Chapter 6

I had spent three days at the Dover plant, mostly observing the employee attitudes and their morale. I didn't like any of what I was seeing. From top to bottom, employees were putting in their time, just going through the motions. Every department I looked at was being operated as if the results didn't really matter. There was no accountability for anyone.

When I spoke to either Gus or Tony, they said all the right things, but they didn't seem to be following through on most of what they agreed to do. Four of our largest and newest bread ovens were down, supposedly waiting for spare parts that were on back order from the manufacturer. It was no wonder bread sales were way down. Our production capacity was severely constricted, but almost all of the lost production was in perishable breads, breads that were only being sold locally.

On the third day, unable to get anyone to supply me with a firm date for the ovens to be back on line, I got on the phone and called the oven manufacturer's myself. When the manufacturing support people tried giving me the run around, I just kept demanding to speak to someone with the authority to get me what I needed. I was finally given to a public relations vice president.

The man knew absolutely nothing about replacement parts availability, but he did understand the impact of what he was being threatened with, and knew our following through with the threat would result in an industry wide spate of negative publicity for his company.

Soon, I was speaking with someone who did understand the need for getting parts to us quickly. I asked him what I had to do to convince him of the necessity for his company to get our ovens back up, producing once again. There were a few more tense minutes while we each went back and forth about the conflict of our needs with their needs. I finally just told him that two of our ovens had been down for almost sixty days, waiting on parts. The other two had been down almost thirty days. I told him what that meant to us in lost current sales, and in our down the road costs, in terms of loss of market share.

He told me that sending us the needed replacement parts could only be accomplished if he took the parts out of finished floor models in the sales and display room. He told me there was a strict company policy against doing that.

"Jack, unless we have the problem resolved to my complete satisfaction, sometime this morning, and that would mean me knowing for a fact that those parts are on their way to Dover, I'm having our lawyers file a suit for the monetary damages your unreasonable delay is causing to our business. We'll let the lawyers and the judges decide whether this delay is reasonable or not. You might win in court, but the bad publicity is sure to hurt some of your future sales results. My father and I will both make sure your reputation stinks with every big baker in the country. You can't treat customers this way, and you damn well know that. This isn't something that you can continue to ignore and just hope it goes away on its own. Once we get started, once the word goes out about your poor customer service, you'll be through in this market. You might as well just close your doors."

"You won't get what you want by threatening me, Mr. Parsons. I've already told you, I'd look into the problem, and I'll follow up, in the promptest way possible."

"I've already told you too, Jack, we've listened to that same bull shit for two months now. We have records showing our first request for replacement parts was made almost two months ago. Even worse, all of these ovens are still under your factory warranty. This business is already going to cost a few people their jobs here on my end. Right now, I'd be satisfied to just get the parts I need to get fired back up, and producing bread again. I'm saying that I'm willing to assign all the blame for this to my people, for not doing what they needed to do to light a fire under your asses, for not doing what it took to get those parts sent out to us. You keep screwing around with me, not shouldering what is your clear responsibility, and I won't rest until I know that you are personally out looking for a new job for yourself. That isn't an idle threat, Jack, that's my personal promise to you."

"I can't authorize cannibalizing any of our floor models, no matter what threats you're making. I also don't appreciate you personalizing this problem. This is a routine business situation, nothing for you to be making any personal threats about."

"All right, Jack, we'll play it just like you seem to want to. I'll be on the phone for the rest of the day, and I'll be telling every baker I know in this country, exactly what kind of service and support you give to a customer who's spent more than five million dollars with you, over the past eighteen months. I will stay on the phone, talking to these people, until every oven we have is back up and operating again. The bakers that I don't know, either my father knows them, or there's someone he knows real well, who will agree to call them for us. Your reputation, all over this country, will smell just like shit, before this weekend even gets started. When your boss calls me later, begging me to quit blackening your company's reputation, I'll ask him whether you still work for him or not. My Dad and I will keep calling people, until your boss tells me he fired you, and that our parts are on their way."

"Why should I believe you? How do I know you have the ability to do what you claim?"

"My grandfather was Ronald Chalmers. My mother and I have a combined net worth of almost a billion dollars, Jack. With that kind of money, we can get almost anything we want. I don't usually act like such an ass hole to get what I want, but, right now, I'm very upset with the cavalier way you've been treating my very serious problem. You've caused me to believe the only way to get my problem fixed, will be to give you an even bigger problem to deal with, in the event you decide not to do exactly what I want. When I get this upset, I make damn sure the people responsible for it will sincerely regret causing it to happen. Do I get what I need, or do you and I go to war with each other?"

"I need to check to see if I can get authorization Mr. Parsons. Can I call you back in fifteen minutes?"

I gave him the number, and told him to just ask for me if I didn't answer the phone personally. As soon as we got off the phone, I was on another line calling my father. I told him what I'd threatened, and, after filling him in on what the problems were, I told him I thought we needed to fire both Gus and Tony.

"Gus can elect to retire, Kenny. He's earned that much. We'll need to give Tony a nice severance package. Have him call me to negotiate it, will you?"

"I don't think so, Dad. You said I was in charge here. There's a lot going on here right now. This isn't everything, just the one thing that was most noticeably wrong. Don't talk severance pay with a man we might want to turn around and criminally prosecute later. This could be a case of deliberate corporate sabotage. The people I finally ended up talking to, over at the manufacturing plant, told me that no one from over here has even been calling them to complain about the delays in getting our ovens back up, and producing."

"Kenny, your mother is worried about your mental state right now. Should I be concerned as well?"

"Dad, you sent me out here to look into this problem, and to get this division turned around. Have I said anything that indicates I'm not tending to that?"

"No, but if she's worried, I need to know for myself that you're okay to be representing us."

"Dad, I'm really fine. In fact, I've been too busy to worry about any personal stuff. I'll take care of it when I get back. Tell Mama not to worry so much. Half my problems are caused by her meddling anyway."

"She loves you, Kenny. She wants what's best for you."

"I love her too, but I wish she'd find another hobby. Don't worry about me. I'm starting to really get a good handle on things here. I'm enjoying having the need to make decisions several times each day."

After I got off the phone with my Dad, no more than ten or twelve minutes had passed since getting off the phone with Jack. The president and founder of the oven manufacturing company called me personally, to apologize, and to assure me that my needed parts were being air freighted to Dover.

"I knew your grandfather, Ronald Chalmers, from Kansas, right?"

"Yes. He died while I was still very young."

"A powerful man, and a man who didn't suffer fools gladly."

"People tell me I'm a lot like him. Then they tell me he was a lot nicer about these sort of things than I am." He laughed at that. We talked some more about the need for keeping in touch, and he gave me a direct phone line, so that I could call him personally, if we ever encountered problems with any of the products we bought from him.

I felt pretty good about getting what we needed. I wanted to call my Dad back and let him know that one problem was getting solved, but I didn't want him to think I wasn't already expecting to get things all fixed up in Dover. I figured he already had a few people in place, in Dover, people that would be reporting my progress, or the lack of it, back to him. I didn't kid myself that he wasn't fully aware of what had been happening in Dover.

I had set up a meeting with Gus. I'd wanted it earlier, but eleven thirty was the earliest he could squeeze me into his busy schedule. I showed up at eleven twenty five, and he had me sitting in his secretary's office, cooling my heels, until twenty before noon. When he buzzed his secretary, telling her he could see me now, I got up and calmly walked into his office.

"Hi Gus, good of you to squeeze me in on such short notice. I just wanted you to know that I got off the phone with Lou Elderson, in Michigan, and our oven parts problems are finally taken care of. He's air freighting them out to us today. I have two crews standing by to install the new parts."

"Really? That's great news. I've been expecting the parts any day now. This is about average for those guys. We made a big mistake buying from them. I told your dad that, but he wouldn't listen. He was in too big a hurry to increase our capacity. I knew something like this was going to happen."

"I bet you did. I'd be very surprised if I found out that anything happened here, that you didn't know was happening."

"What is that remark supposed to mean?"

"It's supposed to mean that I'm pretty sure you and Tony sold us out to one of the competitors. I'm going to find someone over at the competitor's that likes making extra money just as much as you and Tony did. When I do find that person, and he tells me what happened, I'm going to the district attorney, and I'm going to have him dig into your personal finances, from the time we acquired this division, until the present time. I'm betting that they will find you received a large, unexplained, sum of money. People will always talk if you make it worth their while. In the meantime, I'm firing you for cause. Have your lawyers contact our lawyers if you want to appeal, Gus. I want you clearing your stuff out of this building before five o'clock. I'll be leaving now, to go see if I can find Tony. I hope the next time I see you, it will be in a criminal courtroom."

The meeting with Tony was a lot shorter. Gus had already called to warn him. He blustered about suing me for slander, but he stopped talking when I told him I'd be spending up to a million dollars of my own money, to dig into every financial transaction he, or any member of his family, had made in the past eighteen months. Tony wouldn't have made a very good poker player. I could see his anger changing to fear. By five o'clock, both of them were gone, stripped of their corporate credit cards, their company leased vehicles, and anything else of value, belonging to the company.

I spent the next day, meeting with every department head, separately, in Gus's office, which I had taken over for myself. The men I met with were all nervous, thinking that I might be calling them in to fire them, like I had Gus and Tony.

I explained to each of them that I was holding them personally accountable for the results being shown in their departments. If they performed their jobs adequately, they had nothing to fear. If they didn't perform, they'd be gone as soon as I found their replacement. I didn't try to act friendly with them. I'd start acting friendly when I saw some improved results in their departments.

I told our marketing manager to have all our local sales people offer our bread at twenty per cent off our normal prices, for the next month. We needed to do something to win back the confidence of our retailers. We wouldn't make a profit on our bread sales doing this, but I hoped to regain some high percentage of our lost market share. Once we had regained market share, I'd raise our prices back to the previous levels.

I spent the next week visiting every part of the Delaware plant, talking to our employees. I encouraged them to tell me what they liked, and what they disliked, about the way we were operating things. At first, they were reluctant to be frank with me, but, when they saw that I wasn't making trouble for the people who had elected to speak out, I began getting a lot of honest opinions, and some frank evaluations, from the people out working on the baking floor. People who do the actual work at a bakery often know what needs changing far better than the executives do. They always know what's really going on. They'll tell you too, if you have the good sense to ask them.

I got many good suggestions on how to improve operations, and the working conditions. I implemented as many good suggestions as I could, spending some of our money to improve the things the employees had told me were important to them. Some of the suggestions paid immediate returns, especially the ones concerning new ways to do things that were better, more efficient, or simply safer. Most of these were obvious, once someone took the time to look at what was being talked about. For every suggestion that resulted in any kind of significant improvement, I presented a cash reward to the individual employee that made the suggestion first.

Joyce called me at work, after I had been in Delaware for two weeks. She wanted to know when I was coming back. I told her I'd been busy, trying to make progress with the division, and I needed to stay for awhile longer, to see some of my changes implemented.

"Did you decide yet, Kenny?"

"No. I've thought about it, but I still can't see any way I could give in to the four of you on this. You're asking me to accept being uncomfortable and unhappy, so that the four of you can stay together. How are the twins?"

We talked about the babies, and I started really missing them. So much happens in the early part of a baby's life. I was missing out on all of it. When we finally finished our call, I think both of us were feeling sad.

My Dad called me too, at least every other day, and we usually spoke for about half an hour. He liked the way our bread sales had spiked up sharply, but he hated the fact that we were giving it away at our cost, or even less, when you counted in some fixed depreciation costs. I told him about some of the changes I was making, and about progress being made in integrating our overall shipping and delivery systems with the rest of our companies. It was too soon for anything good to show up on the profit column, but I told him he'd be seeing greater profits down the line.

I told him there was no one in the division capable of running it. We were going to need to go outside to bring in replacements for both Gus and Tony. Replacing Tony was going to be more difficult than finding someone to take over for Gus. I had two people working on filling in with Tony's duties, and even then, things weren't being run very well. Operations was the key department in any baking company, and it needed someone with a good understanding of all the support departments, someone who could make them all work together, to assure things got done on time.