can't say that I do."
"Is there a Mrs. Craig Walker?"
I thought about my current bedmate. The idea of Claire Turner as Mrs. Craig Walker—or Mrs. Anyone—for that matter, struck me as both absurd and infeasible from multiple angles. And the image of Claire changing diapers? I couldn't go there, not even in my own head.
"No sir."
This struck Kurt as unusual. I was, after all, a good-looking, clearly heterosexual male who was no longer a kid.
"Well," he said, waving the concern away. "You work a lot of hours. You just haven't found the right woman yet." I knew that Kurt was moving in the direction of another topic. He couldn't possibly have cared about my personal life. "But I do have a son," he said.
So here was the motive behind this little man-to-man chat: Kurt wanted to talk about his son, Shawn.
I would have to tread carefully here. Shawn's behavior in the meeting, and his overall demeanor, had given me ample material from which to make an initial assessment: Shawn Myers was a swaggering bully who was riding his father's coattails. And he was not even doing a very competent job of that. When Shawn's name had come up during my consultations with Beth, she had stopped short of explicitly criticizing the son of the TP Automotive vice president. But her tone and her facial expression had told me all that I needed to know.
When you spend enough time in large corporations—where people are generally unable to speak freely—you learn to pick up those subterranean currents of resentment, fear, disdain, and outright loathing. There is a phenomenon that I sometimes call “the look.” This is a slight shift in facial expression—usually a subdued frown—that accompanies the name of a person who is secretly despised or disdained within an organization. I had seen Beth Fisk give the look on more than one occasion while referring to Shawn. She would have denied this on pain of death, needless to say. But I had seen it.
"You mean Shawn, of course," I said.
"Exactly. Would it surprise you, Craig, to learn that my son's progression in his life and professional career thus far has been—what shall we say—uneven?"
And now Kurt fixed me with that smile of his. The smile that was not really a smile, but a way of disarming his subordinates, allies, enemies, and colleagues. I was unsure of how I should respond. Should I play it deadpan or go along with the joke?
I opted for deadpan.
"I suppose I haven't really had enough time with Shawn," I said. "To make me qualified to speculate on that sort of thing."
Kurt waved away my reticence. His smile was suddenly gone. "Shawn hit a rough patch or two in college. His mother and I wondered if he was ever going to get serious about his life. You know, decide to make something of himself."
"Some kids are late bloomers," I offered.
"Shawn was not just a late bloomer. First I sent him out to Arizona State University. I should have known better than to agree to that, but he had his heart set on it. So reluctantly I agreed. It seems, in retrospect, that Shawn spent all his time at ASU drinking, skipping class, and—" Kurt looked unnecessarily about the meeting room to make sure that we were still alone, then added in a lower voice: "Chasing tail."
"I'm sorry to hear that, sir," I said. But I knew that there had to be more. Shawn wouldn’t have been the first young man to spend too much time on partying and carnal pursuits while away at college.
"After Shawn flunked out of ASU, we placed him a college closer to home. Sent him to Ohio State. At first things went better. His grades at OSU improved somewhat: not A's, but at least B's and C's. Then he hit a little patch of trouble."
"Trouble?"
Another wave of the imperial hand. It was clear that I was not to know the exact nature of the "trouble" that Shawn had gotten himself into at Ohio State. At least not yet.
"Bernie Chapman took care of that. He was our family attorney back then."
I merely nodded, saying nothing. I was wondering where all of this was leading. I had met a lot of CEOs and corporate executives over the years. Men and women in those positions
might mention their spouses and children on occasion, but only in passing, and only in a context that would enhance the corporate leader's image. More than one of them had told me, apropos of nothing, that a son had been accepted at Harvard, or that a daughter was leading her school's team to the state championships in soccer or field hockey.
This made my conversation with Kurt all the more strange. TP Automotive's VP of strategic operations certainly wasn't bragging. There was nothing in this little family tale that was even marginally complimentary or image-enhancing.
"But what you want to know," Kurt said, his face brightening again. "Is why I am telling you all of this."
"Something like that," I said. I wouldn't score any points by denying the obvious.
"TP Automotive has acquired another company in Ohio," Kurt explained. "In a little town called New Hastings. Just outside of Columbus. It's another struggling enterprise like Great Lakes Fuel Systems, a company called United Press and Stamping, or UP&S for short."
"I see."
"Two months ago I arranged for Shawn to assume an executive position at UP&S. I think that the responsibility is doing him some good—giving him a chance to test his mettle and prove his worth."
This was the sort of spiel that aroused my latent sense of working-class ire at the privileges of wealth and socioeconomic class. By his own father's admission, Shawn Myers was an unmotivated playboy who had flunked out of college and landed himself in some sort of trouble—trouble that required the services of a lawyer. But now he would be able to leapfrog over other, presumably more competent men and women to assume a key managerial post, all because of his last name.
But what did any of this have to do with me?
"UP&S will be a good learning experience for Shawn," Kurt said. "And I believe that he's up to the task. I've spent some time at UP&S myself since the company was acquired. I'm putting a great team in place there."
"I'm sure that Shawn will make it through," I said. "It sounds like you've got his back."
If Kurt detected the thinly veiled knife in my remark, he let it pass.
"But UP&S isn't a perfect organization," he continued. "There are...disruptive elements. People who need to be nudged out. Agitators. That's where you come in. You've done such a great job here at GLFS, that we're going to enlist your services at UP&S as well. If you're interested, that is. If you are, then I’ll call Beth Fisk in, and we can go over the details.”
There was really only one way for me to answer. I didn't like the way that TP Automotive did business. I didn't like Shawn Myers; and I didn't like the organizational nepotism that had catapulted him to a position where more deserving and more capable people would be forced to take him seriously. And I was about halfway down the road toward disliking Kurt Myers, as well. Throughout the morning, Kurt had condescended to his subordinates and me as if we were a troupe of trained poodles.
But you don't let your personal feelings get in the way when you run a business. TP Automotive had immediately agreed to my requested fees thus far, and the company was known for paying vendor invoices on time. Kurt was offering me more work, at a time when work was scarce for high-paid consultants and hourly wage-earners alike.
"I appreciate your confidence," I said. "And of course I'm interested. I would be honored to be of service to TP Automotive again."
Chapter 5
Beth Fisk joined us a few minutes later at Kurt’s summons. No one mentioned Kevin Lang again. It was as if the nastiness with the marijuana-smoking, sexually ambiguous union agitator had never occurred.
Kurt sat back in his chair, his arms folded, as Beth explained the situation at UP&S—the little stamping company in central Ohio.
“UP&S was another operation that was bleeding cash and losing business when TP Automotive acquired it,” Beth said. “The company started out back in 1997 as a joint venture between a Japanese transplant automotive components manufacturer, and a division of GM that had recently been spun off. For about ten years UP&S was reasonably profitable.”
“But all the while, the automotive business was going global,” Kurt said. “The old ways of making automotive components in the Midwest—with American workers—didn’t work anymore. I know you’ve heard that story before, Craig, so we won’t belabor it here.”
“The Japanese transplant company divested in 2008,” Beth went on. “UP&S continued under American management. They had a big round of layoffs in 2009, following the market crash.”
Kurt shook his head, genuine dismay showing on his face. Brought up in the glory days of the American automobile industry, there was a part of Kurt that was sincerely chagrined to see companies like GLFS and UP&S lose their shirts to dollar-an-hour sweatshops in China and India. Of course, as an executive at TP Automotive, Kurt was also involved in orchestrating the migrations of capital and wages that were hurting these same American companies. But the fact of the matter was that he had no choice. Just as a rising tide lifts all boats, so a falling tide lowers them all. American industry was moving toward a global wage scale—and that scale was decidedly lower than what U.S. workers had grown accustomed to in the heady decades following World War II.
There are no angels in business, I told myself. And no devils, either. We are all doing what we have to do to get by, to keep the factories running and the paychecks flowing to as many workers as possible. In light of that sentiment, my betrayal of Kevin Lang didn’t seem quite as despicable as it had an hour ago. Kevin had known the score all along. At each step, he had been complicit in his own demise.
“So here is what’s going on at UP&S,” Beth said. “We have two office workers—low-level staff professionals who have been there for years, but have never moved up the management ladder.”
“And this is, without a doubt, their main problem,” Kurt said. “You know, I’ve never understood that—why some people want to remain at a company for years, even though they aren’t going anywhere. The way I look at it is: If you don't move up the ladder, that's a sure sign that you aren’t held in very high esteem by the management.”
I wondered how my father would have responded to that. He had worked at the same company for more than thirty years, with only a few pay-grade adjustments. He had never been the manager of anything.
Beth paused until Kurt signaled for her to go on.
“The names of these two employees are Lucy Browning and Alan Ferguson. I pulled their performance review records. Neither one is a stellar performer; but they both meet the minimal requirements. We can’t build a case for firing them on merit-related issues alone.”
“What exactly are they doing?” I asked. “I mean, what sort of problems are they creating?”
“Well, since the placement of new TP Automotive management personnel, they have both become sources of discontent among their colleagues.”
“In other words, they’re badmouthing management,” I said.
“Exactly,” Beth said tightly.
Kurt interjected: “And this is the sort of conduct that is really unfair to the mass of the UP&S employee population. Here TP Automotive is, trying to salvage a floundering company, and these two want to turn their coworkers against our management team. Tell me: How is that sort of conduct going to save anyone’s job?”
No one needed to tell me that these two “agitators”—Browning and Ferguson—were having difficulties with Shawn. This was the reason behind Kurt’s speech about the weighty responsibilities of fatherhood. It was obvious now: Kurt wanted me to remove two UP&S employees who had taken a disliking to his son.
“And there’s one more thing,” Beth said. “Or I should say: two more things. And these two should be easy: There are two employees that we suspect are embezzling: Nick King and Michael O’Rourke.”
“That should be easy,” I agreed. And it would be. I was an ace at busting embezzlement scams inside companies. Since going into independent consulting, about five to ten percent of my removal targets had ultimately been canned for stealing company funds. This datum su
rprises and shocks a lot of people. It never surprised me: Once an employee begins to despise his employer, he becomes far more likely to invent his own moral “gray areas.”
For example, suppose that an employee believes that he was unfairly denied a promotion. In his mind, his employer has “stolen” a pay raise that was rightfully his. He may therefore decide that justice can best be served if he resorts to some alternative means to take back the additional pay that would have accompanied the promotion. In this way, an employee can become an embezzler and a thief, all the while telling himself that he is fundamentally honest. After all, he would have never have stolen a dime if the company had only treated him fairly to begin with. The self-deception of the disgruntled employee knows no bounds.
“Here are the files on Alan Ferguson and Lucy Browning,” Beth said, handing me a stuffed manila file folder. “These are your copies. You’ve already signed TP Automotive’s confidentiality agreement, of course.”
“Of course,” I said.
I opened the file folder and the first item I saw was the photo and dossier of Alan Ferguson. The photo was obviously an enlarged version of the one on his employee badge. Ferguson was a morose-looking, balding man in his late forties. The file said that he was divorced. Probably lived alone. Probably lived a fairly lonely, dull life outside of the job that he now disliked because his new boss was Shawn Myers.
“Any ideas, off the top of your head?” Kurt asked.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” I said. Alan Ferguson, at least, would be easy. Men in his position were often so miserable that they secretly wanted to be fired. They needed to change their lives; but inertia kept them stuck. So an event like a firing—which forced them to make changes—actually came as a relief. “Let me take these with me, and I’ll present you with a concrete action plan within about forty-eight hours.”
“That’s what I like about you,” Kurt said. “You’re efficient. An idea man. You can work out the contractual details with Beth. I don’t care what this costs, within reason, of course. UP&S is a company that deserves to be saved, and I don’t want to let a few rabble-rousers screw things up.”
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