Luke 15: 20-24:
"So he got up and went back to his father. While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him."
Spoiler alert: this story ends differently than the one in the bible!
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John and Margaret Branson had an easy life. John's father, Axel, had started Branson Manufacturing LLC a specialty manufacturer of nozzles for any machinery that needed one including fossil fuel burners, commercial power wash systems, farm equipment, 3-D printers, liquid packaging, and national defense equipment. The company was successful and therefore Axel's only son John, who always worked at Branson Mfg. and took over running the business when he was forty years old, had the lifestyle befitting that of a wealthy man. While John certainly did not have the business acumen of Axel he was basically competent and when he took over the business sales and profits remained substantially the same.
John and Margaret had two children, both boys, Justin and Bradley.
The older boy, Justin, was handsome, tall, athletic, glib, and smart. However he was intellectually lazy and got by using his other attributes rather than his intelligence. He was the apple of Margaret's eye and she disguised that very poorly. John also favored Justin but had the decency to hide it as best he could.
The younger boy by about three years, Bradley, was reasonably good looking, not small but four inches shorter than Justin, not very athletic, but very intellectual. While his parents usually underestimated his intellect no one else did. He got two national science awards, and he skipped a grade so that when Justin was a senior in High School Bradley was a sophomore.
Justin was all about Justin; about as narcissistic as someone could be; and haughty. He was probably born that way, but certainly encouraged by the way that his parents treated him. Bradley, on the other hand, was humble (despite being the smartest student in any school he attended) and friendly to everyone.
The difference between how the parents dealt with their sons could not have been starker. One of dozens of examples occurred when Justin was a junior and Bradly a freshman, in High School. When Justin was the sixth man for the High School basketball team his parents never missed a game. When Bradley won an award as the top student in the freshman class his parents had "another commitment" and couldn't attend the ceremony, but they did make sure to tell him "That's real nice, Brad."
Justin always treated Bradley poorly. Bradley learned not to complain to his parents, however, since whenever he did -- no matter what Justin did -- it was either dismissed as "boys will be boys," or "you must have done something to provoke him." Things came to a head shortly after the start of the winter semester in High School when Justin was a senior and Bradley a sophomore.
Marci was a sophomore girl that Bradley liked. Since Bradley was respectful and friendly to everyone, virtually everybody in the school liked him. On a Monday he asked Marci to go with him to a dance on Saturday. She eagerly accepted.
Justin overheard Brad excitedly talking to one of his friends on the phone about his date with Marci. Up until that time Justin had shown no interest in Marci whatsoever, and almost always dated just juniors and seniors. However, to demonstrate to his brother how superior he was the next day he asked Marci to go to the dance with him. Awed by being asked by maybe the best looking boy in school, and a senior, Marci accepted.
The next day Brad found out not only why Marci broke her date with him but for whom. Enraged, at home he confronted Justin. Justin just laughed at him and pushed him. Brad didn't remember exactly what happened next, but he did know that he attacked Justin with a ferocity that he had never before exhibited.
After fifteen minutes of intense mayhem, where despite the fact that Bradley was in general getting the worst of it, he refused to quit even when Justin tried to placate him. Ultimately Justin got him in a rear naked choke hold and Bradley passed out. When the carnage was over, in addition to the broken furniture Bradley ended up overnight in the hospital with a concussion and bruises and welts over his entire body, and Justin had a broken nose and broken left hand. The broken left hand meant no basketball season for Justin even though he was going to be a starter.
Of course the parents blamed the younger son regardless of the circumstances and grounded him. Bradley could have cared less, however, since everyone at school found out about how Justin's injuries happened giving Bradley instant status. Shortly after Bradley got out of the hospital he told Justin "You ever fuck with me again and I'll kill you." Justin pretended that he wasn't afraid but actions speak louder than words -- he didn't fuck with Bradley again -- at least for a long time.
Marci ended up having no one take her to the dance.
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After college Justin married the prom queen from High School, Alicia Masterson. Her father Boynton was the richest man in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they all lived. The wedding was ostentatious. Justin didn't ask Bradley to be one of the groomsman and the parents never said anything about it. While Bradley didn't give a shit because he didn't want to even attend the wedding even though he liked Alicia, with some snide remarks to his friends when his parents could hear he said things like "Gee, I'll bet that I'm the only brother in a two child family not to be included in his brother's wedding with eight groomsmen."
Justin and Alicia moved to Massachusetts where Justin got his MBA at Bentley University, the 134th ranked business school in the country. After that they moved to London where he provided his parents with rave reviews of his performance at a medium sized multinational corporation.
John and Margaret were disappointed that Justin didn't come to work at Branson Mfg. but realized that he was such a star that he had outgrown Charlotte so they didn't hold it against him.
Meanwhile Bradley was getting a mechanical engineering degree from MIT (often ranked as the best engineering school in the U. S.) in three years, and an MBA also from MIT (the 5th ranked business school in the country) in 18 months. While Bradley had many offers from other companies since John had just had a minor heart attack, and since both of his parents begged him to return to Charlotte to help with the business at least until John recovered, and this was the first time in his life that they were actually treating him like a valuable member of the family, Brad agreed.
While going to school at MIT Bradley had met Virginia Marin. Virginia was not a raving beauty like Alicia Branson nee Masterson, but she was agreeable looking, personable, and smart. She was neither fat nor thin with a pleasant though not beautiful face. Bradley and Virginia got married in Charlotte after Justin and Alicia had moved to England, and Justin was too busy conquering the business world to return for the nuptials. Actually, Bradley could give a shit, but he did rub it in to his parents, who once again defended Justin.
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When Bradley started at Branson Mfg. he was presented by Branson's attorney with a "standard" packet of papers to sign. He looked them over carefully and saw that one document was a non-compete agreement. He ripped it up and threw it in a recycling bin. Either Branson's attorney had the same lack of attention to detail as John, or had been told by John not to rock the boat, because no one questioned Brad about the lack of a signed non-compete agreement. Had they Bradley would have told them that if that was a condition of employment he'd accept another job offer.
Despite Bradley's young age he did an excellent job of running Branson Mfg. while John was recovering from his heart attack. He did this not just because he implemented some new techniques that he learned at MIT, but because he treated all employees as valuable, better than they had ever been treated before. He raised the salaries of the management employees who deserved it, implemented profit sharing for the production and sales employees, and increased morale significantly. He fired his father's battleaxe old secretary who was the source of most of the gossip in the company and was highly unproductive, and hired Jeanette, a young married woman only a couple of years out of High School who was industrious, efficient, and discrete (and cute).
When John returned as CEO he tried to reverse the changes that Bradley had made. However, Bradley had prepared for that by providing employment agreements and since he had complete power of attorney during John's absence there was nothing that John could do about it but steam; however, John was able to cancel the profit sharing for the production employees. Bradley made sure that all the production employees knew that he would do everything he could to increase their pay sometime in the future.
When John returned Bradley became VP of production. Six months after John returned the company was more profitable than it had been since John took over and even John had to admit that it was because of the increased morale and the changes to procedure that Bradley had implemented. Bradley then insisted on a $2/hour increase for all of the production employees assuring that he would forgo any bonus if that didn't result in a 7% increase in production efficiency. John reluctantly agreed, and Bradley had the loyalty of every production employee.
Over the next year Branson Mfg. did become more profitable, and production efficiency did increase by 9%. By this time, however, Bradley had recognized that the only reason for Branson Mfg.'s success was because of their most popular product called the ZX-3 nozzle. It was responsible for 80% of the profits. However, the patent on the ZX-3 would expire in less than two years and when it did competitors would flood the market.
Bradley had a solution for the problem, however. He re-designed the nozzle, which re-design he called the ZX-4, so that it would be more efficient by about 25%. He also identified a machine for its manufacture that could produce it for only 10% more than the ZX-3. However, to do that Branson Mfg. would have to purchase a new type of CNC machine that had just come out on the market for $1,800,000. John nixed the idea completely, including even for applying for a patent on the ZX-4 and refused to let Bradley apply for one on his own.
Bradley didn't like it, but since he was well compensated and had been virtually promised the CEO position once John retired in a few years, he lumped it. Then came the cataclysmic event that's responsible for the title of this tome.
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Justin, the prodigal son, returned to Charlotte. According to his story he and Alicia simply missed the US, and despite his outstanding success in England, he wanted to reconnect with his roots. In actuality the division of the company that he was VP of in England went bankrupt due to his mismanagement and he was fired, but he was able to negotiate a deal that allowed him to resign by forfeiting a significant part of his severance.
John and Margaret were thrilled by Justin's return. John immediately made him CEO of Branson Mfg. and took the role of Chairman of the Board. When Bradley objected John deflected it with "He's more experienced than you are and had an outstanding success in England."
Having done his homework, Bradley responded "The division he managed went bankrupt, how's that an outstanding success?"
"Well there were many things beyond his control, it had nothing to do with him," John responded.
