Wild Fyre (2 page)

It’s like a puzzle. You meet a guy with really strong hands, a touch of OCD, and mild agoraphobia, and you say, “Hey, have you ever thought of working inventory control for a supermarket distributor?” I knew the guy who ran three local grocery warehouses, so I got the guy with strong hands an interview. He was a perfect fit. There wasn’t a finder’s fee or anything on that referral, but suddenly both of those guys owed me a favor. That’s the way it worked at the beginning. I wasn’t an official recruiter so I wasn’t in the position to ask for any money, but everyone began to owe me favors.
 

The government doesn’t want any superstars. I never helped place anyone in a government job. I always worked the other way around. I’d meet someone who already had a government job and I’d help them find something out in the private sector. I was working the puzzle. I moved people to a place they could enjoy and excel. There was no pressure. If I met someone who was interesting, I’d piece it all together until I figured out where they should work. If I knew the person hiring, I would put a bug in their ear. If I didn’t, it was a good chance for me to reach out and network. After a month or so, it only took one or two phone calls to get an introduction to the right person. They would always ask me, “What made you think of calling?” or, “What’s in it for you?” That was the biggest problem in those first few months. People thought I had an angle, but it was just a hobby for me.

And it only took a few months before I saw that it could be more than a hobby. The job market was hot, and talent was in high demand. At first, I kept my government job. I set up an office—Statler Staffing—and ran it on the side. My fee was low. I only filled positions for “exempt” employees, and I never worked for the employers. If someone came to me looking for a job, I’d help them find it. If a company came to me looking for bodies, they could go pound. I’d tell them to list their job in the paper like everyone else. I never wanted to be in the position of looking for one particular person to fill a role. That holds no thrill for me. I need to meet the person and then figure out what kind of job they would be good at. That’s my groove. And believe me, I am really good at it.

It’s a sales job. A guy can be out of work for six months and you’ll still have to sell him on why he should go to work for a credit union. I can’t exactly tell him that his haircut, manicure, gait, background, sexual preference, and cologne make him a perfect fit for ABC company. I have to sell him on the salary, benefits, and environment. Sometimes it’s a hard sell. And sometimes the employer doesn’t see past the résumé and understand that the person I’m sending them will be the best employee they’ve ever had. It’s a battle. Once I get my guy in the room and the chemistry happens, my guy will always get an offer. That’s my magic. I’m going to find a guy so perfect for the job that as soon as you shake hands with him, you’ll know.

CH.4.Jim ()
 

{

 
LunchWithJim();

/*****

N
OVEMBER
, 2012

E
D
S
TATLER
arrived at the restaurant twenty minutes before their agreed time. He didn’t know when Jim would show up, but he knew it would be before the time they had agreed upon. And he also knew that the lunch would flow more smoothly if Jim wasn’t the first to arrive. Jim had a tendency to get caught up in his own thoughts if he sat alone in a restaurant. Once engrossed, it might be hours before he became receptive to a normal conversation again. It was one of Jim’s strengths, as far as Ed was concerned.

When Jim walked in, he strode right by the hostess and came to Ed’s table. Ed stood and slightly bowed. Jim would shake your hand, if required, but it wasn’t his preference.
 

“Hey, Jim, thanks for coming,” Ed said.

“Not a problem.”

The two men sat on opposite sides of the round table. Ed straightened his silverware and Jim spread his napkin on his lap.

“What have you been up to?” Ed asked. This question could represent a fifteen minute commitment if asked in the middle of the meal, but because Ed opened with the question, Jim’s answer would be interrupted by the wait staff.

Jim talked with his hands.

“I started thinking about how all the molecules of an object are bound together in an array of arrays. They’re subdivided into smaller and smaller systems, and then even inside the atoms those structures are divided and organized even more.”

Jim’s explanation started there and built into an incredibly complex thesis over the next several minutes. The waiter arrived and stood for a few seconds before he interrupted.

“Can I bring you gentlemen something to drink while you look at the menu?” he asked.

“We’re ready to order, I think,” Ed said.

Jim handed his menu to the waiter and ordered. He hadn’t looked at it yet, but he knew what he wanted. Ed flipped his menu open to recall the name of the salad he was after. Ed got a beer with his lunch. Jim asked for Coke.

While the waiter was walking away, and before Jim could resume his explanation, Ed asked his real question, “You ready for another job?”

“Sure. What is it?” Jim asked.

This was a huge change since the first time they had worked together. When Ed had first met Jim, it took him a year and a half to convince him to go to work. Before he met Ed, Jim always had a difficult time starting a job. He would dive into the work head first, but it usually took his co-workers a few months to catch up to Jim’s way of thinking.
 

But when Ed put Jim into a job, it was always smooth sailing from the first day. The company knew what to expect, and Jim would be productive within hours of sitting down at his new desk.
 

“There’s a company down in Alexandria. They’ve got big data, but it’s all divided. They’ve got transactional data in one place, operational data in another, and demographics in a third silo. They can’t get decent analytics,” Ed said.

“What’s the infrastructure?” Jim asked.

Ed rattled off a series of acronyms and initialisms.

“And what kind of analytics are they trying to pull? Are we talking basic reporting or are they feeding into BI software?”

Jim peppered Ed with precise questions until the food came. As he chewed his food, Jim was already designing a solution to the problem based on Ed’s description. By the time he went to work, he would already have the entire approach mapped. This wasn’t Jim’s strength though. Ed knew dozens of database people who could listen to the same problem and come up with similar solutions.
 

Jim’s strength was that he would solve the problem in his head and then let that solution fade away. When Ed set up a job, Jim would walk in with no preconceived notions. He would let their marketing and IT people describe the problem and he would hear it with fresh, inquisitive ears. Then, he would lead them, step by step, to the right approach. Everyone in the meetings would walk away with the correct notions, supplied by Jim, and they would all feel invested in the solution. Only the managers would have the perspective to spot Jim’s miraculous influence. The project would proceed with very little friction.
 

Of course, this magic only happened when the company knew what to expect. That’s where Ed came in. He would set the stage and make sure all the pieces were aligned before he sent in Jim. That was one of Ed’s talents. He called himself a recruiter, but he was really a facilitator. He got the talented people to the right place and he set the table so they could create.

The clients were often mystified. They were
always
satisfied.

As they finished their food, Ed gave Jim the details of where and when and told him how much he would be paid for the work. The engagement would last about six months. Jim would get a salary. Ed would get a fixed fee. Jim was compensated well. Ed got just enough. Neither man was rich. Ed worked all the time, but he didn’t demand a large fee. Jim earned a ton but only worked about half the year.

With their business finished, Ed prompted Jim to finish his earlier thought about atoms and molecules. Jim surprised Ed by changing the subject.

“I’ve been working on a new data structure,” Jim said.

“Oh yeah?”

Jim pulled out his phone and began typing.

“You know how I record all my food and exercise?” Jim asked.

“Sure,” Ed said. Jim was skinny and fit, but he hadn’t always been. A couple years before, Jim had made a project of optimizing his health.

“I decided to put that data together with all my environmental and behavioral stuff.”

“Like what?” Ed asked.

“I’ve got my house automated,” Jim said. “I’ve been working on it for years. I put motion sensors around, hooked up the thermostats and lights, and I added a bunch of biometric sensors.”

“Cool. What for?”

“At first, I just wanted to start my coffee at the right time,” Jim said. “I hate when I get up and the coffee isn’t ready. But I also hate it when I get up and the coffee has been sitting out for two hours. I want it to finish brewing right when I’m done with my shower and I’m walking to the kitchen.”

“Can’t you simply turn it on before your shower?”

“I don’t like to walk to the kitchen before my shower,” Jim said. “I have a specific order for my morning, and I’ve arranged it carefully.”

“Couldn’t you move the coffee maker to the bedroom, or put it on a remote control?”

“I considered those approaches, but they’re crude. I wanted something elegant and extensible.”

“You mean you wanted to be able to apply the approach to future problems?”

“Yes. Like in two weeks, when I start that job, I’ll want to step into a warm car. I don’t need to warm my car up now, but when I start that job it would be nice if the system started my car to warm it up before I needed to leave. It could take into account the outside temperature so it would know how much in advance it should start the car. It it’s fifty outside, the car should start as I’m entering the garage. If it’s thirty degrees, the car might start five minutes earlier.”

“And your routine is regular enough for the system to predict when you’re ready to leave?” Ed asked.

“My routine varies from day to day, but patterns exist and could be predicted closely enough to be useful.”

“But is it worth the time to figure out? You can wear a jacket when you get in the car and take it off at the first red light.”

“If the approach is generic enough, you could save a tremendous amount of effort and time. I could eliminate routine shopping, save on gas and electricity, know how much sleep I need tonight for maximum alertness tomorrow—there are so many problems you could solve.”

“You’d need sensors everywhere,” Ed said.

“Not as many as you’d think. There are already a bunch around if you count your cell phone and all the computers—most have microphones and cameras. They can collect a lot of data. All your purchases are recorded in different systems. Most of that data is available. I’m already recording everything I eat. For food shopping, all I have to do is correlate all this information and I know what food I need to buy each week. The system can put in an order to a grocery store that delivers. All I have to do is put away the food.”

“What does Jessica think of automated food shopping?” Ed asked.

“We broke up,” Jim said. “She wanted kids. I always told her that I didn’t.”

Ed nodded.

“So are you building this system?” Ed asked. He was simply making conversation. He knew that even if Jim did create this amazing system, he would never sell it. Jim never sold any of his personal projects.

“I’m working on it,” Jim said. “The problem is the data. There are plenty of databases robust enough to handle the volume of information, but you can’t index and query them in the way I need. I want to be able to take all this information and instead of querying what happened in the past, I want to query it for what
will
happen. I need to index everything based on past and future occurrences.”

Ed laughed. “If you can do that, just query it for the upcoming lottery numbers. Then you can hire someone to shop for you.”

Jim smiled and nodded. Before he began his next sentence, he wiped his hand across the table, as if he wanted to clear away Ed’s joke.

“I’m putting together new data structures that I think will solve the problem. I won’t know until I get farther with the implementation. Can you call a dinner?”

Their group of friends had a standing lunch every two weeks, but dinner was something special. A dinner could take months to arrange. They all had complicated schedules, and “dinner” could easily last six or seven hours, depending on the topic being discussed.

“I can,” Ed said. “How much time do you need to get ready?”

“At least three months,” Jim said.

Ed pulled out his calendar and counted off the weeks. With client work, Jim had become an expert estimator. He could guess within a day when the project would be completed. But, on his own pet projects, it was best to double Jim’s estimates.

“How about April?” Ed asked.

“Perfect.”

“Is this a concept review, design hierarchy, code walkthrough, what?” Ed asked.
 

“Full demonstration,” Jim said.

“Really? What for?” Ed asked. When one of the group asked for a dinner, it was always so they could bounce their ideas off the others before they were finished. It was their way of finding roadblocks or validating their approach before they spent too much time with the computer on a dead end. A dinner seemed unnecessary for a demo. He could do a demo at lunch.

“I’ll be done with the system, but I’ll want to collect input before I put a user interface on it,” Jim said.

“Oh. That makes sense,” Ed said. It really didn’t. Their group was thick with big brains, none of whom had any idea what a good user interface looked like. They were all too technical to understand how a mere mortal would approach using a piece of software.