I arrived at the office at seven thirty a.m. to get a jump-start on the day. I was really behind after being dragged into serving on several committees. After fixing my coffee at the tiny kitchen I strode over to my cubicle. On the way I passed by Donovan who was furiously pounding the keys on his workstation. This in itself was a surprise as Donovan hardly ever showed before ten-thirty in the morning. I never had figured out how he got away with being consistently late to work.
“Morning Donovan,” I said
“W wants to see you immediately,” he replied without looking up from his monitor.
W sat on the ninth floor and had an office with a window. He headed up a lot of committees. It must be important.
“What about?” I asked.
“The problem."
“Of course, the problem…” I invited further explanation, but none was forthcoming.
Donovan was staring straight ahead at his screen, fascinated by some tidbit of information there.
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I refused to appear uninformed. To be uninformed was akin to signing your death warrant. “Well, W knows it’s being looked into.”
“He’s pretty worked up about it.”
“I know,” I bluffed. “It’s a pretty hot potato.”
“You’d better get up there.”
I didn’t have any voice mail messages so I booted up my machine and checked my email to see if there was any enlightenment there. Perhaps there would be a message sent after midnight, which was the last time I had checked it. There was nothing. I steeled myself and rode the elevator up to the ninth floor.
W’s secretary wasn’t in and his door was closed. From within I could hear him saying something about forming a committee that would schedule a meeting to study the feasibility of strategies available as options for various other committees to consider. I knocked.
“Enter,” said the voice from within.
“Morning W. You wanted to see me.”
W was hanging up the phone. He was a corpulent man, the result of too many years of expense reports passed to payables with limousines, fancy dinners and lots of fine wine surreptitiously buried in them, all attributed to non-existent clients. His eyes peered out at me suspiciously from his puffy face.
He scratched his ear and spoke. “The consultants are coming.”
I wondered what on earth he was talking about, but didn’t miss a beat. “Of course they are.”
“Hmm, so you knew about this did you?”
I gave a non-committal response. “Well W, as you well know, transitions are sometimes accompanied by an information vacuum." Who the heck talks like this I wondered to myself.
He thought about that one. The silence in the office could charitably be described as funereal.
“Transitions huh? Well, what’s it all about then?”
“We had to call them in sir. After all, they’re specialists in this sort of thing.”
“Of course they are. They’re consultants,” he muttered. “I thought this was Presky’s idea.”
My heart sank. Presky was my nemesis and he was very close to W. He and W golfed quite a bit together on the weekends. I was certain that Presky filled W's head with bad things about me during their time on the links together. Presky worked in Strategic Services and used every opportunity to make my pitifully understaffed department look bad. He had screwed me over numerous times. More than once he had covered up his going over budget and somehow made it look like it was my fault. Two years ago he had almost gotten me fired for something he did.
“Presky’s a good man sir. If he brought them in then we’re bound to get results.”
He perked up a bit. “Well, that’s all right then. Go get them situated and let me know how it turns out when they’re finished.”
He waved his hand in dismissal and buried his nose in the paper, letting me know the conversation was over. He was reading the style section. An interesting choice since the man had none.
I left and immediately went to Bryant’s secretary to set an appointment to see him. Bryant was an early bird so his secretary had to be one also. Bryant was close to the CEO and had a contact network that was second to none. He was on every single committee. It was hard to see him because he was always in meetings. In all my years with the company I had never seen him actually produce anything.
“He’s in meetings all day,” his secretary told me after my attempt to schedule an appointment.
“Well, can he see me now?” I insisted.
She smiled at me. “He told me he’s not seeing anyone or taking any calls. He’s very busy preparing for a committee meeting.”
Through a cracked vertical blind I could see him in his office throwing darts at his cork board. I left dejected.
I went downstairs and outside to the smoking area. I lit up and thought about the situation. No solution came to mind. By the time I returned to my cubicle I had two frantic voice mails from some members of my staff, wanting to know about the consultants. The situation was becoming untenable. As much as I hated to I had to call Presky.
He answered on the third ring. “Morning Presky,” I said, “I understand the consultants are coming.”
I heard the glee in his voice as he told me that they were already sitting in his office.
“They’ll be by your cubicle to interview you around ten this morning,” he said.
“But I have a very important conference call at ten,” I objected.
“Reschedule it,” he said and hung up.
I mulled that one over. I rescheduled the call and then dialed Hildebrand, the office gossip, to see if he knew anything. Hildebrand was the type of guy who took two or three unrelated bits of office banter and mentally stretched their meaning. He would then add his own conjecture until he had pieced the whole thing together into some sort of nefarious corporate conspiracy. Nonetheless, I was desperate for information.
“Secret project, very hush-hush. I’ve been checking it out. Big problem floating around.” It was the least he had ever put his own spin on any subject. This meant he didn’t know anything either.
It was now eight thirty. I had an hour and a half to find out what Presky and his consultants were up to. I knew one thing. If Presky was behind it the odds were it did not bode well for me. Where could he have gotten the authorization to bring in consultants? You had to go to J.B., the big boss himself, to get that kind of go-ahead. Expenses were tight at our company. You brought in consultants for one thing and one thing only, to cut expenses. Cutting expenses meant cutting headcount.
To me it seemed ridiculous to spend large sums of money on consultants to cut expenses. The consultants translated into even more expense and if management wanted to know where the money went they could ask me. I knew where those types of expenses came from. They began and ended with guys like Presky and W, guys who formed committees and went on boondoggles.
Obviously I didn’t get it and that’s why I wasn’t senior management. My own view was that the seniors called in consultants when they needed someone to blame for things having gone south, but what did I know.
I looked up to see three of my team surrounding my cubicle. They were shuffling their feet and looking concerned. Their spokesperson took the initiative.
“We heard you called in consultants…” she blurted out, “what’s it all about?”
“What’s it all about?” I echoed.
“You hadn’t even told us. They’re coming at ten and we didn’t even know.”
Where did these people get their information I wondered? It was uncanny. Hildebrand must be working overtime. “It’s nothing to worry about, I just wanted to bounce some ideas off them. You know, sort of close the loop on this thing.”
They all looked at each other. “What thing?”
“You know, the problem that came up.”
They nodded in apparent understanding so I added, “Ask Donovan, he’ll fill you in on it. Listen guys, I’m sorry. I don’t have time for this now. Get back to work. I’ll talk to all of you after my meeting with the consultants. I have to prepare for it.”
They left. By now I was sweating. The heat wave rolling through the state was in its second week with no sign of abating. The air-conditioning couldn’t keep up and things were hot everywhere. I stewed for a while and then went to the cafeteria, as good a place as any to bone up on the rumor mill.
There were several groups sitting at tables sipping coffee and eating various assortments of breakfast foods. I took a circuitous route to the vending machines, trying desperately to overhear snatches of conversation along the way.
One group of four in particular had an air of conspiracy about them, their hushed tones giving nothing away. I knew two of them. One worked in Purchasing while the other worked in the Legal department.
I sidled up to them and they fell silent, but not before I heard Purchasing say, “We’re forming a committee to evaluate our options so we can seamlessly leverage our viable potential. We’ll be exploring success transfers for our turnkey operations. It’s all about best practices.” The others nodded their heads sagely and murmured agreement.
“Hi guys,” I said, “What’s going on?”
They mumbled something about paradigms and looked down at their food. I took the bull by the horns and asked, “Anyone hear the buzz about the consultants in Presky’s office?”
The legal eagle spoke. “I saw something about that last week, I had to review the contract.”
“And…” I prompted.
He took on the pious air of someone with insider information. “I’m not at liberty to say anything at this time. There’s a big problem there, a lot at stake. I hear they’re forming a committee.”
My patience was wearing thin and my concern escalating by the minute. “Yes of course.” I said and walked away.
On the way back to my area I stopped in the men’s room. Philson was washing his hands. “Heard about the problem. Tough break, you really can’t plan for those sorts of thing now, can you? You should’ve formed a committee as soon as you heard.”
“Not to worry. I’m following up,” I told him.
“Let’s do lunch sometime,” he called out as I left.
There was nothing for it. I would just have to wait for the inevitable. I walked back to my cubicle and called my wife. I told her to check the balance in our meager savings account and to cut up the credit cards. By this time tomorrow, if Presky’s consultants had anything to do with it, I’d be unemployed. I worked on updating my résumé until the consultants came.
They showed promptly at ten, two suits with staccato talking heads attached. They asked for some privacy so we went to the small conference room and shut the door. They were polite, but that didn’t stop them from taking turns asking a barrage of questions. I parried the questions as long as I could; giving nothing away, anything that I thought would help Presky bury me. About ten minutes into the interview I got an eerie feeling. By the types of questions they were asking it became clear to me that there was something very seriously wrong. The light bulb suddenly came on.
“You guys aren’t consultants. You’re Feds.”
Suit number one spoke. “Mr. Phelan, you must keep this in complete confidence. We’ve set up a cover story, complete with a consulting contract to make our spending a few weeks asking questions around the various departments seem as plausible as possible. Yes, we are with the government. We’re investigating illegal goings on in the company, money laundering, fraud, a big Ponzi scheme, that sort of thing. You’re a key source in this investigation, managing the MIS department you do. So please, answer our questions as best you can.”
“Call me Frank. Can I ask a question?”
“You may, however we may not be able to answer it.”
“What were you doing in Presky’s office so early this morning? Why is he your contact in this whole thing?”
They looked at each other and in an unspoken agreement seemed to make a decision. Suit number two took the initiative.
“This investigation was set up at the highest levels. We aren’t supposed to do this, but since you are one of the key sources of information we will. This is strictly off the record. The target of this probe is Mr. Presky. Apparently he and a fellow who goes by the initial W with no period behind it have been up to some shenanigans with the company’s financial control and accounting systems. Presky was the one used to set up the consulting contract. Our experience in these types of investigations has shown that when the target of a probe, unbeknownst to them, is also the driving force of it, they are usually the last to know the true purpose. It’s sort of a hide in plain sight strategy, if you will. So please sir, now will you answer our questions?”
I rolled up my sleeves and grinned. “Like I said guys, call me Frank. Ask me anything, anything at all. What do you want to know?”
They started firing away, but I stopped suit number two in mid sentence.
“Do you guys mind if I give you some pointers?”
“Go ahead,” he said.
“Well, you’ve got to beat them at their own game. So, if you want to stay here and ask questions and not blow your cover, you should make an initial recommendation to Presky and W that they form a committee. They’ll expect that from you, since you’re consultants. Actually, recommend two committees and have each of them chair one. Copy Hildebrand on all your communications. If you don’t he’ll dig and make stuff up which may cause problems. Make sure Bryant sits in on all the meetings. Philson should sit in at least once a week so he feels involved.
You can start by saying that one committee is a task force to brainstorm the different aspects of the project you assign them, whatever that may be. Have them prepare capacity plans and a force field analysis. The other one can prepare Pareto charts and a feasibility study. That will take two weeks. Set up a conference call once a week to track progress.
Then you can bring the two committees together to prepare a white paper that in turn will be the raw data for a straw man. That’s another couple of weeks at least.
Then they’ll actually have to prepare the straw man. You just bought yourselves another week. After that you can have them present the straw man to an oversight committee of your choosing which will evaluate and recommend partnering strategies for the two committees to work together discussing viable alternatives for implementation. That’s another two weeks minimum.
Finally, they won’t be able to make a decision so they’ll look to you guys to tell them what to do. Tell them you need a week to come up with your final recommendations and you’ll have had eight weeks to unearth whatever it is you’re looking for.”
I was on a roll so I stopped and looked up. They were busily taking notes.
"What do you recommend the overall project should be?" one of them asked.
I thought about that one. Things were looking up. I was going to have fun directing this investigation. In my mind I had already dubbed it Operation Cold Dish, as in the old adage, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
“Morning Donovan,” I said
“W wants to see you immediately,” he replied without looking up from his monitor.
W sat on the ninth floor and had an office with a window. He headed up a lot of committees. It must be important.
“What about?” I asked.
“The problem."
“Of course, the problem…” I invited further explanation, but none was forthcoming.
Donovan was staring straight ahead at his screen, fascinated by some tidbit of information there.
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I refused to appear uninformed. To be uninformed was akin to signing your death warrant. “Well, W knows it’s being looked into.”
“He’s pretty worked up about it.”
“I know,” I bluffed. “It’s a pretty hot potato.”
“You’d better get up there.”
I didn’t have any voice mail messages so I booted up my machine and checked my email to see if there was any enlightenment there. Perhaps there would be a message sent after midnight, which was the last time I had checked it. There was nothing. I steeled myself and rode the elevator up to the ninth floor.
W’s secretary wasn’t in and his door was closed. From within I could hear him saying something about forming a committee that would schedule a meeting to study the feasibility of strategies available as options for various other committees to consider. I knocked.
“Enter,” said the voice from within.
“Morning W. You wanted to see me.”
W was hanging up the phone. He was a corpulent man, the result of too many years of expense reports passed to payables with limousines, fancy dinners and lots of fine wine surreptitiously buried in them, all attributed to non-existent clients. His eyes peered out at me suspiciously from his puffy face.
He scratched his ear and spoke. “The consultants are coming.”
I wondered what on earth he was talking about, but didn’t miss a beat. “Of course they are.”
“Hmm, so you knew about this did you?”
I gave a non-committal response. “Well W, as you well know, transitions are sometimes accompanied by an information vacuum." Who the heck talks like this I wondered to myself.
He thought about that one. The silence in the office could charitably be described as funereal.
“Transitions huh? Well, what’s it all about then?”
“We had to call them in sir. After all, they’re specialists in this sort of thing.”
“Of course they are. They’re consultants,” he muttered. “I thought this was Presky’s idea.”
My heart sank. Presky was my nemesis and he was very close to W. He and W golfed quite a bit together on the weekends. I was certain that Presky filled W's head with bad things about me during their time on the links together. Presky worked in Strategic Services and used every opportunity to make my pitifully understaffed department look bad. He had screwed me over numerous times. More than once he had covered up his going over budget and somehow made it look like it was my fault. Two years ago he had almost gotten me fired for something he did.
“Presky’s a good man sir. If he brought them in then we’re bound to get results.”
He perked up a bit. “Well, that’s all right then. Go get them situated and let me know how it turns out when they’re finished.”
He waved his hand in dismissal and buried his nose in the paper, letting me know the conversation was over. He was reading the style section. An interesting choice since the man had none.
I left and immediately went to Bryant’s secretary to set an appointment to see him. Bryant was an early bird so his secretary had to be one also. Bryant was close to the CEO and had a contact network that was second to none. He was on every single committee. It was hard to see him because he was always in meetings. In all my years with the company I had never seen him actually produce anything.
“He’s in meetings all day,” his secretary told me after my attempt to schedule an appointment.
“Well, can he see me now?” I insisted.
She smiled at me. “He told me he’s not seeing anyone or taking any calls. He’s very busy preparing for a committee meeting.”
Through a cracked vertical blind I could see him in his office throwing darts at his cork board. I left dejected.
I went downstairs and outside to the smoking area. I lit up and thought about the situation. No solution came to mind. By the time I returned to my cubicle I had two frantic voice mails from some members of my staff, wanting to know about the consultants. The situation was becoming untenable. As much as I hated to I had to call Presky.
He answered on the third ring. “Morning Presky,” I said, “I understand the consultants are coming.”
I heard the glee in his voice as he told me that they were already sitting in his office.
“They’ll be by your cubicle to interview you around ten this morning,” he said.
“But I have a very important conference call at ten,” I objected.
“Reschedule it,” he said and hung up.
I mulled that one over. I rescheduled the call and then dialed Hildebrand, the office gossip, to see if he knew anything. Hildebrand was the type of guy who took two or three unrelated bits of office banter and mentally stretched their meaning. He would then add his own conjecture until he had pieced the whole thing together into some sort of nefarious corporate conspiracy. Nonetheless, I was desperate for information.
“Secret project, very hush-hush. I’ve been checking it out. Big problem floating around.” It was the least he had ever put his own spin on any subject. This meant he didn’t know anything either.
It was now eight thirty. I had an hour and a half to find out what Presky and his consultants were up to. I knew one thing. If Presky was behind it the odds were it did not bode well for me. Where could he have gotten the authorization to bring in consultants? You had to go to J.B., the big boss himself, to get that kind of go-ahead. Expenses were tight at our company. You brought in consultants for one thing and one thing only, to cut expenses. Cutting expenses meant cutting headcount.
To me it seemed ridiculous to spend large sums of money on consultants to cut expenses. The consultants translated into even more expense and if management wanted to know where the money went they could ask me. I knew where those types of expenses came from. They began and ended with guys like Presky and W, guys who formed committees and went on boondoggles.
Obviously I didn’t get it and that’s why I wasn’t senior management. My own view was that the seniors called in consultants when they needed someone to blame for things having gone south, but what did I know.
I looked up to see three of my team surrounding my cubicle. They were shuffling their feet and looking concerned. Their spokesperson took the initiative.
“We heard you called in consultants…” she blurted out, “what’s it all about?”
“What’s it all about?” I echoed.
“You hadn’t even told us. They’re coming at ten and we didn’t even know.”
Where did these people get their information I wondered? It was uncanny. Hildebrand must be working overtime. “It’s nothing to worry about, I just wanted to bounce some ideas off them. You know, sort of close the loop on this thing.”
They all looked at each other. “What thing?”
“You know, the problem that came up.”
They nodded in apparent understanding so I added, “Ask Donovan, he’ll fill you in on it. Listen guys, I’m sorry. I don’t have time for this now. Get back to work. I’ll talk to all of you after my meeting with the consultants. I have to prepare for it.”
They left. By now I was sweating. The heat wave rolling through the state was in its second week with no sign of abating. The air-conditioning couldn’t keep up and things were hot everywhere. I stewed for a while and then went to the cafeteria, as good a place as any to bone up on the rumor mill.
There were several groups sitting at tables sipping coffee and eating various assortments of breakfast foods. I took a circuitous route to the vending machines, trying desperately to overhear snatches of conversation along the way.
One group of four in particular had an air of conspiracy about them, their hushed tones giving nothing away. I knew two of them. One worked in Purchasing while the other worked in the Legal department.
I sidled up to them and they fell silent, but not before I heard Purchasing say, “We’re forming a committee to evaluate our options so we can seamlessly leverage our viable potential. We’ll be exploring success transfers for our turnkey operations. It’s all about best practices.” The others nodded their heads sagely and murmured agreement.
“Hi guys,” I said, “What’s going on?”
They mumbled something about paradigms and looked down at their food. I took the bull by the horns and asked, “Anyone hear the buzz about the consultants in Presky’s office?”
The legal eagle spoke. “I saw something about that last week, I had to review the contract.”
“And…” I prompted.
He took on the pious air of someone with insider information. “I’m not at liberty to say anything at this time. There’s a big problem there, a lot at stake. I hear they’re forming a committee.”
My patience was wearing thin and my concern escalating by the minute. “Yes of course.” I said and walked away.
On the way back to my area I stopped in the men’s room. Philson was washing his hands. “Heard about the problem. Tough break, you really can’t plan for those sorts of thing now, can you? You should’ve formed a committee as soon as you heard.”
“Not to worry. I’m following up,” I told him.
“Let’s do lunch sometime,” he called out as I left.
There was nothing for it. I would just have to wait for the inevitable. I walked back to my cubicle and called my wife. I told her to check the balance in our meager savings account and to cut up the credit cards. By this time tomorrow, if Presky’s consultants had anything to do with it, I’d be unemployed. I worked on updating my résumé until the consultants came.
They showed promptly at ten, two suits with staccato talking heads attached. They asked for some privacy so we went to the small conference room and shut the door. They were polite, but that didn’t stop them from taking turns asking a barrage of questions. I parried the questions as long as I could; giving nothing away, anything that I thought would help Presky bury me. About ten minutes into the interview I got an eerie feeling. By the types of questions they were asking it became clear to me that there was something very seriously wrong. The light bulb suddenly came on.
“You guys aren’t consultants. You’re Feds.”
Suit number one spoke. “Mr. Phelan, you must keep this in complete confidence. We’ve set up a cover story, complete with a consulting contract to make our spending a few weeks asking questions around the various departments seem as plausible as possible. Yes, we are with the government. We’re investigating illegal goings on in the company, money laundering, fraud, a big Ponzi scheme, that sort of thing. You’re a key source in this investigation, managing the MIS department you do. So please, answer our questions as best you can.”
“Call me Frank. Can I ask a question?”
“You may, however we may not be able to answer it.”
“What were you doing in Presky’s office so early this morning? Why is he your contact in this whole thing?”
They looked at each other and in an unspoken agreement seemed to make a decision. Suit number two took the initiative.
“This investigation was set up at the highest levels. We aren’t supposed to do this, but since you are one of the key sources of information we will. This is strictly off the record. The target of this probe is Mr. Presky. Apparently he and a fellow who goes by the initial W with no period behind it have been up to some shenanigans with the company’s financial control and accounting systems. Presky was the one used to set up the consulting contract. Our experience in these types of investigations has shown that when the target of a probe, unbeknownst to them, is also the driving force of it, they are usually the last to know the true purpose. It’s sort of a hide in plain sight strategy, if you will. So please sir, now will you answer our questions?”
I rolled up my sleeves and grinned. “Like I said guys, call me Frank. Ask me anything, anything at all. What do you want to know?”
They started firing away, but I stopped suit number two in mid sentence.
“Do you guys mind if I give you some pointers?”
“Go ahead,” he said.
“Well, you’ve got to beat them at their own game. So, if you want to stay here and ask questions and not blow your cover, you should make an initial recommendation to Presky and W that they form a committee. They’ll expect that from you, since you’re consultants. Actually, recommend two committees and have each of them chair one. Copy Hildebrand on all your communications. If you don’t he’ll dig and make stuff up which may cause problems. Make sure Bryant sits in on all the meetings. Philson should sit in at least once a week so he feels involved.
You can start by saying that one committee is a task force to brainstorm the different aspects of the project you assign them, whatever that may be. Have them prepare capacity plans and a force field analysis. The other one can prepare Pareto charts and a feasibility study. That will take two weeks. Set up a conference call once a week to track progress.
Then you can bring the two committees together to prepare a white paper that in turn will be the raw data for a straw man. That’s another couple of weeks at least.
Then they’ll actually have to prepare the straw man. You just bought yourselves another week. After that you can have them present the straw man to an oversight committee of your choosing which will evaluate and recommend partnering strategies for the two committees to work together discussing viable alternatives for implementation. That’s another two weeks minimum.
Finally, they won’t be able to make a decision so they’ll look to you guys to tell them what to do. Tell them you need a week to come up with your final recommendations and you’ll have had eight weeks to unearth whatever it is you’re looking for.”
I was on a roll so I stopped and looked up. They were busily taking notes.
"What do you recommend the overall project should be?" one of them asked.
I thought about that one. Things were looking up. I was going to have fun directing this investigation. In my mind I had already dubbed it Operation Cold Dish, as in the old adage, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
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