Chapter 28: Ticking Clocks

Since I was back a day early, a lot of people did not know I was back in town. What was interesting was patrolling the exceptions. They came in three flavors—in-company senior, in-company junior, not from FDC. Since I had administrator privileges, I read the email stacks of some that had not messaged me.

For example, Vivian had several queries when I would be back. She replied that she understood her job, so she was good for a few days on her own. Veronica would query back, asking what they were doing that would get them in trouble. One of Sean's people, Howard Cockerham, was completely out of his depth. Another of my newer people, Richard Harold, was running his area as if I did not exist. I was unsure which was worse, but neither was good.

Sean talks about the expressions on his manager's faces when they are put to the test. Often the test is unfair and there is no winning action. Trekkers know this as the Kobayashi Maru scenario. There is no winning play, unless you cheat. Captain Kirk cheated, which is an event of its own. It appeared that I had people from both sides of the scenario. That was food for thought.

Personnel decisions are one of Sean's major strengths as a businessman. He grades at genius level for selecting people from the field, Sheila being just one example. I did not target that high. Decent results would be enough. So far Veronica was producing them for me. I decided to trust my feelings at least that far, though it meant giving Veronica her head. While this was twenty degrees of scary, I went with it.

The other side of Boston's coin was Security Services. Richard Harold was a retired Military Police First Sergeant. All of my military people deferred to him habitually. To some degree, I liked that, but he was taking things a bit too far. When I got back to Boston we would see eye to eye, or he would be walking home.

In Concord, I had the opposite problem. No one wanted to take charge. No wonder both sides of Boston was growing faster. Howard Cockerham was an excellent record keeper, but he could not decide which fork to use. I needed someone to tell him what to do, all day, every day. In other words, I needed someone like Veronica, but with a Granite State accent.

All this was first impressions, from a single week of sabbatical. Still, I was fairly confident of my ground. Of the two, I expected Concord to take longer, so Johnson and I heading for Boston. I hoped for a quick fix, because I could at least hope that First Sergeant Harold would recognize me as his command authority.

On the road, I contacted Gerald. He was full of theory, but not so much practical help. This was a common issue between us. Finally he said, "Stop worrying about it. Channel Sheila and you'll be fine. Most people I would tell to channel Sean, but you've been doing that all your life. Sheila is the one you need to focus on."

That made entirely too much sense. Gerald once said that Sheila could deliver a thirty-minute briefing in fifteen seconds. She could verbally cut you to ribbons, without raising her voice. You might not get her sharpest point for a week. In a way, it was complimentary. Stupid people would never get it all. Gerald also said that soft handling fools was not one of Sheila's skills.

Put like that, what I needed to do was obvious. When I arrived in Boston, I spent an hour with Veronica. Mostly she told me what she wanted to do, and I told her what resources I could let her have. As I left, I told her that I liked the direction we were going. Then I corrected myself. I said I liked the direction she was steering.

My meeting with Richard Harold took almost as long. Rather than talk about what we were doing in Boston, I picked his brain about how to get things rolling in Concord. Not only did he have a ton of leadership training, he also knew Howard Cockerham. I always have my phone on dictation. This was one occasion where I was very glad I did.

Richard's perceptions reinforced most of mine, but his were more structured and systematic. He gave me several signs to watch for and tips for when they happened. It was time well spent. As I left, I told him I had the right man in his job. He could stop trying to impress me. If that did not compress a long conversation to two sentences, I did not know how to do it.

For everyone's morale, I handed Veronica and Richard a couple of gift cards to Gino's Deli. They could get lunch catered in. It was the way Sean would have handled it. He was fond of paying for a round he did not stay to drink. Instead, I indulged in a chocolate shake. What I had just done was easy, relaxed, almost fun. What waited in New Hampshire was going to be work.

Since it was already afternoon, I decided to sleep over in my Nashua apartment. This presented a problem, since I had a driver. I tried to put Johnson up in a Motel Six, but he refused. I had to suppress a smile, because I expected him to do exactly that. He slept on my sofa and I promised to find an apartment with a guest room.

This proved remarkably easy. I called the building manager. She told me she had a couple that wanted to buy a house, but had five months left on their lease. She was willing to let me move to that apartment, provided the paperwork costs were covered. Reading between the lines, she wanted to give the newlyweds a break. She could eat six months on my lease, because I would be signing a twelve-month lease on a higher rent unit. Lost in all this was one detail. It was a penthouse apartment.

Two days later, in Concord, we went through a lot of this again. I took over four months of a graduating student's lease, decorated in Early American Garage Sale. She was a Criminal Justice major, so I gave her Richard Harold's number in Boston and thought no more about it. More time was spent on restocking the pantry. I sent Johnson back to Nashua to supervise the change of apartments.