earnestly at a calculator. Everyone except me is listening intently, or jotting notes, or offering com- ments.
'... consistent parameters... essential to gain... ma- trix of advantage... extensive pre-profit recovery... opera- tional indices... provide tangential proof...'
I have no idea what's going on. Their words sound like a different language to me-not a foreign language exactly, but a language I once knew and only vaguely now recall. The terms seem familiar to me. But now I'm not sure what they really mean. They are just words.
For a few minutes there in Chicago's O'Hare, I did try to think about what Jonah had said. He'd made a lot of sense to me somehow; he'd had some good points. But it was like somebody from a different world had talked to me. I had to shrug it off. I had to go to Houston and talk about robots. It was time to catch my own plane.
Now I'm wondering if Jonah might be closer to the truth than I first thought. Because as I glance from face to face, I get this gut hunch that none of us here has anything more than a witch doctor's understanding of the medicine we're practicing. Our tribe is dying and we're dancing in our ceremonial smoke to exorcise the devil that's ailing us.
What is the real goal? Nobody here has even asked anything that basic. Peach is chanting about cost opportunities and 'pro- ductivity' targets and so on. Hilton Smyth is saying hallelujah to whatever Peach proclaims. Does anyone genuinely understand what we're doing?
40
At ten o'clock, Peach calls a break. Everyone except me exits for the rest rooms or for coffee. I stay seated until they are out of the room.
What the hell am I doing here? I'm wondering what good it is for me-or any of us-to be sitting here in this room. Is this meeting (which is scheduled to last for most of the day) going to make my plant competitive, save my job, or help anybody do anything of benefit to anyone?
I can't handle it. I don't even know what productivity is. So how can this be anything except a total waste? And with that thought I find myself stuffing my papers back into my briefcase. I snap it closed. And then I quietly get up and walk out.
I'm lucky at first. I make it to the elevator without anyone saying anything to me. But while I'm waiting there, Hilton Smyth comes strolling past.
'You're not bailing out on us, are you Al?' he asks.
For a second, I consider ignoring the question. But then I realize Smyth might deliberately say something to Peach.
'Have to,' I say to him. 'I've got a situation that needs my attention back at the plant.'
'What? An emergency?'
'You can call it that.'
The elevator opens its doors. I step in. Smyth is looking at me with a quizzical expression as he walks by. The doors close.
It crosses my mind that there is a risk of Peach firing me for walking out of his meeting. But that, to my current frame of mind as I walk through the garage to my car, would only shorten three months of anxiety leading up to what I suspect might be inevitable.
I don't go back to the plant right away. I drive around for a while. I point the car down one road and follow it until I'm tired of it, then take another road. A couple of hours pass. I don't care where I am; I just want to be out. The freedom is kind of exhila- rating until it gets boring.
As I'm driving, I try to keep my mind off business. I try to clear my head. The day has turned out to be nice. The sun is out. It's warm. No clouds. Blue sky. Even though the land still has an early spring austerity, everything yellow-brown, it's a good day to be playing hooky.
I remember looking at my watch just before I reach the plant
41
gates and seeing that it's past 1 P.M. I'm slowing down to make the turn through the gate, when-I don't know how else to say it-it just doesn't feel right. I look at the plant. And I put my foot down on the gas and keep going. I'm hungry; I'm thinking maybe I should get some lunch.
But I guess the real reason is I just don't want to be found yet. I need to think and I'll never be able to do it if I go back to the office now.
Up the road about a mile is a little pizza place. I see they're open, so I stop and go in. I'm conservative; I get a medium pizza with double cheese, pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, green pep- pers, hot peppers, black olives and onion, and-mmmmmmmm -a sprinkling of anchovies. While I'm waiting, I can't resist the Munchos on the stand by the cash register, and I tell the Sicilian who runs the place to put me down for a couple of bags of beer nuts, some taco chips, and-for later-some pretzels. Trauma whets my appetite.
But there's one problem. You just can't wash down beer nuts with soda. You need beer. And guess what I see in the cooler. Of course, I don't usually drink during the day... but I look at the way the light is hitting those frosty cold cans...
'Screw it.'
I pull out a six of Bud.
Twenty- three dollars and sixty-two cents and I'm out of there.
Just before the plant, on the opposite side of the highway, there is a gravel road leading up a low hillside. It's an access road to a substation about half a mile away. So on impulse, I turn the wheel sharply. The Mazda goes bouncing off the highway onto the gravel and only a fast hand saves my pizza from the floor. We raise some dust getting to the top.
I park the car, unbutton my shirt, take off my tie and coat to save them from the inevitable, and open up my goodies.
Some distance below, down across the highway, is my plant. It sits in a field, a big gray steel box without windows. Inside, I know, there are about 400 people at work on day shift. Their cars are parked in the lot. I watch as a truck backs between two others sitting at the unloading docks. The trucks bring the materials which the machines and people inside will use to make some- thing. On the opposite side, more trucks are being filled with what they have produced. In simplest terms, that's what's hap- pening. I'm supposed to manage what goes on down there.
42
I pop the top on one of the beers and go to work on the pizza.
The plant has the look of a landmark. It's as if it has always been there, as if it will always be there. I happen to know the plant is only about fifteen years old. And it may not be here as many years from now.
So what is the goal?
What are we supposed to be doing here?
What keeps this place working?
Jonah said there was only one goal. Well, I don't see how that can be. We do a lot of things in the course of daily operations, and they're all important. Most of them anyway... or we wouldn't do them. What the hell, they all
