No Way Back (8 page)

Something about what I just saw is odd. It’s not only the man’s physical appearance, although that is peculiar. There’s something about the way he’s dressed, too –
those expensive tight-fitting clothes that don’t belong in a white-collar office. It’s an outfit you might see on a bouncer at a downtown nightclub – the clothes cost money, but
you can’t hide the fact that, underneath, there’s a brute.

And another thing. I look at my watch. Only a few minutes past eight o’clock. Why is my neighbour pulling
into
his driveway and coming home, when the rest of the world is going
out towards work? I wonder what kind of job he has.

I try to peer into his house, but the shades are closed tight, the windows dark. Everything about his house is uninviting.

Welcome to the neighbourhood
, I think to myself, as I get into my car and drive to work.

Not
directly
to work, mind you.

There’s that little matter of breakfast. You can’t turn a company around on an empty stomach. Indeed, there’s not much you
can
do on an empty stomach, except lose
weight, and so I swing through the McDonald’s drive-thru for my daily Egg McMuffin.

The Egg McMuffin is my morning ritual, having replaced cigarettes and booze a few years back. Not many people can feel virtuous eating an Egg McMuffin in the morning, but I can.

Having driven through the drive-thru, I plop the car into park, and I eat the muffin at the side of the restaurant, with the engine running and the air blasting in my face. Twenty seconds later,
I crumple the paper wrapper into a little ball, put the car into drive, dart out of the exit, then screech two quick lefts –
Rockford Files
style – and drive back through the
drive-thru yet again, for a second McMuffin.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, gulping down that second muffin, I sense there may be a tenuous link between my morning breakfast ritual and my ever-expanding abdomen. But that link, whatever
it is, is shrouded in uncertainty, and requires further scientific study.

I stop next at the bank, pull $200 out of the ATM, and finally arrive at the Tao office at 8.30. Apparently my ball-busting speech at the meeting yesterday had an effect: I’m not the first
to have arrived. There are more than a few cars in the lot.

Inside, Amanda is at the front reception desk, reading a book intently and underlining a passage with her pen. She’s so engrossed – staring at the text, biting her lower lip,
concentrating – that she doesn’t notice me until I’m upon her. She looks up, surprised, and shuts the book.

‘Good morning, Jim,’ she says.

‘Morning, Amanda. Whatcha reading?’

She smiles. ‘It’s a good book. Have you ever read it?’

She holds it up for my inspection. It’s small, dog-eared, so old and worn from use that the gold foil stamp on the cover says only ‘Holy Bib’ – with the
le
just
a faint embossment.

‘Not lately,’ I admit. But I’m not thrown by this. In my line of work – drug-induced self-destruction, that is – I’ve met more than a few super-hot women who
turn out to be religious kooks. It’s no coincidence, either. Being attractive tends to get you into trouble, and loose women always think Jesus can get them out. Who am I to say they’re
wrong?

‘All right,’ I say, nodding. ‘Rock on.’ I give a little fist pump to show I’m OK with Bible-reading at work. Better than porn, less good than the Employee Manual.
Somewhere in between.

I continue past, but she calls, ‘Jim.’ She lowers her voice, glances to the back of the bullpen. Her eyes convey warning. ‘Dom Vanderbeek is here. He’s been waiting for
you.’

Yesterday morning, I humiliated Dom Vanderbeek, our Vice President of Sales, by summoning him imperiously to the office at a moment’s notice. Once he arrived, I ignored
him for the rest of the day, letting him seethe and glare at me across the tops of the cubicles in the bullpen. When he seemed unable to bear it any longer, I had Amanda send him a terse email
inviting him to a ‘one-on-one’ meeting with me the following morning. It’s a little trick I’ve learned over the years: if you want to establish dominance in a corporate
hierarchy, you have to be brutal. There must never be doubt about who is in charge.

Now our meeting has begun, and I’m sitting in the high-tech boardroom, listening to Dom Vanderbeek. Rather than acting like a beaten man, humbly begging my approval, Dom has spent the past
five minutes telling me why he’s the most important person in my world.

These reasons include, in no particular order: Without Dom Vanderbeek, sales at Tao would plummet; Dom Vanderbeek’s mere presence boosts company morale; and Dom Vanderbeek can help me
– a novice CEO – navigate insoluble management problems.

Dom Vanderbeek looks exactly the way I expected him to. He’s in his early forties, tall and trim, with the build of a tri-athlete. He has a handsome face; short dark hair cut in a Caesar,
greying at the temples; and a bright smile that is the result, I am sure, of expensive bleaching treatments. He wears a big masculine watch, which he makes a point of showing off by wearing his
sleeves rolled. A Rolex Submariner, I note. The watch of choice for Sales VPs.

When Dom finishes telling me why he is important to me, I nod thoughtfully, sit back in my chair, and say, ‘I understand what you’re saying.’

‘Do you, Jim?’ He leans forward, drills me with his gaze. ‘Do you really? Because yesterday you treated me very shabbily. I felt very bad about it.’

I’ve met Dom’s type before. In his effort to move up the corporate ranks, Dom has taken several weekend seminars where they teach you effective ‘interpersonal skills’.
Invariably these seminars advise you to confront co-workers, bosses, and subordinates openly and honestly, rather than stewing about perceived slights. In theory, it’s a good idea, but in
practice it has the opposite effect of what you’re trying to achieve. Rather than making you seem open and honest, your co-workers perceive you as abrasive and confrontational. After all,
you’re always telling them what’s bothering you.

Dom says, ‘Do you know what I’m referring to, Jim?’

I do. He’s referring to yesterday’s phone call where I put him on speakerphone and humiliated him in front of the rest of Tao’s employees. Actually, I do feel bad about that.
But it’s one of those things you need to do when you arrive at a company that’s going down the shitter. There is no time for social niceties. You need to establish your authority.
It’s immaterial who your target is. You need to pick
someone
. All that matters is that you let everyone at the company know that you are the alpha male, that you are in charge. In
that way, the executive suite isn’t much different from prison. In both places, the leader needs to pick a bitch. I guess that makes Dom my bitch.

‘Listen, Dom,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry I was rude to you yesterday. Really I am. The truth is, I need you on my side.’

‘That’s good to hear.’

‘Every company needs a sales king. And I want you to be mine.’

He nods. ‘All right, then.’

‘So tell me about sales.’

‘Sales?’

‘Since you are my sales king. Maybe you can let me know what’s in the sales pipeline.’

‘The pipeline is good,’ Dom says. ‘The pipeline is strong.’

‘OK.’ I nod. I wait for more. But he’s silent. So I say: ‘Can you give me a
hint
what’s in it?’

‘Well,’ he says, and sighs, as if the thought of having to run through the massive sales pipeline is frankly exhausting. ‘We’re talking to Facebook, of course.
They’re the big player now. And MySpace. And Yahoo. And Google.’

‘You’re talking to them?’

‘And lots of smaller players, too.’

‘Great.’

‘So, my message is’ – he points his index finger at me – ‘I’m on top of it.’

‘Great,’ I say again. ‘But when you say that you’re
talking
to them, what does that mean? Talking like: “Hello, nice to meet you”? Or talking like:
“Here’s the contract. Sign on the dotted line”?’

‘More like the second. The dotted line.’

‘OK,’ I say. ‘So do you have a pipeline report I can look at?’

‘A what?’

‘It’s a report that sales executives usually prepare. It describes what’s in the sales pipeline, and where we stand with every prospect—’

‘I know what a pipeline report is, Jim. I’m asking why you want one.’

‘Well,’ I say patiently, ‘I’m curious whether our company will still exist in September. I’m curious if you and I will still have jobs. I’m hoping you can
enlighten me.’

‘I see.’

‘So will you prepare one for me? A pipeline report?’

Dom looks at me as if I’ve asked him to change a dirty diaper.

‘Jim,’ he says. ‘Let me ask you something.’ He swivels in his chair, leans back, looks down his nose at me. ‘You seem to know all about me. Maybe I can ask about
you. What’s
your
background?’

‘Fair question, Dom,’ I say, pleasantly, even though, at this instant, I make the decision that I will need to fire him. ‘Let’s see. I grew up in California. I graduated
from Berkley undergrad. I worked twenty-five years in Silicon Valley. I’ve held sales and management jobs at several companies, including SGI, Lantek, NetGuard. A few others, too.’

If my résumé impresses Dom, he doesn’t show it. ‘The reason I ask,’ Dom says, ‘is that I’m just wondering.’

‘Wondering what?’

‘Wondering why they appointed you CEO.’ He cocks his head and speaks in a gentle, quiet voice – as if he’s a child asking me to retell a particularly charming fairytale:
the one where the village idiot wanders into the castle and is mistaken for king.

‘I suppose,’ I say, ‘because I have a track record.’ But it is a good question. I’m not exactly the most likely candidate for this job – or
any
turnaround job – with a résumé that includes two addictions, three arrests, and more than my share of day-long blackouts.

‘
Do
you have a track record?’ he asks. Again, it’s a friendly, encouraging tone of voice. There’s no malice, no hint of challenge.

‘Are you disappointed that they didn’t ask you to be CEO, Dom?’

Dom nods. ‘I am. Yes, I am, Jim.’ Again, the in-your-face honesty. He must have passed that Interpersonal Skills Seminar with flying colours.

The funny thing about Sales VPs is that they always think
they
should be CEO. In every company I’ve ever worked for, every sales guy guns for the top job, but doesn’t get
it; and he winds up bitter and disappointed. It’s the nature of being good at sales. To be good at sales, you need to be completely unaware of what a tool you are. After all, what kind of man
can talk his way into a corporate executive suite at some media company, and blow smoke about Tao’s half-assed software – software that doesn’t always work – and then ask
for a fifty-thousand-dollar cheque? The kind of man who isn’t easily embarrassed. The kind of man who doesn’t know how ridiculous he appears to others. The kind of man who thinks that
he, above all other candidates, should be CEO. In other words: the Sales VP.

As much as I’d like to cut Dom loose – to fire him right now, as he sits across the table from me, smiling with those bleached white teeth of his – such a move would be
impossible. With only seven weeks of cash left, we need to make sales.
Now
. Without Dom, we start from zero. I say gently, ‘I sympathize, Dom. I really do. Probably, you
should
be CEO of this company.’

He smiles. He likes that idea.

I continue. ‘Here’s the good news. I’m only temporary. If we can turn this thing around, then I can leave. Which means the CEO job will be open. And of course I’ll put in
a good word for anyone who helps me. That could be you.’
It could be
, I think,
but it’s pretty unlikely.

I look at Dom, see if my words have had a soothing effect. Dom says, ‘I appreciate what you’re saying, Jim. What you’re saying is: If I help you turn around Tao, you’ll
help me get the CEO job.’ He adds, ‘When you leave.’

Sales 101: Repeat the pitch, and encourage the customer to say it out loud, too. I play along. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying, Dom. When I leave, I’ll help you get the
job.’

He nods and smiles. ‘I like what I’m hearing.’

‘But here’s the problem. You want to be CEO? We need to have a company for you to be the CEO of. And that means we need to keep Tao Software alive. Which means we need to get cash in
the door.’

‘Which I’m working on.’

‘You don’t understand,’ I say. ‘More of the same ain’t gonna cut it.’ I lean over the table and lower my voice, as if sharing a great confidence.
‘We’re running out of cash, Dom. We have seven weeks left.’

‘Seven weeks?’ He raises an eyebrow. Normally, it’s not good policy to tell employees how dire the situation really is. Honesty is never, despite the old maxim, the best
policy. Honesty makes people look for new jobs. But Dom, I wager, isn’t going anywhere. Not if he has a shot at the top spot at Tao. He’ll stick around long enough to give it a try.

‘That is why,’ I say, ‘we need to sell something. This week.’

Dom smiles, the way you smile at your pudgy nephew, when he says something cute. ‘Sell something this week? Sure. Why the hell not?’ He shrugs. ‘Except that we don’t have
a fucking product to sell, Jim. If those idiots in engineering would give me something, something that actually worked, maybe I could help you, but—’

‘We have a demo,’ I say. ‘I saw it yesterday. It works.’ I think about Randy’s warnings. I add quickly, ‘Most of the time, anyway. But we can sell
it.’

‘Aw, shit,’ Dom says.

‘I’ve been doing some thinking,’ I say.

‘Five dangerous words from a CEO,’ he mutters.

‘We’re selling to the wrong people. We’re selling the wrong product.’

‘Oh, OK,’ Dom says agreeably. ‘Let’s just build a new product, you and me. We won’t tell any of the Computer Science PhDs who work here until we’re all
done.’

‘Think about it. We’re trying to make money by selling software to teenagers who use Facebook. They’re fifteen-year-old girls with braces and crushes. They get an allowance
from Mommy and Daddy. Is it any surprise we don’t have any revenue?’