Manager

1988 to 1990

Fallout: The former head of security (who reports to me now) wants permission to go undercover and bust an industrial spy ring ..operating out of Las Vegas. The next day his wife appears and pleads with me to turn down this request ..she warns me not to believe a word he says. My boss hires Rick, an expert in network computing, to help me with buyer workstations. When it turns out that Rick knows squat about network computing and refuses to do any other assignment I can think of; I initiate steps to have him either transferred or fired. When my boss finds out about this, he tells me not to worry and promptly puts Rick on his administrative staff. When members of my staff find out, I have a morale problem because it looks like the price for doing nothing is a promotion. Later, my boss asks me to do Rick’s performance review (because he still reports to me on paper). I refuse. Next my boss asks me to sign one that he wrote .. and I refuse. This time he threatens to fire me . I tell him to go ahead ~ my first ever act of brinkmanship. Shortly thereafter, funding for buyer workstations gets slashed ..and the consulting firm, as well as all the network suppliers, threaten to sue (I owe them over two and a half million dollars now). I feel like the buyer workstation project is doomed. Late one afternoon, I’m sitting at my desk making out a requisition for a gun to shoot myself, when the secretary asks if I want to take a call from someone in Santa Barbara. I had sent my resume there before the reorganization ~ flash ~ I’m looking out the window of my new office in Santa Barbara ~ deer are grazing in a nearby eucalyptus grove and I can walk to the beach for lunch. A former colleague from Northrop calls and asks how I’m doing. I tell him I feel like a kid at summer camp.