Chapter 44: Relieved

August 30, 2000, Chicago, Illinois

When I arrived in the office on Wednesday morning there was a memo on the center of my desk with a Post-it note on it which read ‘Are you fucking kidding me?‘ with no signature, but in Cindi’s distinctive script. I picked up the memo and noticed an identical one in my ‘In’ box, but without the Post-it note. I scanned the memo, had the same reaction and walked to my sister’s office, shutting the door behind me.

“What the ever-loving fuck, Squirt?” I asked, tossing the memo on her desk. “I go away for two days and THIS shit happens?”

“I see Cindi made her views known to you.”

“Yes, and I’m here to back her up. Seriously, what the fuck? Who saw this memo?”

“Just the executives. And we don’t have a choice.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s required by our liability carrier.”

“That bullshit again? No!”

“Steve, this isn’t your call.”

“It sure as hell is, because it’s going to cause an uproar like you’ve never seen before! As soon as you tell the staff they have to attend mandatory training about sexual harassment, there is going to be a riot. Nobody will be able to stop the staff from tarring and feathering Bob and riding him out of town on a rail!”

“I don’t think they do that anymore.”

“Care to test my theory and see it resurrected?”

“It won’t happen because YOU are going to tell everyone to comply with the training.”

“Thank you for confirming my point! Did you happen to mention to Bob how the staff was going to react to this.”

“I did. And that doesn’t change the requirement.”

“Fuck!” I growled. “Maybe I’ll just do what Liz suggested - sell my shares to the other executives and teach karate full time.”

“What possessed her to suggest THAT?”

“The thing we SHOULD be talking about - the deal I made with Nathan Edwards yesterday.”

“One more thing before we talk about EB; you have to read a script Bob gives you.”

“No. And that is non-negotiable. I actually WILL sell my shares and leave. I’ll say it my way. Period. Or you can get someone else to give the spiel and suffer the consequences when I announce my support for the murderous hordes which will descend on Bob’s office.”

“I’ll talk to him.”

“What did Elyse say?”

“She agrees with you. Cindi does, too, obviously.”

“Julia?”

“Pragmatic as usual,” Stephanie replied. “Hates the idea, understands why we have to do it. So, Edwards?”

“I told him to go ask Braun about what they didn’t tell him and the thing that would destroy Volstead and Braun. And I called in a favor to ensure Edwards has a job in Silicon Valley no matter which way things go.”

“He’s going to leave EB either way?”

“I think so, yes. Either because they won’t be truthful or because they hid something material from him. And California doesn’t allow enforcement of non-competes. There is one thing we need to do.”

“What’s that?”

“I need to tell Ed that if he doesn’t keep his mouth shut, the proof that he’s committing adultery with an underage girl is going to get to the State’s Attorney as well as his boss at City Hall. And proof that the videotape that provided his alibi for the murder charge was fabricated will go to the Hamilton County Prosecutor.”

“Wait! How did I miss THAT?”

“You didn’t need to know, Squirt. Let me handle Ed.”

“He knows you’ve been with underage girls, Steve.”

“And which of those would talk to the government?” I asked.

“None.”

“Where’s he living?”

“Apple Apartments in Bridgeport; 11C.”

“Thanks. I take it I’m supposed to have a Town Hall meeting?”

“Friday.”

“Fine. Make sure Bob knows I’m doing this MY way or not at all.”

“I will. You aren’t REALLY quitting, are you?”

“No, but it’s things like this that make me think about it.”

“Please don’t.”

“Not today, anyway,” I replied, then left my sister’s office.

I left the office, walked to Union Station, and used a payphone to call Ted Farley. I explained the message I needed conveyed to Ed, and then he promised to take care of it immediately. I hung up and walked back to the NIKA building and was at my desk just as Penny walked into the office.

“Cindi was in here yesterday ranting,” Penny said.

“I saw the memo she left.”

“Does Bob WANT to die?” Penny asked.

“He does appear to have a death wish!” Cindi said, coming into my office. “Kill this thing, Boss.”

“Our liability carrier requires it. I don’t think there’s any solution, unless we want to self-insure, and that puts ALL of us at risk for ANY claim, not just sexual harassment.”

“Have we had a single complaint?” Cindi asked.

“Only when the boss REFUSES to harass us!” Penny teased.

“None that had any real substance,” I said, ignoring Penny as best I could. “But the insurance company doesn’t appear to care.”

“I positively hate this CYA bullshit,” Cindi declared. “I could see if we had some kind of history of claims, but we don’t!”

“No claims that were paid, but don’t forget we settled with Mikela and Kaitlin. There was also another issue, which I can’t discuss.”

“You should have just fucked both of them into the next millennium!” Penny declared.

“Either of those would have been a very bad idea,” Cindi said. “Mikela made a public show of her request, something which is a complete no-no. Kaitlin was trying to sleep her way to the top which wouldn’t have ended well at all.”

I smiled, “So you withdraw your objection?”

“Fuck no!” Cindi growled. “But I’ll keep my mouth shut because I know enough about business to know it happens. But it won’t ever be the boss who does anything. Steve, you need to talk to Charlie to get word to the girls in the Club before this goes public.”

“You mean like telling Penny by putting the memo in the center of my desk with a Post-it note?” I asked.

“Shit!” Cindi swore, but both she and Penny laughed.

“We’re not in the Club for nothing!” Penny declared. “Is this going to change the other policy?”

“No. We can’t interfere in personal relationships between staff so long as it doesn’t negatively affect the work environment. Bob isn’t happy about you and Terry or Dave and Julia or Tasha and Zeke, but he can’t do anything about it.”

“He isn’t happy I’m in here because he thinks we’re fucking!” Penny groused. “In my DREAMS!”

“Which is just fine,” Cindi teased. “It’s in your BED that it’s an issue.”

“The hell with the bed,” Penny laughed. “This desk will do just fine!”

“Congratulations!” Elyse said coming into the office “You just violated the proposed sexual harassment policy!”

“Bullshit!” Cindi exclaimed, turning to Elyse. “Nobody here objected to the conversation.”

“I walked in and heard it without you knowing it. It’s not just the people directly involved in the conversation.”

“Elyse,” I said testily, “I swear to Loki if that policy goes into place as written, I’m selling my shares and finding something else to do. Fix it. We’re adults and we’re allowed to talk and act like adults. Period.”

“Employment law disagrees. In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson that sexual harassment is a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

“That’s true,” Liz said, coming into the office with her copy of the memo, “but Steve has a point. In another 9-0 ruling made two years ago in Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, they said quite explicitly that Title VII is not a ‘general civility code’. In other words, the law doesn’t prohibit normal human interaction, which includes teasing, jokes, offhand comments, and so on. It only becomes an issue when the conditions of employment become hostile or it alters the conditions of employment. It has to be severe or pervasive to be actionable. I’ll work with Bob on the language, though I’m sure it came from the insurance carrier.”

I shook my head, “You just defined a subjective standard which means nobody can know if they’re violating the policy until someone else decides subjectively that they are. I’m not signing up for any policy or process which doesn’t require knowing violation of an objective standard.”

“The problem,” Liz said, closing the doors to the office, “is that the Supreme Court set the standard, and it is subjective. But there is an objective component - the working conditions must be ‘objectively disadvantageous’. Think about that for a second with regard to NIKA. With salary administration set according to the published pay scales, and promotions through grades based on objective criteria, we have some built-in protection.”

“Monica?” I asked.

“That would have to come down to her proving that she felt compelled to attend the party at the risk of her job. I understand Bob’s concerns, but some joking by people who don’t work for NIKA at a private party where more than half the guests weren’t employees, and which she could have declined to attend, wouldn’t have risen to the level of a Title VII violation. That said, if she did make the claim, our insurance carrier would pay it off without any hesitation.”

“And therein lies the problem,” I replied. “The insurance carriers choose risk mitigation rather than active defense and everyone suffers as they insist on stricter and stricter rules to limit their liability. And activists encourage such things for political and financial reasons. That kind of stupidity is going to stifle creativity and discourage free exchange of ideas out of fear that some ‘speech code’ is going to be violated.”

“I’d say you were exaggerating,” Elyse replied, “but your other predictions about the direction society is going seem dead on. Hell, you might have been optimistic.”

“I know,” I replied. “Look, I’m all for eliminating actual harassment, but the idea that a single bawdy joke can be ‘harassment’ is nuts. Yes, I know the Supreme Court said it’s not, but trust me, we’ll get there. It’s how it always goes. As with many, many things, the proposed cure is worse than the disease.”

“Let me sit with Bob and the insurance carrier and see what we can do,” Liz said.

“Elyse, how did this go out without Liz’s review?” I asked.

“Bob felt it should be circulated for comment first.”

“Bob was wrong,” I said. “Fix that. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING which proposes policy changes may be shared with anyone except you or Stephanie unless Liz has a chance to see it first.”

“That’s your sister’s call, Steve.”

“No, this is MY call because look at the uproar it caused amongst the executives. And I was three hundred miles away when Cindi wrote her note and left the memo on my desk. Did Bob wait for me to be out of town to pull this stunt?”

“I don’t think so. Let me talk to your sister about this, and then I’ll talk to Bob.”

“It’s kami, Elyse, and that means I have the final say.”

“You do, but let me handle it. When you get your dander up...”

“He SHOULD have his ‘dander up’!” Cindi declared. “Can I ask what’s next?”

“You don’t want to know,” Elyse said, shaking her head.

“If the words ‘diversity training’ come out of Bob’s mouth, I will let Penny kill him,” I said firmly.

“How did you know?”

“I do read the papers,” I replied. “But we screen for stupidity and bigotry when we’re hiring. And you know if I catch one whiff of one scintilla of discrimination, I’ll land on that person with both feet.”

“We have no issues in that area,” Liz said. “I saw the complete report Deborah wrote before she left. We hire women at numbers greater than their representation in the general population and just under twice the size of the applicant pool. We hire minorities at rates more than double the applicant pool. We honor every reasonable accommodation request, and we acknowledge everyone’s religious freedom beyond even the most pro-employee reading of the law. We also have a record of hiring and promoting gays and lesbians. We’re the poster kids for how to do this right.”

“Bob has that report,” Elyse said. “But you know as well as I do that there are serious problems with firms here in Chicago, many of which are clients of ours. And that’s where regulations and best practices come from.”

“We should be offering diversity training to OTHER companies,” Cindi interjected, exasperated.

“You’re right,” I declared. “What we’re seeing is collective punishment, just like the Communists or Nazis used. Liz, I want something I can live with, please.”

“I’ll do my best.”

The door to the office opened and Kimmy stuck her head in.

“Steve, I have Nathan Edwards for you,” she said. “And Elyse, that new policy is STUPID!”

We all laughed and I asked Kimmy to put the call through. Elyse, Cindi, and Liz left the office and I picked up the phone.

“Nathan, it’s Steve.”

“Those mother ... sorry, ‘guys’, stole your software and resold it!”

“They admitted that to you?” I asked, surprised it had happened so quickly.

“When I threatened to walk.”

“Do you mind if I ask how you approached them?”

“I went to Mike Braun and asked why we weren’t simply settling given we’d lost the key points in the suit, one which I never wanted to file in the first place. He said I wasn’t seeing the big picture. I asked what that was and he hinted that there had been something between you in the past. I pushed, asking if you could use it against him. He said no, because of the NDA. I suggested he check with someone other than his dad. He did and then called his dad. After that call, he refused to tell me. I told him I’d walk and after some back and forth, he finally told me. He has no idea I talked to you.”

“What’s your plan?”

“It’s hard to walk away from my baby, even after all the stuff that’s happened. I talked to my wife and decided I’m going to stick it out, but on my terms. You were right about who needed whom more, and with your Silicon Valley offer in my back pocket, I insisted that they drop the suit and not use the courts against you instead of competing. They agreed, though they aren’t happy. They really seem to have it in for you.”

“It’s foolish,” I said. “We signed the deal, they paid us off, and I went on my way with nary a care. I’m guessing Braun the elder took it personally and was looking for a way to exact revenge. Do you mind if I ask about your plan?”

“To build our business the same way we did at Lone Star; well, minus the offshore bank accounts.”

“DCP really screwed you.”

“I totally understand now why you went to friends for your startup capital. Did you ever take money from anyone else? I mean, if I can ask.”

“Only for acquisitions, and those were handled either as notes or with participating preferred shares. No ownership and no Board seats, except to my two initial investors, which I’m sure you know from our materials, were my mentor and my dad.”

“You still own more than half the company, right?”

“Yes, and that’s not going to change. But even if it did, my dad and my mentor’s granddaughter own ten percent between them, and the founders each received three percent. I have the right to buy those if they want to sell, and I can’t imagine any of them ever voting against me. But you wanted to cash out, right?”

“That was the allure. Anyway, thanks for providing me a safety net and helping me understand what was really going on.”

“You’re welcome. You’re sure you want to stay with EB?”

“Could you give up NIKA? Even if you didn’t own it?”

That was the very question I’d considered when Liz had laid out her idea for resolving the situation with EB. And one I’d reconsidered seeing the idiotic policies we’d have to put into place. But I always came to the same conclusion.

“No, I don’t think I could. I’ve actually given up most day-to-day control, as I’m sure you read in our press releases, and I spend most of my time coding. Sound familiar?”

Nathan laughed, “Yeah, it does. And that’s what I need to get back to. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. If you need anything, don’t ever hesitate to call.”

We said ‘goodbye’ and I hung up.

“How the fuck do you do that?” Penny said, shaking her head in awe.

“I’m just that good,” I replied smugly, then winked.

“Asshole!” she laughed, and hit my shoulder with the Nerf bat. “But you just turned your competitor into someone who owed you a favor. Again!”

“Don Joseph’s system works, Pretty Penny. More people ought to try it.”

“Yeah, but how do I get you to owe ME a favor?” she smirked.

“You gave that up when you decided working for me was better than fucking me.”

“I did, didn’t I?”

“Tell me you’re not happy with the ultimate result.”

“Oh, I am. I just have these fond memories...”

“Me, too!”

August 31 2000, Chicago, Illinois

“EB moved to dismiss the remaining claims this morning,” Liz said when she came into my office just before 11:00am on Thursday.

“Excellent. Any progress with Bob and the insurance company?”

“A little. Give me until tomorrow morning and I think I’ll have something you can live with.”

“I should probably ask Elyse, but who would do the training?”

“We’d bring in outside people to do it.”

I shook my head, “People who have no idea about NIKA’s culture and who will say things which will simply enrage key staff.”

“One step at a time. Let’s get the policy in place. I’ll make sure Stephanie and Bob are aware of your concerns.”

“Not just mine. I’ll raise it during our ‘Kitchen Cabinet’ meeting next week. That way Elyse can hear it from all of us.”

“May I make an observation?”

“Yes.”

“Stop thinking that things like this are a personal attack. They aren’t, any more than laws passed by Congress or the State Legislature are personal attacks.”

“When it infringes on my liberty, it IS a personal attack!”

“No, it’s not,” Liz said with a smile. “It’s ‘ordered liberty’, something which makes what we’re doing here at NIKA possible, even when it crosses some imaginary line we don’t like.”

“Oh shut up!” I groused.

“Wow!” Penny gasped. “That means he agrees with you! I don’t believe it!”

“Steve isn’t an anarchist and never has been, despite all his ranting. His issues are where the lines are drawn, not wanting no lines. I mean, seriously, have you ever heard him rant about roads? Sewers? Running water? Electricity? Laws against murder? Or laws against rape?”