The Best of Gene Wolfe

Assign her to assist one of the older women.

Ask the advice of the other members of his Leadership group, following it only if he agrees the group has reached a correct decision in this case.

Reassign her to small-parts assembly.

   NOTE: QUESTIONS CONCERNING THIS SAMPLE LEADERSHIP PROBLEM SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO ERIC FAIRCHILD—EX 8173.

After reading the problem through twice, Forlesen picked up his telephone and dialed the number. A female voice said, “Mr. Fairchild’s office.”

Forlesen identified himself, and a moment later a masculine voice announced, “Eric Fairchild.”

“It’s about the leadership problem—number one oh five?”

“Oh, yes.” (Fairchild’s voice was hearty; Forlesen imagined him slapping backs and challenging people to Indian-wrestle at parties.) “I’ve had quite a few calls about that one. You can check as many answers as you like if they’re not mutually exclusive—okay?”

“That wasn’t what I was going to ask,” Forlesen said. “This girl’s work—”

“Wait a minute,” Fairchild said. And then, much more faintly, “Get me the Leadership file, Miss Fenton.”

“What did you say?” Forlesen asked.

“Wait a minute,” Fairchild said again. “If we’re going to dig into this thing in depth I want to have a copy of the problem in front of me. Thank you. Okay, you can shoot now. What did you say your name was?”

“Forlesen. I meant after you said, ‘Wait a minute,’ the first time. I thought I heard you call your secretary Miss Fenton.”

“Ha ha ha.”

“Didn’t you?”

“My secretary’s name is Mrs. Fairchild, Mr. Forlesen—no, she’s not my wife, if that’s what you’re thinking. Mr. Frick doesn’t approve of nepotism. She’s just a nice lady who happens to be named Mrs. Fairchild, and I was addressing Miss Fetton, who is filling in for her today.”

“Sorry,” Forlesen said.

“You wanted to ask about problem one hundred and five?”

“Yes, I wanted to ask—Well, for one thing, in what way is the young woman’s work unsatisfactory?”

“Just what it says on the sheet, whatever that is. Wait a minute; here it is. Her work has not been satisfactory, but because clerical help has been in short supply she has not been told this.”

“Yes,” Forlesen said, “but in what way has it been unsatisfactory?”

“I see what you’re getting at now, but I can’t very well answer that, can I? After all, the whole essence of Leadership Training involves presenting the participants with structured problems—you see what I mean? This is a structured problem. Miss Fenton, could I trouble you to go down to the canteen and get me some coffee? Take it out of petty cash. Now if I explained something like that to you, and not to the others, then it would have a different structuring for you than for them. You see?”

“Well, it seemed to me,” Forlesen said, “that one of the first things to do would be to take Miss Fenton aside and explain to her that her work was unsatisfactory and perhaps hear what she had to say.”

“Miss who?”

“Fetton, the girl in the problem.”

“Right, and I see what you mean. However, since it specifically says what I read to you, and nothing else more than that, then if I was to tell you something else it would be structured different for you than for the other fellows. See what I mean?”

After thinking for a moment Forlesen said, “I don’t see how I can check any of the boxes knowing no more than I do now. Is it all right if I write my own solution?”

“You mean, draw a little box for yourself?”

“Yes, and write what I said after it—I mean, what I outlined to you a minute ago. That I’d talk to her.”

“I don’t think there’s room on the paper for all that, fella. I mean, you said quite a bit.”

Forlesen said, “I think I can boil it down.”

“Well, we can’t allow it anyway. These things are scored by a computer and we have to give it an answer— what I’m driving at is the number of your answer. Like the girl codes in the I.D. number of each participant and then the problem number, and then the answer number, like one or two or three. Or then if she puts like twenty- three it knows you answered two AND three. That would be indicate to her that her work has been satisfactory but hint that she may be laid off, and Offer her a six-week leave of absence without pay—during which she may obtain further training. “You get it?”

“You’re telling me that that’s the right answer,” Forlesen said. “Twenty-three.”

“Listen, hell no! I don’t know what the right answer is; only the machine does. Maybe there isn’t any right answer at all. I was just trying to give you a kind of a hint—what I’d do if I was in your shoes. You want to get a good grade, don’t you?”

“Is it important?”

“I would say that it’s important. I think it’s important to any man to know he did something like this and he did good—wouldn’t you say so? But like we said at the start of the course, your grade is your personal thing. We’re going to give grades, sure, on a scale of seven hundred and fifty-seven—that’s the top—to forty-nine, but nobody