by Terry Fallis
A deep furrow immediately appeared in her forehead as her eyebrows came together in the shape of a capital M. For most, it would have been a lowercase m, but she had very athletic eyebrows. Quite striking, in fact. She abused the wheel on her mouse trying to find the offending slide, and then leaned in closer to read. I heard her sharp intake of breath.
“Shit! I was just about to send this. I would have looked like an idiot in front of Blake,” Amanda said as she corrected the line.
“No harm done. How did you manage to type GM instead of NASA?” I asked, genuinely curious.
She flushed a bit.
“I started with an old credentials deck from a pitch last year to GM, just for the capabilities section. I thought I’d caught all the references, but one slipped through. You can’t even trust PowerPoint’s ‘search and replace’ function. This would have made me look so sloppy and unprofessional.”
“Whoa. Someone else would have caught it before the actual presentation. No harm done. No big deal,” I said.
“No big deal?” she asked, giving me her best “Are you on crack?” look. “David, we don’t get the chance to strut our stuff with the Washington office very often. Crawford Blake could well be the next TK president, and he’s tough. Impressing him can have a real impact on your career. So screwing up in front of him is not on my agenda. Having him discover a stray GM in the deck is almost worse than NASA finding it!”
I just barely stopped myself from backing out of her office. She was so seriously intense. I found my hands in the air as if she were holding me at gunpoint.
“Okay, I got it. I’m glad we found the mistake so that no careers were ruined by an evil Detroit-based multinational.”
Fortunately, I had stumbled across her well-hidden sense of humour. She softened and even smiled.
“Sorry, David. I’m mad at myself, not at you. I can’t abide carelessness in myself or in others. I read this deck a hundred times and never caught it.” She paused, then looked at me again as I lowered my hands, no longer under the gun. “Thanks, David. You saved my bacon.”
I thought I might as well strike while the bacon pan was hot.
“So, umm, speaking of bacon, does anyone eat lunch around here?”
She thought about it for a moment, weighing the question.
“Lunch, lunch. That’s the midday meal, right?” she asked.
“So you don’t eat lunch very often?”
“I hardly ever have time. But I didn’t think we’d have this deck done by now. So as soon as I’ve yanked GM out of it, I think it’s ready to go. Give me ten minutes to draft the email to Crawford and I’ll meet you in the lobby. I think I’ve got half an hour before my next meeting.”
I stopped in to see my mother on the way home from the office, but she was asleep. I offered to stay the night and let Lauren have a night off and sleep at my place. In her mind, it wasn’t even an idea worthy of consideration. Lauren seemed locked into her role. I truly wanted to do more, but almost felt like I was trespassing on her turf. We talked for an hour or so, and she let me make spaghetti for us. Then she sent me home so she could get some sleep herself. Mom usually needed her help a few times in the night and Lauren was paranoid about sleeping right through.
I loved my condo. I still got a little thrill from stepping through the door. I’d become a little fanatical about keeping it neat. I lay down on the couch and didn’t even turn on the TV. I realized I wanted to show off my new place to somebody, perhaps to anybody. I wondered about knocking on my neighbours’ doors and introducing myself but thought that might seem a little odd. While I’ve always been quite happy in my own company, it occurred to me that perhaps I might be a bit lonely. With all that was swirling in my life, I didn’t think I’d freed up enough time in my schedule to be lonely.
My twenty-minute lunch with Amanda had gone well, for the most part. When she’d finally hit Send on the NASA deck, she seemed to lighten up and loosen up. At lunch, I’d learned that she was a couple of years older than I. While I’d been working on Parliament Hill, she’d already been in the trenches at TK for a few years, working insane hours and never saying no to work that came her way. As she explained between forkfuls of a limp salad in the little restaurant in our building, an agency is like a marketplace. Work flows down to those who do it well, do it on time, and do it without complaint. If you look around almost any large PR agency, the junior staffers who are swamped tend to be the good ones, the “keepers.” But those who can always be found with time on their hands usually have that extra time for a reason. They’ve already been tried by the senior consultants or account directors above them, and somehow fallen short. Missed a deadline, missed a meeting, or missed the point. So, repeat business dries up. It’s not good news if most others at your level in the organization are crazy busy, and you are not.
Amanda had climbed up the ladder she’d mentioned earlier faster than most. And why not? Why wouldn’t Diane promote Amanda quickly for good performance if it meant TK could get a higher billing rate for her? But from my agency rookie perspective, it seemed to put a lot of pressure on Amanda to keep up the pace of her progress. I made some dumb throwaway comment about shooting stars burning out. Not a good idea, but we got past it. Despite several attempts, I was unable to discover whether Amanda had anything else that occupied her life beyond Turner King. With half a salad still left to eat, Amanda had dashed back upstairs for her 1:30.
I dragged myself off the couch and into the library and pulled down from the shelf the Sherlock Holmes story collection entitled His Last Bow. It included one of my favourite stories, “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans.” I’m not sure why I was drawn so often to this story. Perhaps because it’s one of only four Holmes stories that featured Sherlock’s older brother, Mycroft. Or it might also have been because the missing plans in the mystery are for a submarine. This probably appealed to my interest in the history of science. Whatever the reason, I often reread Sherlock Holmes stories before heading to bed, and this tale more than some of the others. The writing was so good and it was just very cool to be reading the very same words that were first published back in 1912, as the Holmes canon was winding down.
I finished the story and flipped through a few other Conan Doyle books on my shelf, including the second Holmes novel, The Sign of Four. I always seemed to gravitate to a line Holmes utters in this story: “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”
I fell asleep in the library shortly thereafter.
D.C. in early March was mercifully less humid than in the dead of summer. I’d been to Washington a few times while working for the minister. On our last trip, a year earlier, we’d toured the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum. What an amazing place. I remember just staring up at the Wright Flyer hanging in the lobby. The sight of it above so transfixed me that I walked straight into the wheelchair of a senior citizen from Baltimore and nearly tipped her into a rack of museum maps. It wasn’t quite an international incident, but my minister did speed away from the scene, leaving me there alone to make my apologies. There were no broken bones, and after we eventually staunched the bleeding, the poor woman was actually quite nice about it all. I’m sure the museum staff would have been relieved to know that I’d have no time for a return visit this trip.
There were three of us from TK Toronto heading south for the NASA presentation. I figured my Ottawa stint on the Canadian Space Agency file would punch my ticket to D.C. and I was right. Diane called me a couple of days earlier to let me know I’d be on the pitch team. Diane, Amanda, and I would be the Canadian contingent joining six D.C. TK folks and one from New York. Ten people seemed like a big team, but this was a big opportunity. I sat between Amanda on the aisle and Diane in the window seat, which left me feeling mildly trapped. I think Amanda could probably have kept the Air Canada 767 aloft with tension alone. I wondered if she was a nervous flier, yet she was s
till rigid and morose back on land at the Dulles baggage carousel.
Diane went in search of a washroom, while we waited for the bags.
“Are you all right, Amanda?” I asked. “You seem a little preoccupied.”
“Of course I’m all right. I’m just getting myself psychologically ready to present with Crawford,” she explained. “They say you only get one shot with him, so I want to make it count.”
“With ten of us on the team, I’m worried that he won’t even notice us,” I replied. “He’ll certainly remember Diane’s glasses, but after seeing them, I can’t imagine he’ll have any sensory capacity left to remember us.”
A slight smile threatened the corners of her mouth.
“I know what you mean,” Amanda said. “I thought that security guy was going to confiscate them as an unidentified and suspicious object.”
“Yep. He seemed quite shocked, perhaps even repulsed, when she actually put them on her face.”
After we checked in to the Washington Plaza on Thomas Circle NW, we cabbed it over to the TK office on 14th Street NW for the rehearsal at 2:30 p.m. The vast lobby was all marble and glass, with an Amazonian receptionist in a futuristic booth in the centre. There was actually more glass than I thought.
“Are you all right?” Amanda asked as I bounced my face off the very clean and clear plate glass door.
“I did that on purpose, just to break the tension,” I explained. “And perhaps my nose.”
I recovered and nonchalantly opened the door while enduring the most unspeakable pain I’d ever experienced. The three of us approached the receptionist with my eyes still streaming.
“Sorry about the door,” the receptionist said in greeting. “I usually prop it open to avoid such collisions. You must be the team from the great white north. Welcome to TK D.C., I’m Cheryl.”
“Hello, Cheryl. I’m Diane, the TO GM. This is Amanda Burke, account director, and finally, with the red nose and teary eyes, David Stewart, senior consultant.”
I waved and wiped my eyes. I’ve never understood why your eyes water when you hit your nose. Why doesn’t your nose run?
“Just have a seat and I’ll alert the corner office that you’ve arrived.”
We all sat down and I turned to Amanda.
“Okay. When you’re feeling nervous before the presentation tomorrow and you need something to lighten the mood, just think of my nose and that glass door over there, and you’ll be fine.”
By the time we all heard footsteps coming down a very long corridor behind Cheryl’s command post, I could finally see straight again and my eyes were no longer swimming.
“All hail Canada and welcome to Washington!”
We all heard the southern drawl before we laid eyes on the D.C. GM.
“Diane with the fancy glasses, how are you, darlin’?”
“Always great to see you, Crawford. You’re looking as tanned and relaxed as ever,” replied Diane. “Don’t you do any work around here?”
“Not if I can help it,” Blake answered. “You know that.”
“Crawford, this is the designated account director on the NASA pitch …”
“I know who this is. Amanda Burke. It’s so great to make your acquaintance at last. I’ve been so impressed with your leadership on this so far and you look just as I pictured you in my mind’s eye.”
In the charm department, Crawford Blake was very well-endowed. He kind of made me queasy. Amanda wasn’t expecting this southern gentility assault and seemed to succumb to an anxiety aneurysm of some kind. She searched first his face, and then the floor for the words she needed.
“Well, umm, thank you and it’s great to meet you too … umm …”
I was standing right next to her and without moving my lips I whispered his name and hoped he hadn’t heard.
“… yes, Crawford. It’s great to meet you Crawford.”
Diane jumped back in.
“And Crawford, this is our new guy, David Stewart, who knows the Canadian Space Agency inside and out.”
“Well, well, now that’s the kind of insight we need on this pitch. I figure the NASA boys will be mighty impressed with the depth of our team.”
I just nodded and shook his extended hand, which was big and surprisingly sweaty.
We were escorted to the boardroom, where the rest of the NASA pitch team was gathering. Introductions were made and the bonding began. Amanda had regained her poise and personality and even managed to direct several complete sentences in a row to Crawford, who claimed the big chair at the head of the gigantic polished boardroom table. Lovely, shiny table. I was dying to launch myself headfirst down the length of it in a great slide for life but thought it might not leave the best first impression. Oh yes, and Amanda would probably have had a coronary. Diane was occupied explaining the artistic antecedents of her pair of glasses to two younger TK D.C. fashionistas. Eventually the kibitzing died away and Crawford took control.
“Okay, team, let’s get this done,” he began. “Let me start by saying that it is wonderful and rare to have the opportunity to work with our colleagues in the land of snow, slush, and ice hockey up there in the province of Toronto. I really must get myself up there for a visit sometime. I welcome the three of you to our warmer climes and hope that we’ll have many more chances to work together after we win this thing tomorrow.”
We nodded and smiled. Something about this guy was rubbing me the wrong way, but it was hard to cut through the bonhomie to get to what was really bugging me. It was probably just the standard American ignorance of Canada – a very old story. I bet I could name all fifty state capitals, yet I doubted Blake could identify even a handful of Canadian provinces. I decided not to test my theory right then, as Crawford still had the floor.
“We have a truly great opportunity tomorrow to land one of the biggest and most prestigious clients we’ve ever had at Turner King. NASA is a household name in both our countries and around the world. Their achievements in the last half century have shaped our nation. Regrettably, their influence appears to be waning. Our job is to restore the lustre to NASA and bring the people back to marvel at its miracles. I guarantee you that NASA is as straitlaced an organization as you’re ever likely to encounter, and they can be easily spooked. So let’s keep it real tomorrow and not scare them with ideas that are too far out there. I’ve seen the deck and it’s a winning presentation. So let’s divvy it up and make sure everyone has a piece. If you’re in the room tomorrow, you’re going to be saying something.”
We spent the next few hours mapping out the presentation and then running through it once as if we were in NASA’S boardroom. It was my very first rehearsal for my very first TK presentation. So this was how things worked in the agency world. I admit, I was impressed. But I was also a little concerned about the budget. All elements of the proposed program had been painstakingly budgeted according to the various hourly rates of the professionals involved and the anticipated time required. The North America–wide program came in at just under five million dollars in fees, before expenses. Then in the meeting, Crawford arbitrarily upped the number to six million to ensure we weren’t shortchanging the agency. Six million bucks in fees for a yearlong continental program still seemed like a lot of dough to me. Then again, we were pitching NASA, famous for purchasing a nineteen–million-dollar toilet for the International Space Station, so perhaps we weren’t out of line.
Here’s how the show was set up for the following morning:
11:00 Crawford Blake would open and introduce the team before waxing eloquent on the challenges NASA was facing.
11:10 Diane Martineau would add the Canadian perspective on NASA’S challenge and outline the goals of the North American program.
11:20 A TK D.C. research consultant named Bridget and I would be up next to outline the public opinion landscape in the U.S. and Canada and identify the strategic opportunities it revealed.
11:30 Amanda and her D.C. counterpart, Michael Crane, would then summarize the prog
ram and what results were expected.
11:45 A couple of TK D.C.’s top social media gurus would then explain how tablet and cellphone apps, Facebook, Twitter, and blogger outreach would support the media relations play.
11:55 Finally, two TK measurement experts (one from D.C. and the other from New York) would describe exactly how we were going to evaluate whether we’d been successful in achieving the program’s goals.
12:00 Crawford would zip through the estimated budget before opening the floor for questions. Then we would all try desperately to perform as well during the Q&A as we had in the actual presentation.
We ran through our parts once and tweaked the slides a bit. Crawford and Diane left after their parts to have dinner together. After that, Amanda finally seemed to be back in her element and jumped right in the middle of it all. She was still uptight, bossy, and domineering. But without her, the Canadian angle on the plan might well have disappeared. By early evening, we were just going through the motions. Amanda said it was time to quit rehearsing before we became too practised. We needed to leave some adrenalin in the tank for tomorrow. Interesting. I was learning a lot.
When we left, Amanda rushed ahead to open the glass door for me in the lobby. I played my part and stepped very gingerly through the opening with my hands held up in front of my face. For the first time, I heard her laugh. It was nice to see little pieces of the unguarded Amanda surfacing. It seemed she felt good about the NASA presentation.
That night in my hotel room, Google and I dug a little deeper into Crawford Blake. Beyond what I’d learned about him earlier, I discovered that he’d been a baseball star at his rural Mississippi high school. He played third base, the hot corner, and swung a heavy bat. Blake helped lead the team to a state championship in his senior year. The stuff of American dreams.
Just before shutting down, I put my time into the tyrannical time tracking system, PROTTS. Too bad the time wasn’t billable, but we were still in pitch mode.