I, Rick Simms, was down on women. My wife divorced me two years ago after she discovered that she was actually a lesbian, my girlfriends before I married my wife and after my divorce cheated on me, and my female boss was a sarcastic bitch (although at least she implemented my ideas when they were good and even gave me credit). I knew that there had to be someone that would be "Mrs. Right" at some point in my life, but it didn't look like I would find her soon. Since I was only 28 I wasn't desperate yet so I decided to take a break from women for at least a few months. Instead, whenever I felt "the urge" I'd work out for 3-4 hours until I was too exhausted to move. At least that had the effect of getting me into the best shape of my life, even though I had never been completely out of shape and was actually a champion fencer in college.
One woman -- aside from my immediate boss but her I could deal with -- who I couldn't take a break from and who grated on my nerves was the "efficiency expert" of Gadgets Galore Ltd., the large multinational company that I worked for as an engineer. For some reason she saw fit to visit my division once a month and would bust all the balls that she could, telling us how what we did to go about our jobs was all wrong and stupid. She was nasty in the way that she went about it too. What made it worse was that she was the wife of one of the company's vice presidents, a guy with a reputation for being the biggest asshole in the entire stable of 3000+ employees in the U. S.
Vivian Grimes -- the "efficiency expert" -- was better known as the "Corporate Harpy," at least by all of the people (men and women -- even my immediate boss) in my group. Her husband Victor Grimes was in charge of another division besides the one my group was in so there supposedly wasn't a conflict as far as the Gadget Galore's corporate rules were concerned. Vivian's age was hard to place. Some said that she was Victor's much younger trophy wife who he couldn't stand to just have her just criticizing him so he set her loose on our division. Others said that she was in her forties but had lots of work done so she looked younger. Still others said that she was actually a demon, while some insisted that she was a cyborg, or an alien from outer space. If she didn't always have either a stern or condescending look on her face it might actually be considered "pretty," but her body was a complete mystery since she seemed to think that oversized baggy pants suits that somehow looked like burlap sacks were fashionable because that's what she always wore.
I don't know why but she seemed to take a special interest in criticizing me. She "wrote me up" on at least three occasions that I know of when I wouldn't go along with her concepts on how I was doing too much testing on new products and was therefore "inefficient," a mortal sin as far as she was concerned. I did lose at least two performance bonuses because of her "write-ups" and I really wanted to get even with her.
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Sometimes good things come to those who wait. I was in the final stages of developing a new safety product that would stop natural gas explosions in residential and commercial buildings. There was one aspect of it (response to high pressure fluctuations in the pipeline), however, that concerned me and I wanted to do significantly more testing before putting the product into a Beta test site, a warehouse that normally employed about 100 people. Then along came Vivian. She ordered me, in the name of efficiency, not to do the extra testing that I felt was necessary. I insisted that she put her order in writing and set forth the reasons why, and I responded to her written order saying that it was dangerous to proceed at the present time and that the Gadgets Galore could be liable for both property damage and wrongful death actions. Her response said that I was wrong and to do as she said or in her next "write-up" she would recommend firing me.
Instead of doing what she said, however, I used all the discretionary money in my budget to have an independent lab do both an actual test and a computer simulation. The test structure blew up and the computer simulation determined that the safety gadget would fail at least 60% of the time with disastrous consequences if the natural gas line pressure exceeded a threshold value by a certain amount -- the very issue that I was concerned with. I corrected that aspect of the product, I actually did the Beta testing with the corrected product, and it worked perfectly.
I decided it was time to put the screws to Vivian Grimes. Maybe her husband would ultimately intervene and she wouldn't get fired, or maybe even I would, but I now considered her dangerous and felt that I had no choice. Therefore I got all of my evidence together, enlisted the help of the independent lab's director, and made an appointment to see Peter Franck, the VP of my division. I had heard from some people Peter and Victor were bitter rivals, and from others that they were good friends; I hoped that it was the former.
Somehow, Vivian got wind of what I was going to do. I was shocked as shit when she showed up unannounced at my apartment three days before my planned meeting with Franck. Her normally obnoxious attitude and the condescending look on her face were absent. "Hi Rick," was her actually pleasant greeting. "I wonder if I could speak with you a few minutes."
"Why are you here Mrs. Grimes? Why can't you talk to me at work?"
"Uh...well...the walls have ears, and this is something really sensitive so I hope that you wouldn't mind if I came to your residence. Please, Rick, can I come in and talk for a while; I'd really be grateful."
"OK -- but I have a date in an hour," I lied, "so you need to get to the point."
I was absolutely shocked by the change in demeanor of the Corporate Harpy as she sat down in my living room and in a soft voice, while wringing her hands, revealed why she was there. "Uh...Rick; I understand that you have a meeting with Peter Franck at the end of the week and that it might relate to me."
"True," I replied.
"Uh...can you please tell me what it's about?"
"It's about your incompetence which could have cost Gadgets Galore millions of dollars if I had followed the specific instructions you gave me on penalty of getting me fired if I didn't comply. I have absolute proof that had I followed your instructions the Beta test site would have blown up with extensive property damage and loss of life," I snidely replied with my arms folded.
She gulped. "Isn't there some other way we can deal with this. I'm having other difficulties at work and my marriage is in trouble, and this could ruin me forever."
"Why should I care about that?" I asked, though with less of an "attitude" than my last comment.
"Because I know that you're a nice guy and care about other people. I know that I screwed up and I'll try any way that I can to make it up to you."
"How?" I inquired.
"I can restore the money you spent on testing from your discretionary budget, and even add a few thousand dollars more."
"A good first step, but only a first step," I replied.
"I know that you don't like my recommendations..."
"You mean your directives," I snapped.
"Uh...yes...you don't like my directives; so I can refrain from giving directives to you..."
I interrupted again "Not just me, my entire group."