Chapter 47: Jeri Explains It All

January 16, 1992, Chicago, Illinois

The executive team, Kimmy, Sam, Jeri, and I were sitting in the conference room eating lunch. Those of us who had gone to Boston had come straight to the office from O’Hare.

“Cindi,” I directed.

“I reviewed all the customer records, mostly just checking to see that everyone is current in their payments, and also checking on the clients who are active, but not paying maintenance. I don’t see any red flags of any kind. Art and I placed calls to the top five clients and they all seem reasonably content for now. The main thing was to assure them of continuity of support.”

“How long do you think we’ll support both systems?” Julia asked.

“I think 24 months,” Cindi said. “For the first twelve months, we’ll do bug fixes and perhaps even a few minor enhancements. After that, only critical bug fixes. At the end of the two years, it’s best effort to find a workaround.”

“And the conversion process?” Dave asked.

“Is going to take most of those two years. And I want to reopen the discussions about the ‘Light’ version of our software. We already have the ‘Small Office’ version for fewer than five licenses.”

“Won’t we cannibalize some of our revenue?” Elyse asked. “Some firms may want to save money.”

“I think the expanded business and having a lower cost system is important,” Cindi said. “That was the niche that BLS served.”

“I think we can do that,” Dave said. “It’s really just a matter of disabling some features. When Greg built the license coding system it allowed for different versions. It’s a matter of setting and checking for a flag.”

“I think that makes a lot of sense,” Julia said. “Dave, put together a plan, please.”

“Will Greg’s database dump program work for conversions in the future?” I asked.

“I can make some improvements now that I have access to their source code,” Jeri said. “The code is typical Greg - very solid and well written, and well documented. Art is probably the guy we want to hire, but I know that won’t work. He’s a lot like Steve. Same kind of background, same general skills. And I think that’s the source of their failure.”

“Could you expand on that?” I asked.

“He never learned to delegate and he’s no more of a businessman than you were when you started, at least as I hear from Elyse and others. His partner was a bit better, but he was their main salesman and wasn’t in the office much. You had a huge advantage in creating the Board of Directors to guide NIKA.”

“I kind of got that drift as well, from the financials they sent me yesterday,” Elyse said. “They weren’t careful enough about managing reserves and handling expenses. And they appeared to have based what they charged on how many sales they could get, not on the actual profit margins necessary to sustain operations. It’s the one reason I’ve adamantly opposed discounting our software or maintenance. We can’t ever let our costs outstrip our revenues except for very specific purposes and very limited periods.”

“And that’s why you’re in your role,” I said. “OK. Cindi, you’re heading out there next week?”

“Yes. Mario’s meeting me in Boston and we’re going to start mapping out the conversions. He’s also going to review the active deals they were working on. We’ll get those to Kayla and Cynthia so they can work on them.”

“Did you decide which of the support people you wanted?” I asked.

“Yes. The guy from their Texas office, John Kyle, and one of the women in Boston, Leticia Boone.”

“Kimmy, please work with Cindi to draw up the paperwork. Cindi, where?”

“One in Pittsburgh, one in Chicago. I don’t want to spend the money we’d need to spend to expand the LA office further, nor pay the increased costs. If we expand in the western region, it needs to be in Colorado or Washington State. California is just too damned expensive. And we can’t raise our licensing and support fees for California firms any further!”

“No, we can’t,” I agreed. “Make that happen. Sam and I recommend making an offer to Ally Grayson. Dave, you talked to her on the phone, and Cindi and Jeri talked to her in Boston. Any objections?”

Everyone shook their heads.

“Good. Cindi, let’s see if we can get her. Do we know what her husband does?”

“He’s a detective,” Jeri said. “I talked to her yesterday afternoon right before we left their offices in Natick.”

“Hmm. I’m reticent to call Alderman Bloom because of the crap the FBI is giving everyone, but I have another idea. Get the paperwork, but hold off until I make a phone call.”

“Aimee’s dad?” Elyse asked.

“Yes. I’m not sure he has an opening, but even if he doesn’t, he has contacts all over the place - FBI, police, private security companies, and so on.”

“Are we hiring anyone else at all?” Elyse asked.

“I don’t see the need,” I said. “We have an open programmer’s position, but there’s no need to relocate someone from Boston. Dave can find someone here, I’m sure.”

“Yes, I can,” he said. “When do you and Penny start on the project for Dante?”

“Mid-February. That gives you four weeks.”

“I’m going to move someone from Tasha’s team to the legal software team, and hire for Tasha’s team. The medical software is far less time sensitive.”

“As long as Julia’s OK with it, I’m fine with that.”

“No objections,” Julia said. “Charlie needs three more consultants. One in each city.”

“That creates an office space issue,” Elyse said.

“No, not really,” Cindi said. “We can ‘hotel’ desks. They aren’t in the office all that much if things are going according to plan.”

“I need to run the numbers and you need to show me the potential business, Julia,” Elyse requested.

“Charlie and Cindi have the justification ready,” Julia said. “I’ll come talk to you after the meeting.”

“Too much, too fast,” I said. “I’m not sure we can handle all of this.”

“We can, if you’re willing,” Elyse said.

“If you say it, Ms. Clarke, you’re fired!” I warned.

“Fire me! You have to be a full-time CEO. There isn’t any choice. If Cindi gets bogged down in this BLS acquisition, sales are going to suffer. Julia has to focus on managing the consulting practice and the development team, not to mention her design work. I have more work than my team can do in the short term. We’ll manage, but we’ll need some overtime to do it.”

“Dante will blow a gasket,” I said. “He’s expecting me to work on the project.”

“So manage it. He doesn’t have to know who actually writes the code. That’s what you hired Sam for, anyway. And why you put Penny on the project. We can hire a programmer. All the management stuff has to be done by you, me, Julia, or Cindi.”

“Damn it, Elyse!” I sighed.

“Steve,” Jeri said. “She’s right. You can’t wear both hats. Pick one and do it. If you try to be half of each all you’ll do is a half-assed job.”

“Ganging up on me now?” I groused.

“If you want advice from me, I’d say they’re right,” Sam said. “You’re an excellent programmer but SOMEBODY has to run this zoo. And right now, I guess that’s you.”

“Remind me why I hired all of you?” I sighed.

“Because you didn’t want to be selling out to Lone Star or BLS,” Jeri said.

“Please excuse this in advance, but FUCK YOU ALL!” I growled, but then laughed hard.

“No thanks,” Dave said. “I’m straight!”

That caused even more laughter and an eye roll from Sam. She hadn’t been in our ‘high level’ meetings before and didn’t know how they were conducted.

“I’ll take your suggestion under advisement,” I said. “Just get started on what we decided for now.”

The meeting broke up and I decided I wanted to take a walk to think. My walk took me past the diner, so I decided to stop in.

“Sorry about Tuesday,” I said.

“Penny told me. It’s OK. When are we going out?”

“How about Saturday night?” I said. “I have an idea for a fun place to go. We can dress the same if you want, but the place isn’t that upscale.”

“It was fun. Let’s dress up. 6:00pm?”

“I’ll see you then,” I said.

I left the diner and continued my walk. I turned south and found myself at the hospital. I checked my watch and headed in the main entrance. I went up to Al’s office to see if he was available. He was out, but Victoria said she could have him paged. I debated internally and then asked her to do that. About ten minutes later we were sitting in his office.

“Sorry to take you away from what you were doing.”

“Budget review. I’d much rather talk to you!”

“Budget review?”

“For Residents. Remember that starts in June.”

“The Match is in March! I completely forgot about that. It’s like ancient history at this point!”

“What can I do for you?”

“Listen to me vent for five minutes or so.”

“About something at home or at work?”

“As a member of the Board of Directors and my friend and mentor.”

“Go on!” he grinned, clearly happy it wasn’t about something personal.

I unloaded both barrels on Al. Several times. It was almost ten minutes later when I finally felt good enough to stop and take some deep breaths.

“Now you know EXACTLY how I feel,” he laughed. “Do you think I WANT to be doing this? No! But at some point, we have to acknowledge reality. I am VERY good at what I do, but teaching others to do it, and delegating tasks is what I SHOULD be doing as opposed to what I WANT to be doing. Yes, I take two shifts a week in the ER, but those are in addition to my normal, and I laugh when I say that, forty-hour work week. But I don’t have the outside obligations you do, so I can get away with it.

“I’m admitting to you something I would never admit to my bosses. I know you’ll keep my confidence on this. The day will come, sooner than I would like, when it will be DANGEROUS for me to do trauma surgery. In time, I’ll supervise when I’m on shift, but let someone younger AND better than me, do the work. And I’m not just talking about my daughter. There will be others better than me. I assume you have programmers like that?”

“Yes. Though minor losses in dexterity, mental acuity, and eyesight don’t cause the problems for programmers as they would for trauma surgeons. I can age and not have it affect my work very much, if at all.”

“Gee, thanks,” Al laughed. “You very neatly called me an old man without actually saying it!”

“Al, my dad is 75, and I don’t consider him ‘old’!”

Al laughed, “Good point, but your dad is healthier than most 45-year-olds I know. I’d say you have good genes, and that makes me happy. So, now that you’ve vented, what are you going to do?”

“What I SHOULD do. What I HAVE to do. What I want will have to wait.”

“For you, that works. As you said, in five years, or whatever the time frame is, you can get back to programming and in a very short time, likely be as good as you are now. That doesn’t happen with trauma surgeons. Or any surgeons for that matter. It’s something for you to remember as Jessica gets older.”

“She’ll hate that,” I said.

“So do I. But at some point, we become teachers, not doers. It has to be that way for the patients’ sake. But a lot of doctors won’t admit that. It helps that I have a gift, a curse really, of being a decent administrator. That gives me more career options than other doctors might have. There are a limited number of teaching jobs. We’re not like lawyers where we can create more business for ourselves.”

I laughed, “I’m glad we see eye-to-eye on that one!”

“Doctors, as a group, probably despise lawyers more than anyone else does. Every single medical judgment can be challenged in court, and sobbing, weepy, weak-minded jurors side with patients nearly every time. You can parade a hundred doctors through the witness stand, but the plaintiff will always find a paid ‘expert’ to say he would have done something differently. And that may well be true. But losing millions and risking your medical license on a legitimate judgment call is BS.”

“We’ve discussed this before,” I said. “It’s a tough problem to solve. Self-regulation creates moral hazard. Outside regulation by clueless politicians or, worse, fighting it out in court, means everyone loses. I suppose I’d start with malpractice reform. Claims only succeed when negligence or bad judgment can be proved. But how do you know what ‘bad’ judgment is? It’s a conundrum.”

“Yes, and so we struggle with a horribly flawed system, and try to make small changes around the edges. Some people think a purely socialized system will solve all the problems, but my view, and I think yours as well, is that the last group of people we want rationing health care resources are government bureaucrats. They have demonstrated a distinct inability to manage ANYTHING reasonably.”

I nodded, “Part of that is trying to centralize things in a country with 240,000,000 people. It won’t work any better here than in the Soviet Union. Add in corruption such as we have statewide in Illinois and locally in Chicago, and you can see why I’m a libertarian. The fewer resources the government has, the less the kleptocrats can steal for their own purposes, and the less power for the megalomaniacs to accrete to themselves for their own benefit.”

“You and my daughter are at least putting your money where your mouth is. UofC has tried for years to get the State or City to provide the services that the new crisis counseling center will provide. Between you and me, I wrote a sizable check as well, but it was anonymous.”

I smiled ruefully, “I wish your daughter had thought that one through before she let Jeri make that announcement. It’s had all kinds of unintended consequences.”

“Including what you ranted about before. But you know what? That’s not a bad thing. Neither is your serving on the Board of the Foundation. Neither is your taking a stronger hand with Jessica. I know an impulsive young surgeon who could have used a bit of moderation from a spouse or parent. He’s lucky he didn’t get into more trouble than he did!”

“Someday, Al, I want to hear some of those stories!”

“Booze, women, flashing my money around, and getting in over my head both at work and in my personal life? Maybe when I’m ready to retire!” he chuckled.

“Afraid I’ll tell Fawn or Gerry?”

“Exactly!”

January 17, 1992, Chicago, Illinois

“Good morning, Patrick!”

“Sorry I couldn’t get back to you yesterday. Katy and I were wrapping up a contract in DC.”

I laughed, “Do you know the story with her daughter?”

“Lucy? Yes.”

I laughed harder, “The fact that you call Katya Sergeyevna, ‘Katy’ is hilarious given how offended she is by Lyusya Alekseyevna going by ‘Lucy Alexa’.”

“It just kind of happened, I guess. Anyway, what can I do for you?”

“We’re going to make a job offer to a programmer who currently lives in the Boston area. Her husband is a police detective for the City of Boston. Normally, in the past, I would have called an Alderman friend for help, but you can imagine why that’s a bad idea.”

Patrick laughed hard, “Yes, if I were you, I’d avoid ANYTHING that might draw further attention from the FBI or any other investigations. There’s something big afoot in Chicago. But then again, given the government corruption, the unions, and The Outfit, that’s no surprise to anyone.”