Chapter 7

Clark Sanders showed up knocking on my motel room door at one thirty Thursday morning. He woke me from a sound sleep, to get his room key, and to let me know he'd made it to Dover okay. We spent a few minutes getting acquainted, and then he left, to get some much needed sleep.

In the morning, I knocked on his door at seven thirty, waking him up. I gave him a map I'd prepared, with directions to the plant, and then told him I'd meet him there at noon, for an orientation tour.

Clark was thirty eight years old, with sandy colored hair, thinning a little, with a pronounced widow's peak in front. He was just under six feet tall, and stockily built, rather than heavy. He had heavily calloused hands, but I didn't know what from, because he'd been an executive for his entire career. There was a deep scar right under his chin that appeared to have been left unstitched when he'd gotten it. I wondered about that as well.

I put him in Tony's old office, then took him around to all the department heads, making the introductions. Clark spent a lot of time looking around carefully at each man's office. It was almost like he was deciding things about each manager by the look of the office.

At two thirty we were back in Clark's new office.

"You can have access to any report from any department. I've told accounting to give you copies of the sales and delivery daily's, and floor supervisor reports will be cc'd here also. I told Miss Clancy to cut you a check for one thousand dollars today, and you can cash it in accounting as well, until you get set up with a bank of your own."

"Gerard and Gilley will have to be replaced, Kenny." That surprised me. We'd spent about five minutes with each department head.

"Your call, Clark, but I'm interested in finding out why you decided that."

"Gerard, because it was his job to keep those ovens operating. He should have been pushing hard, every day, to get those parts delivered to us. Gilley was already half in the bag, at one o'clock. That sets a terrible example for the other employees. If he can't control his drinking better than that, he's just too big of a liability to us."

"Fine. Do you want me to handle those two for you? It might be better, since you're so new here. No necessity to get off on the wrong foot on your very first day."

"I'll do it. If firing those two gets me off on anybody's wrong foot, that's too bad for them. How do I get access to the personnel records, for the rest of the people in those two departments?"

"Karen Graffo runs that section. Her office is next door to accounting. She'll give you whatever you require. Any problems with her, have her call me."

I went back to my office. At three o'clock Larry Gerard, walked through my doorway. He was an older, mid forties, very gruff, maintenance technician, who had slowly climbed up the ladder to be a department head, after almost thirty years. I had pulled his records, and knew he'd been working for the company since finishing high school.

"That new piss ant you hired, just went and fired me."

"He beat me to it then, Larry. What did you expect would happen, when you doing nothing, ended up costing us close to four million dollars in sales?"

"Do you mean about those ovens with the blown elements? Tony told me he was personally handling all of that. I asked him every day what was happening about those parts. He always told me to forget about it. Said he had it under control."

"What was your job, Larry? What was it we were paying you to do?"

"I maintained the floor machinery, and I ran my maintenance crew. I've been here more than twenty seven years. This is my only job ever, Mr. Parsons."

"You're fully vested in the pension plan, Larry. We're giving you thirty months of severance pay, which I think is more than fair. You didn't take care of our business, which is what you were being paid to do. Didn't it bother you at all that Tony and Gus didn't seem that concerned about four of our bread ovens being down for a month or more?"

"They told me they were taking care of it. I worked for Tony, and he didn't like it when you didn't do what he said."

"I told Clark to fire you, Larry, and we aren't done yet. I told all of you, back when I first took over, that I was going to make sure something like those ovens being off line for so long, couldn't possibly happen again. Letting you go, that will go a long way towards ensuring that it doesn't."

"All the hard work I put in here, over all those years, it doesn't mean anything to you?"

"No, it does. That's the only reason I'm giving you two and a half years of severance pay. You'll get another job, Larry. The next time something happens in your area of responsibility, maybe you'll do your job, and not let someone else use you to injure your employer."

At four, Clark stuck his head in my doorway, to let me know that Bruce Gilley was gone too. He had gone over the employee records and was thinking about hiring Jerry Davis to replace Larry. I had no idea who Jerry Davis was. Clark took a minute to fill me in on his employment record. The only blemish on his record was his outspoken verbal criticism of Larry's handling of the oven parts fiasco.

"Send him up to see me before you give him the job. I want to hear his take on what happened with those ovens. Those oven elements were almost new. It doesn't make sense that nine of them would go bad in less than two months."

"You think they were made to go bad?"

"I don't know. I thought I'd ask our Mr. Davis how it could have been done, if someone wanted to put an oven out of commission."

Jerry Davis was a great big bruiser of a man, well over six feet tall, weighing at least two hundred and seventy five pounds. He was also articulate, in a very profane and blue collar fashion. He'd worked for the company for seven years. When he came into my office, he was shaking with anger.

For a minute, as I stared back at him, I was sure that he was considering the best way for coming around my desk and attacking me. I knew there was nothing I could do to prevent the attack from succeeding. I felt the strong sense of menace and danger his obvious malevelent intentions were broadcasting.

"Tell my why you're so pissed off right now."

"Fucking Gus and fucking Tony. Fucking Larry too. I knew they were going to end up costing me my god damned job. That whole mess was one big fuck up from the get go. Go ahead and fire me then. Nothing I can fucking do about it."

"Tell me what you think happened."

"I don't think, I know. Fucking Tony did something to those wires, he bypassed the circuit breakers and then fired the elements at night. When those first two went out, I knew someone was doing it on purpose. Number seven was down that day for routine PM's."

"PM's?"

Preventive maintenance. I went through the oven, making sure everything was working like it should be. The next morning, we've got four burnt elements, and two of them were in the number seven oven. Since it had been down all the previous day, it didn't take any fucking genius to know that someone had done it on purpose, while the plant was shut down. When I left, that oven was up, and running on standby. I came in at eight the next morning, and it had two fried elements. You don't burn up an element on any fucking standby."

"So what did you do?"

"I went and got our two spares, and switched out the bad elements in the number five and the number three ovens. The next day, four and six had more burnt elements. I took two good elements from number seven, and got four and six back up and working. Seven was down anyhow, why not use the good elements still in there? Fucking Tony reamed my ass, and told me I was fucking up the warranty on the ovens by taking out parts and replacing them. Said I couldn't canniblize with an oven still under factory warranty. Which was just more of his bullshit, but, when the head honcho tells you to quit doing something, what the fuck can you do?"

"Sounds to me like you did as much as any employer could reasonably expect. You haven't told me why you're so pissed at me yet?"

"You're firing me, right?"

"Hell no! Why would I want to fire the only guy we've got who seems to know that we need our ovens working in order to stay in business?"

"You fired Larry, I just figured I was gonna be next." Some of the anger and bluster had gone out of his voice. Now he was just confused.

"I wanted to meet you, to find out what you thought had happened to those ovens. Why do you think it was Tony that burnt out those elements?

"I saw the wiring after. Tony used a left handed crimping grip. He used to like to keep his hand in with the maintenance guys. Liked to show he still knew what he was doing. The wires were all crimped at the two o'clock and eight o'clock positions. A right handed guy, he would crimp at the ten and four o'clock positions. Plus, it had to be done at night, when no one was there to watch. It's just the dirty kind of shit that Fucking Tony liked to pull too. He was always coming down and getting into our stuff, stealing little things. The fucking guy just liked to mess with people."

"Thank you for what you did to keep our ovens up, Jerry. I appreciate it. Go see, Clark Sanders in Tony's old office. He wants to talk to you about who he should get to take over for Larry."

"Take over what? His office? Larry never liked to leave that little office of his. He never did anything, so why does he need to be replaced? Save your money, if you want my fucking advice."

"Go see Clark, Jerry. Give him your best advice. We want to make this plant a better place."

After he left, I had to laugh. That was a very scary man when he was angry. I thought it would be interesting to see if Clark promoted him or not, after spending five minutes with Jerry. If he did promote Jerry, I was going to name his as my new VP, operations. Jerry had scared me, so I figured if Clark ended up making him a department manager it was because Jerry didn't intimidate him. I wanted someone who wasn't easily intimidated.

I was getting ready to leave at seven thirty Thursday night. On my way out, I saw Clark's lights still on in his office. I found him working, coat off, sleeves rolled up and poring over floor plan pictures of our main baking floor.

"Time to leave, Clark. Whatever it is, can wait until tomorrow. Let me buy you some dinner, and you can fill me in on your day."

"What did you think of Jerry?"

"He was interesting. He told me about what probably happened to those oven elements. Did you give him the promotion?"

"I tried to, but he wouldn't accept it. Kept saying he wanted to stay honest. In his opinion, people who don't work with their hands, they can't be honest."

"Speaking of hands, how did yours get so chewed up?"

"I make cabinets. It's a hobby of mine. Sometimes, I get in too much of a hurry, and accidents happen." He held up his hands and showed me a lot of scar tissue. He then lifted his chin to show me that scar. He seemed proud of his injuries. "My dad, he was a real cabinetmaker. You should have seen the mitts he had. Compared to his, mine look prissy. He never let them stitch him up. Said he wanted to remember the mistakes he made. He really knew how to do beautiful work with wood. I like to fool around with it, but he was a master of the craft."

"Tomorrow, you tell Jerry the new department head is going to be working with his crew, not sitting in some cushy office, with his feet up on a desk. Ask him who the worst guy on the crew is. When he tells you who it is, tell him if he doesn't take the job, that's who you're going to promote over him."

"You think it was only the office he was objecting to?"

"No. I think it was the way he sees the job he thinks you want him to be doing. Tell him we're done having maintenance department heads. From now on, we'll call them crew chiefs. The pay is the same, and they'll be treated like department heads, but it's a hands on working position. Jerry likes those ovens. You couldn't pay him enough money to sabotage one of them. I'd hate to be any guy he caught trying to do that too."

"There are a lot of problems here, Kenny. I've been making a list, but I need you to tell me where you want me to begin. Most of the important ones will take some time, and some money, to get them fixed."

"I want them all fixed, Clark. I'll leave the order for it up to you, as long as you devise a plan that makes sense to you, and keeps us up and running. You have authority to spend up to twenty five thousand on any repair or improvement, just on your own say so. If there is something that costs more than that, you should run it by me, or whoever we hire to be the new president, for approval."

"How long am I going to be on probation here. I'm only asking, because I'm paying rent back in Lincoln. I need to know when I should give the landlord notice."

"You get off probation as soon as you manage to convince Jerry that he should be your new crew chief. I'm going to start you at sixty three, which is what Tony got. For that much money, I really expect you to put your heart and soul into getting this plant to run as well as it possibly can. Our parent company is involved in a very large expansion right now. We need to get as much production as we can, in order to fuel that growth. We need to tighten up on our quality control too. The key to our expansion is our warehouse and shipping methods. The thing you need to understand right now, is that we can sell everything you can produce in the plant. Don't pay attention to the old production schedules. They are six months behind in any case."

"That's it, just convince Jerry?"

"I need somebody that's good, and Virginia told me you were. I'm giving you a top salary, because I want you happy and loyal. Get Jerry, just to prove you can show a manager a better way to get things done. Jerry won't ever be a polished diamond, but he'll lead by example. Make sure all the other department managers recognize that you approve of Jerry staying in the trenches and keeping right on top of everything that goes on in his department. We need more hands on managers. We've got too many damn executives. Tell them all that you have orders from me to fire any manager that doesn't have a real firm grip on controlling his department in six months time. They have gotten fat and sloppy over the past few years. We need to get some energy and enthusiasm going."

"Anything else?"

"Yes, move Jerry's office down on the baking floor. Put a desk and some filing cabinets there, with a phone. All out in the open, so he can always see what's going on. I want you to take the old office and put in a desk and a chair, but no phone. Put in a fresh notepad, with some pencils and pens. Put a sign up on the door that says "THINK TANK"."

"Why?"

"Because I need a place to send people that's quiet, and where they can write out ideas and suggestions for making things better. On the production floor, there are too many distractions. There are a lot of good people on the floor, and most of them know several ways to do things better than we do them now. Part of your job is to read what they write, and to help them to get their thoughts down on paper, so we can give it a fair evaluation. I don't want the room abused by someone nursing a hangover, but I also don't want to miss out on a better way for us to do things. Any idea you use, the person giving it to you needs to be rewarded. I'll handle the rewards while I'm here. When I leave, I'll set up a fund for the new president to use. A lot of times, its just the personal recognition that matters to them, but some money never hurts either."

"Virginia told me you were different, Kenny. You are. She also said you're married and have some kids?"

"Yes, I have twins, a boy and a girl. I really miss them too. I hope I recognize them when I see them again."

"How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Almost nineteen."

"Nineteen. Your parents have you running a division at nineteen?"

"Not really. My Dad knew we had a big problem here, but he's too busy with our expansion to get on top of this. When it got too bad for him to ignore, he was getting desperate, so he sent me. I talk to him on the phone a lot. I'm more like a different set of eyes for him."

When I got back to the motel room, after dinner, I was restless. I drove back out to the plant, hoping to get myself something to read. It was nine o'clock, so I decided to phone Joyce at home, just to check on the kids.

She didn't seem surprised to hear from me, and she started talking to me as though we weren't fighting, and getting ready for a divorce. We talked about the kids first, then we talked about what each of us was doing at work. It was comfortable for me. I wasn't as lonely when I could talk to Joyce.

"Have you decided yet about the other thing, Kenny?"

"What other thing?"

"You know, about all of us living together in Lawrence."

"I already told you, Joyce, I'm not going to change my mind about any of that."

"Okay, I was just checking. I can't leave the twins this weekend, Kenny. Brenda, Shirley, or Emily all said they'd like to fly out and see you. I told Shirley that Mama and I would watch Derek for her."

"Joyce, how many times do I have to tell you that it isn't going to work? Every time I talk to you, you're always bringing up all the X's. Don't you love me? Don't you want to be with me anymore?"

"Of course I do. We all do, Kenny. I just can't leave the twins, because I'm still nursing them. I told you that you could come home, and it would just be the two of us in bed. I was hoping that you'd come. We were all hoping you would come home."

"The thing is, I can't go home when we still have this unresolved problem, Joyce. I know what you want, but I'm not going to give it to you. You have to accept that. All the X's have to accept that. The only way we can be together is if you decide that it will only be you, me, and the twins."

"I understand, Kenny. Emily wants to talk to you. Will you talk to her?"

"What does she want to tell me?"

"She has to tell you that, Kenny, not me."

"Put her on then."

"Hi, Kenny. We all miss you. When are you coming home?"

"I don't know. It's starting to look like it will be a long time from now."

"Can I fly out to see you this weekend? I promise not to fight and argue with you."

"What would you do out here, Emily?"

"Whatever you wanted to do. I really do love you, Kenny."

"No. I don't want to be with you like that, Emily."

"Okay. I'm sorry you feel like that, Kenny. Brenda needs to ask you something now."

"No, don't put Brenda on. Put Joyce back on."

"Hi, Kenny? Can I come out to be with you this weekend?"

"Brenda, what is this? Are all of you determined to drive me crazy?"

"I love you, Kenny. I miss you too. Joyce said we could fly out to keep you company. We flipped to see who got to ask you first. Pick me. I really miss our lovemaking."

"Put Joyce on the phone, Brenda."

"You didn't answer my question yet."

"No, now put Joyce on."

"Hello, Kenny. Does this mean you're going to let me fly out for a visit?"

"No, Shirley. It means I'm tired of playing this game with you guys, and I need to talk with Joyce."

"Kenny, I'm going crazy thinking about you. Every day, when I start thinking about you, it becomes a very good day. Do you remember my very good days?"

I was starting to get flustered. I did remember when Shirley had her very good days. I also remembered Emily's good days, and Brenda's too. They weren't what I wanted to think about though. I wanted to think about Joyce, about her and I having some good days of our own.

"Shirley, please put Joyce on the phone."

"Hi, Kenny. Did you have a nice talk with all the X's?"

"It was nice enough, Joyce. Which one do you think I should marry after our divorce is final?"

"We talked about that. Brenda and Mama both say it should be Brenda. I think you should marry Emily, because you love her the most."

"I love you the most. I wish I could convince you of that."

"I meant the most after me."

"No you didn't. You still think I don't really love you, Joyce, but I swear I do. I love you more than all of them put together."

"We could all be happy, all you have to do is come back home."

"How many more times do you think I'm going to call you to see if you've gotten some sense, Joyce? I've let a crazy woman have my babies. It makes me want to cry."

"Kenny, we're all here, waiting for you. We all love you, and we all miss you. Please call Mama and tell her you're sorry for the way you spoke to her. She's very upset. You need to call and talk to Gerta too. You never have called her, not even once since you've been gone."

"I'll call Gerta tomorrow. I need to think about how I feel about calling Mama. Joyce, I want you to quit thinking about what you and all those other X's want. You're my wife now, and the mother of my little babies. You need to start thinking about what's best for us."

We talked some more, but Joyce was pretending to be all nice and reasonable, while still insisting that I needed to do what they all wanted me to do. She made me want to jump through the phone line and strangle her. I was getting ready to hang up on her, when she asked me again about which of the X's she should send for a visit the next day. She wasn't listening to me anyway. It was like I was talking to a light pole or something.