Chapter 49: Growing Pains

April 23, 1996, Chicago, Illinois

“Please tell me we weren’t like that when we were close to graduation!” I said with a touch of frustration when the last student from the morning interviews at IIT left the classroom we were using.

“I don’t think so,” Julia replied. “I can’t imagine any of those five starting their own company! Heck, I can’t imagine hiring four out of the five!”

“I suspect we’re in agreement,” I said. “Robby Ingram was the only viable candidate in my book.”

“Agreed. I honestly can’t understand how the others could have learned so little in the software engineering class. Dave says it’s still taught along the same lines, though the content has been revised a bit based on new ideas and developments.”

“It’s the students,” I said. “It’s not the instructors or the instruction. I’m hearing the same thing from the interviews that others are doing.”

“Me, too. What are your thoughts on how to proceed?”

“Do you remember how we found some of the best people back when we started?”

“You’re still on that ‘no CS degree required’ kick?!”

“I have been since day one. But I let you and Dave determine your criteria once we grew bigger. Maybe we’re looking in the wrong place.”

“Maybe,” Julia allowed, “but I’m also not seeing the same kind of self-taught computer skills we used to see. Part of it is because when we started, we had to write anything we wanted! Or type it in out of Creative Computing and modify it to work for whatever version of BASIC we had. And that was a very different situation than we see now with Windows taking over the world.”

“I suspect if you sat most of these kids down with a TRS-80 or Apple II, they would throw their hands up in disgust. The limitations of those systems really taught some very valuable lessons. Lessons which aren’t really taught in college, from what I can discern.”

“You know,” Julia said, thoughtfully, “there is something to that. We had such limited resources to work with, we HAD to be creative and inventive. I remember Dave talking about your project with the TMS1000 chip at Nuvatec. You learned a lot from that.”

“I did. And I wonder if that might not be our best approach - to find the most creative individuals we can, or the best problem solvers, and teach them technology.”

“Your philosophy that teaching someone to program is a lot easier than teaching them to think?”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

“So, philosophy majors?” Julia asked with a smirk.

“Well, maybe not THAT level of thinking, but what if we took a different approach. What if we looked at which electives they took and what grades they received, as well as grades in English and other humanities?”

“A compromise?”

I nodded, “I know you won’t go fully down my path, and honestly, I get it. Having the degree shows some basic level of understanding of the building blocks. But if what we saw today is any example, I think we need to change our methods.”

Julia shuffled the paperwork in front of her and a smile spread across her face.

“Robby Ingram minored in history and took mostly humanities electives. The rest all minored in science, math, or engineering.”

“He’s a well-rounded person,” I said. “Even our two geekiest staff members, Sam and Brenda, have outside interests beyond computers. I think THAT is the key to find people who are NIKA material.”

She shuffled papers again.

“Only one of the remaining candidates we have today and tomorrow has a minor in anything other than math, physics, or electrical engineering.”

“That gives us potentially two viable candidates here. Spread the word to the rest of the team. We only need three, total, and I’m sure we’ll find enough to choose from. IIT might well be the outlier, being mainly an engineering school.”

“Shall we get lunch at The Bog, for old-times’ sake?” Julia asked.

“Absolutely.”

We gathered our things and headed from the Stuart Building to The Bog where we ordered burgers and fries, though I knew I’d need a good walk after the carbs.

“You’ve taken a more involved and more assertive demeanor lately,” Julia said as we sat down.

“To be blunt, I don’t like the way things are going. Business-wise, they’re good, obviously. But as I said to Elyse yesterday, something just feels off. I think it’s because we’re so much bigger that I don’t feel in control. I never took the reins firmly, if you know what I mean, but I knew everyone pretty well. Now, I don’t. I find out about babies being born via the weekly email that Keri sends out about important events. I know it’s a small thing, but it bugs me.”

“And you think it’s going to get worse.”

“I KNOW it’s going to get worse. But what are the alternatives? Divest? Cut back? Sell out?”

“I WILL put a hit contract out on you if you sell out, Mr. Adams!”

“You’ll need to take a number and get in line,” I chuckled. “But I need to find a way to keep my finger on the pulse of the staff the way I used to have it. The Town Hall meetings aren’t enough, and neither is just trying to walk around. I’m too damned busy.”

“I have a suggestion which might work, at least for Chicago.”

“The remote offices are a whole different kettle of fish. I’m so out of touch with the people in those offices I almost feel as if they’re strangers. What’s your idea for Chicago?”

“Lunch with Steve,” Julia said. “Pick a day, Friday, for example, and invite three or four randomly chosen staff members to have a private lunch with you. Just shoot the breeze. If you do it that way, it’s maybe two hours out of your week, but you see everyone about once every four months or so and have a chance to have a good talk with them.”

I stroked my beard for a moment, “You know, that might just help. But the remote offices are still an issue.”

“You’re going to have to travel if you want to fix that, but you could do the same thing. Go visit and spend a few days so you can break up the lunches into smaller groups. Don’t visit customers. At this point, you really only see the ones who you have personal relationships with. They prefer to see Mario, Barbara, Zeke, Cindi, or me, to be honest.”

I nodded, “So I noticed!”

“It’ll be a bit easier when your sister comes on board. You won’t have to worry about any of the operational stuff at all. You can focus on what you do best - being a leader and coding.”

“I’m not sure my coding skills are all that hot these days,” I sighed.

“Maybe not, but you’ll recover quickly once you settle into the role you want. You’re the only one of the original team who doesn’t have their dream job. But hang in there.”

“It’s good advice, Julia. As always.”

“It’s partly on us, and I mean Elyse, Cindi, and me, to help you achieve your goal, given all you’ve done to help us achieve ours.”

“And I appreciate it!”

“I’m going to reintroduce our brown-bag lunches, too. I’ll make them on Thursday if you decide Friday is best for you. We’ll cover relevant technical topics, and anyone is invited.”

“So NIKA returns to its roots,” I grinned. “I like it.”

“I think we all will.”

We finished our lunches and headed back to the Stuart building to conduct more interviews.

April 25, 1996, Chicago, Illinois

“Deborah accepted our offer,” I told Elyse late on Thursday morning. “She’ll drop off her signed acceptance letter tomorrow morning on her way to class. Her first day will be June 3rd. It’s contingent on her passing the Bar Exam by December 31st.”

“OK. I’ll have Keri take care of everything once we have the letter. What happens if she doesn’t pass?”

“Then her contract expires. When she passes, we’ll write a new contract. There’s a bonus for passing it on the first try, too.”

Elyse nodded, “That makes sense. I’m guessing you’re sure she’ll pass.”

“Positive. I talked with Jamie about getting their study guide for new associates and he got permission from Thad Baker to let us use it. And Jamie will act as her mentor.”

“And charge us for the privilege, right?”

“Yes, of course! Lawyers NEVER put their hands in their OWN pockets!”

“Don’t you have a lawyer joke about that?”

“It was so cold the other day, I saw a lawyer with his hands in his OWN pockets,” I replied.

“That’s the one. Where are we on hiring the programmers?”

“You’ll have to ask Julia or Dave. They haven’t brought anyone in for ‘veto’ sessions as yet. I just talked to sixteen candidates from IIT, all but three of whom were ‘no way’ for both Julia and me.”

“I saw her memo about changing our target candidates. Your influence?”

“Yes, based on a conversation I had with her on Tuesday morning after we interviewed the first batch of students.”

“OK. I also had Keri run those reports you requested. I don’t think you’ll be happy.”

“How bad?”

“Our applicant pool is heavily weighted towards non-Hispanic Caucasians, which includes Indians. The next largest group is Chinese. Blacks make up about 7% and Hispanics about 3%. Not even close to reflecting the community.”

“Well, shit,” I sighed. “Did you get the demographic reports from the universities?”

“Yes. Same problem. For Computer Science students, and engineering students in general, it’s just as bad. Which makes sense, if you think about it. Our applicant pool matches the university demographics pretty closely. Which means that to tackle the issue, you have to find a way to get more minorities into the universities.”

“Remember, I didn’t classify it as a problem, just something I was curious about. It came up as a kind of aside in one of the interviews for our in-house counsel with a question about the EEOC. Plus, I mentioned the applicant pool to Deborah, which got me thinking.”

“Well, if I understand things correctly, someone would have to make a discrimination claim and then there would be an investigation. We’re certainly safe on the sex discrimination issue, including salaries, and if you compare our staff demographics to those of the applicant pool, we have enough minority staff to survive an EEOC investigation. I know you don’t give a damn, but that is what we pay our HR consultant for.

“Fundamentally, our approach to hiring has created a fairly diverse staff, within limits. We don’t need to change anything with regard to potential claims, at least according to my assessment and what I hear from Jamie and the HR consultant. Was there something specific you were concerned about?”

I shook my head, “No. As I said, one of the applicants spoke about the EEOC and I asked you to check into it. I didn’t THINK we were discriminating, but you know, in the end, it only matters what the government or a jury think. This is just another one of those issues which we have to think about given our size. We aren’t small fry at this point, and somebody is going to notice that fact.”

“We survived an IRS audit and FBI investigations!” Elyse declared.

“Yeah, and given time, my former nemesis would have found SOMETHING to bring us down if he hadn’t decided to lam it in San Antonio and then die from lead poisoning. Some lawyer is going to see us as a target again. It’ll happen.”

“You’re worried about loyalty?”

“Not from the core team, if you will, but we’re at a point where new people aren’t going to feel like this is family. That puts us at greater risk.”

“Every time you talk like this, I get the sneaking suspicion you’re thinking about cutting back and reducing the size of the company somehow.”

I shook my head, “No. I’m just identifying the potential sources of future trouble. Stephanie is going to have to deal with it. I suppose the best way to put it is that this is the price of success. And unless society gets its collective head out of its collective ass, it’s only going to get worse. If I can’t fix everything, then I want to make sure our little corner of the universe is at least livable.”

“Maybe you should think about buying one of those private islands in the Caribbean or Pacific Ocean and create your own country!”

I chuckled, “‘Penguintopia’?”

“Nice!” Elyse laughed.

“And even if I did that - and I’d need at least Samantha Spurgeon kind of money to do it - any country with a Coast Guard cutter could force us to follow their laws whether we wanted to or not. There is literally no way to escape the ‘long arm of the law’ or the grasping maw of an ever-revenue-and-power-hungry state!”

“Why do I sense a rebellion brewing?” Elyse asked with a raised eyebrow.

“It goes back to our conversation the other day, and the tension between what I want, what I need, what I think is right, and what certain agents of the nanny state feel is necessary.”

“Dave? Seriously?”

“His natural conservative nature. Jamie? By his chosen profession. Karl? Navy indoctrination, especially since ‘Tailhook’. But in the end, they’re all doing the bidding of people who have opinions closer to those of my mom, Kara’s dad, or Kent van der Meer. Now Dave, Jamie, and Karl wouldn’t go as far as those three I just mentioned, but it ends up being death by a thousand cuts. And it’s only going to get worse, as I’ve said. The hysteria around ‘sex offender’ registries is a prime example. I’m just waiting until it destroys some eighteen-year-old kid’s life because he had sex with his slightly underage girlfriend!”

“Sadly, nobody will care,” Elyse sighed. “Because of the exact issue you’ve been raising since we were in High School - teenagers are NOT children, but society is insisting every day they are not only children, but toddlers who need positive control at all times!”

“Oh, it’s worse! It can be used for revenge. Imagine a situation in Illinois where a sixteen-year-old girl and her eighteen-year-old boyfriend are sexually active. Her dad has a hissy fit about it and calls the cops and has the boy arrested. The kid is doomed. And if these public registries come online, he’ll never get a job, never be able to rent an apartment, nothing. And you KNOW he’ll be branded a pedophile because she’s underage, despite being sixteen!”

“Shit! I hadn’t thought about it quite that way. So what are you going to do? I mean, at NIKA?”

“Push back a bit harder than I have. I simply can’t allow what amounts to dehumanization and the destruction of true relationships because some outside people get their panties in a twist.”

“Which is part of why you wanted me to run the numbers. You wanted to make sure you had solid defenses in place against outside claims.”

I smiled, “That is one reason. A house built upon rock will withstand the wind and rain of the storm that blows in. That’s part of being careful about relationships here and about the teasing and flirting that went on. But I realized, I dialed it back too far. I NEED this place to be a family.”

“OK, Dad!” Elyse laughed. “But who’s Mom, now that I’m not sleeping with Dad?”

“I think you’re still Mom. Who else would it be?”

“Your sister, in the future. It might have been Michelle, but she bailed on us.”

I shook my head, “No, she bailed on me, not NIKA. That was personal, not business.”

“What happens when she has her baby?”

“That’s up to her. She can unilaterally cancel our agreement, or if she doesn’t allow me to basically act as the baby’s father, I can cancel it. She’s on maternity leave now, according to Melissa, and by my estimation, she’s due in the next two weeks.”

April 28, 1996, On the road to Cincinnati, Ohio

“Our lunch date needs to be Monday of next week,” I said.

“Why so soon?” Eve asked.

“I don’t usually take unscheduled lunches out of the office, and if I do, and you go out to lunch, SOMEONE will notice! That’s how I got caught red-handed once before.”

“Oops! Well, I suppose we can have a shooting date afterwards and use McKenzie’s apartment. I mean if that’s OK.”

“I did say ‘end of June’ without any other restrictions. These are just your two requests. I know you took your two weeks together, so Monday works, right?”

“Yes. How are we handling today?”

“We’ll check in, have the afternoon together, then I’ll have dinner with my dad and meet my friend for ice cream. I’ll meet you back at the hotel around 10:00pm. I have lunch with Joyce tomorrow, then I’m all yours until lunch with Ben van Hoek on Wednesday. There is a chance Don Anthony will call, and I’ll need to meet with him, but that works out because I’d want you there. Anyway, you’ll have about forty-six hours straight of my attention, during which, per your request, I think we’ll get very little sleep!”

“So an appetizer this afternoon?”

“If you wish.”

“Did you bring your bag of toys?”

“As requested.”

“Good! OK to talk shop?”

“Always.”

“I’m going to visit each of the offices and do a full office survey. I want to sit down with Mario and Barbara and go over staffing plans and try to work out a five-year plan for each site. Our lease in Pittsburgh will be up for renewal and I want to evaluate the situation before I recommend renewing the lease.”

“That is part of your job, together with Mario, Zeke, and Barbara. Did Dave or Julia talk to you about the changes they want to make?”

“Just in a general way. It’s all modular furniture, so we can pretty much set it up however he wants. At worst we’d need to buy some additional pieces, depending on the configuration. The electrical pre-wire was set up for maximum occupancy, so that’s not an issue. Was that Michelle?”

“Kimmy. She managed the entire project once I shook hands with Alec Glass on the deal. Sam provided the technical specifications.”

“Also, I know it’s more than eighteen months away, but we need to talk about reconfiguring the offices upstairs. Did you have any ideas?”

“Kimmy’s office already is open to the hall. What I would suggest is my sister takes the two offices at the front of the building at the end of the hall, and we have a door installed where the hall that runs outside my office joins the one that runs along the offices at the front of the building. That way, anyone coming to see her would go past Kimmy’s desk and we’d sort of have an executive suite. The other option, where she takes my old office is problematic because of the fire escape. It really can’t move from where it is, which means her office wouldn’t be connected to Kimmy’s in any way.”