Note to Reader:
The most famous building in Chicago is currently officially named the "Willis Tower". However this building is stilled referred to by many by its original name "Sears Tower". To avoid confusion in my novel, I have referred the building by its original name. In any case the action as depicted would be taking place during the time the building was still officially known as the "Sears Tower".
____________________________________________
Walter Snyder was not a happy camper at work. The senior partners were continuously dangling the prospect of partnership to him without any follow-through. They intimated that partnership for him was a certain event only that the time was uncertain; but it would be soon they constantly assured him. Despite completing one successful assignment after another, the time never seemed to be just yet right for his promised partnership.
In addition, another unsettling matter was that the firm treated Vera Starikovich even shabbier. He was of the opinion that she was an outstanding accountant, but despite her unbelievably excellent performance at work the firm management seemed to discount her abilities.
After about seven years of employment, Walter had had enough. Because of an overload of work he was given the assignment to audit a prominent client. He had just completed the audit, and had uncovered various serious mistakes made by the client's bookkeepers. Walter was able to correct them and as a result, the client saved a substantial amount of originally perceived tax liability which they would have otherwise paid.
He was angry at the lack of appreciation by the senior partners considering that this work was not amongst his normal duties and workload. All he got by way of acknowledgment was a token 'Thank you' from one of the senior partners who remarked that with continued performance like that he would soon be a partner. Walter could not help but think that it was just the same line of bull he had been getting all along and that the offer of partnership was just a sham to keep him with the firm and work for peanuts.
As irritated as he was by the firm's lack of appreciation of his work, he was outraged by the way the firm had handled Vera's latest success. She had just finished a special assignment from a potentially new and important client, Baxter & Sons. The assignment also necessitated Vera to work in conjunction with the FBI Office. After a meticulous examination of all of the financial records of Baxter & Sons, Vera was able to identify the existence of an embezzlement of a substantial amount of the company's funds.
Vera's subsequent detective work was so skilful that she was able to trace the location of where most of the stolen funds were hidden. With the co-operation of the Federal Prosecutors' office she was able to have the FBI freeze them and thus enabling the company to recapture a significant part of the total monies embezzled.
The embezzlement scheme was so sophisticated and so cleverly disguised that it had eluded detection by the company's auditors (Price Waterhouse) for the past several years. This particular year, CEO Jed Baxter, was suspicious and not satisfied with the auditor's clean bill of health. Upon advisement of his accountant at Price Waterhouse of Vera's excellent reputation as a forensic accountant, Jed Baxter contacted Watson and Woodhouse to hire Vera. He also alerted the FBI of Vera's assignment and paved the way for criminal prosecution.
Vera's success exceeded Baxter's expectations. Not only did she expose the fraudulent scheme but she was able to gather and accumulate sufficient evidence to allow the Federal Government Attorneys to successfully prosecute the guilty party, a highly regarded and respected financial officer of the business empire of Baxter and Sons.
Walter had heard through the office grapevine that Jed Baxter was so delighted with Vera's work that he paid in addition to the contracted fee, a $10K bonus to the firm. Walter was certain that the firm did not share the bonus with Vera. But beyond that, what really infuriated Walter was that the firm did not deem it important enough to have even an impromptu office celebration to acknowledge Vera's remarkable achievement.
As it was becoming evident to Walter that the offer of partnership was elusive and not to be relied on, he had been considering alternative employment. In particular he was considering opening an office on his own. He believed that seeking employment with another firm would just be exchanging headaches so that was not an appealing option.
With his uncanny knack of investing wisely and efficiently, he had accumulated some excess personal wealth. In addition, he could no doubt borrow if need be from both his sister and sister-in-law. He had enriched them both by his handling of their inheritances from the deaths of their respective fiancées. And of course his father was wealthy enough to touch as well. As far as Walter was concerned, gathering sufficient capital to start a business should not be a problem.
He was confident of his own abilities and business acumen, that he did not even consider failure. He was certain that some of the clients he was working with would follow him, so that he would have some business from the get go. He would not starve. He could not help but be gleeful of the arrogance of Watson and Woodhouse not to have demanded a non competition clause when he was hired.
The con against all the pros for starting a firm on his own was the loss of the professional camaraderie he enjoyed at Watson and Woodhouse. If he were on his own he would not have peers around him to share and swap stories of the events of the day. Now his wife Linda was somewhat knowledgeable of the nature of accounting and with whom he did recount his work experiences. However she was not the same kind of listener as a fellow accountant would be and he knew he wanted such outlet to share stories of work experiences.
Walter could envision starting a firm with other accountants, or at the very least with one fellow accountant. He would leave this firm in a heartbeat without regret should such a possibility exist. As his dissatisfaction was becoming more acute he was entertaining the possibility of starting solo but if he could attract at least one comrade he would have no qualms of making the change immediately.
In considering another accountant to team up with, he ruled out the other accounting firms. Aside from the fact that he did not know other accountants as well as he knew the ones he worked with, he felt it was disloyal to be partners with someone who had been working for another firm. Not that he really owed any loyalty to Watson and Woodhouse; but it still felt morally wrong to him. Unfortunately the pool of accountants at his current firm was small given its size.
He had to rule out the partners since there was nothing to entice them to leave. For a partner to leave and strike out on his own would be a step down. Hard work would be necessary to achieve the ultimate reward of hopefully attaining exactly the same professional level the partner currently held within Watson and Woodhouse. So for a partner there was no upside to joining with Walter to form an independent firm, but there were plenty of downsides.
Amongst the associates there were only two, Walter could consider teaming up with; he knew he could not get along with the others in a professional partnership setting. One of the two was Oliver Mooney, who was Walter's best friend at the firm. Oliver had also been his best man at his wedding, so obviously there were no compatibility issues. The knock against Oliver was that he was a mediocre if not actually an incompetent accountant. Watson and Woodhouse was a big enough firm that it could carry a deadweight like Oliver, but Walter could not if he had any hope to make his business a success.
The second associate he could get along with was Vera. In contrast to Oliver, Vera was a super competent accountant in spades. The Baxter case revealed her abilities to be extraordinary. He could not understand how the senior partners apparently did not see that. But what was more amazing was that she, herself did not seem to resent the treatment accorded to her.
Granted she could not go about the office ranting and raving about her mistreatment without losing her position in doing so. Still if she were annoyed by her status at the firm, surely her body language and demeanor would betray such sentiments; yet she was truly cheerful at all times at the office. Walter could not believe Vera was such a milquetoast to be content with the inadequate salary she no doubt was receiving. Surely she must have higher ambitions for herself.
If she truly was not resentful and was submissive to her lot in life at Watson and Woodhouse, he knew he would not want her as a partner, no matter the excellence of her technical skills. He believed that he would want and need an aggressive partner to enable them to successfully strike out on their own. Walter though sensed that there was something about Vera that belied such a negative assumption of her apparent passivity. There was obviously more to Vera than meets the eye. So he asked her out for a lunch date with the intention of assessing the possibility of enlisting her as a business partner and determine if his potential misgivings about her could be negated.
Vera not suspecting anything readily accepted the date for lunch at a nearby café. They had occasionally indulged in such lunch dates in the past to innocuously chatter about office gossip.
In this vein after they were served, Walter observed casually that the frostiness between she and Oliver Mooney had become legendary in the office. Walter pointed out that everyone had noticed that the two of them did not speak to each other.
Vera protested:
"Not true. We do speak to each other. Why this very morning we had a conversation."
