Not a stroke story. I'm not even sure quite where the idea for this came from, but if something seems to ring a bell with another story, my apologies to the author, although as has been said, plagiarism is the ultimate complement.
My name is Tom Moss, and my wife's name is Sara. We have two kids, both off in college, and we have been married for just over 25 years. We're both in pretty good shape, my wife because she works out on a ski machine in the basement, and me because my work keeps me moving pretty well.
I'm a field services engineer, well; actually I am a manager of a group of field services engineers, although being a manager doesn't do anything for me except give me a bigger paycheck and a hell of a lot more to do. I am still expected to do all the calls I can, and pick up after the guys that work for me. There are several managers who are my peers, and we are each responsible for a different area, although there can be some crossover at times.
My wife is a senior purchasing agent, for one of the companies that we supply systems to. Although we sell directly to the end user, we also sell to companies who add a bit to their cost, along with some special tweaks to the software that runs the systems, and resells them.
About a year and a half ago, the director I reported to retired, and someone from outside was brought in to "bring new life into the company." I had my nose somewhat out of joint over that one because I had thought that I was in line for a promotion to John's slot, so when Keith Zolinkowski came in I was all prepared to dislike him from the start.
After watching his management methods for a month or two, I hadn't seen a damn thing that changed my mind. You've seen the type – they know all the buzz words, are up on the latest theories, and have never been in the field, learning that you don't get everything out of a book. They also are not willing to listen to those who have to deal with day-to-day problems, but insist that you follow the book, or you get dinged on your performance reviews.
Almost immediately Keith instituted a policy that if a supplier had a problem with getting parts to us, or with the quality of those parts, one of the field service types was supposed to go running out to the supplier and see if they could fix the problem.
The problem with that was none of us were manufacturing engineers, and certainly were not quality control engineers. The result was that the suppliers begin to resent us, particularly the people who had to insure the quality and timeliness of their deliveries. I instructed all of my people that if they saw a particular solution that others hadn't, then by all means they should bring it up. But they should always defer to the suppliers' engineers unless they could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the supplier was wrong. That policy worked pretty well, and after a few months, our relationship with the suppliers improved, and they begin to show us things that we would never have figured out by ourselves without a whole lot of work.
About a year ago, Keith instituted another policy (among many) that had him going to the various purchasing agents for our products and taking them out to lunch, or dinner, in order to improve our relationships, as well as find out what we could do to improve our products for their purposes. I supposed that made some sense, but the thought in the back of my mind was always along the lines of what the hell were the sales engineers supposed to be doing? As sales were a completely different group, it seemed to me that he was stepping on a lot of toes.
In any event, it would up that Keith was taking my wife out to lunch once or twice a month, as he did a number of other purchasing agents. All of these lunches were one on one as nobody wanted to discuss their requirements with a competitor.
I told Sara to watch him, because I thought he was a slimy, backstabbing bastard, but Sara just blew me off. I'm sure that it had to do with Keith being a very charming man when he wanted to be; and second because Sara had a hard time believing that anyone would do anything that wasn't straight forward. In a word Sara was naïve in some regards.
I had always had to travel a bit, but most of it was a one-day trip. I would get up at 4:00 or 5:00am, so I could be onsite by the start of business, or maybe a little before, and then be home by 7:00pm at the latest. Now, with the trips to the suppliers, I had to go out of town for a couple of days once or twice a month. It wasn't often we had that significant a problem; it was just that any little hiccup would cause Keith to send me out. I was told that it was important that someone from management be on scene, even though my engineers were often sent.
It turned into a mess for my home life. It seemed as though almost every time Sara and I had something planned, a trip to a supplier would come up and things would get put off. You could tell in the atmosphere around the house. When I told Sara that I had to take off on another of these stupid trips she would get her nose completely out of joint, and things would be frosty for a couple of days after I got back. After a year of this shit, she was getting really tired of it.
Our 25th anniversary was coming up, and I had put in for three days of vacation, wanting to make sure that nothing came up to screw it up. I had managed to get tickets several months ago to a play that was really supposed to be wonder. I had reservations at a local restaurant for dinner after the play, and was planning on spending the rest of the week with my wife, celebrating our life together.
You guessed it, the day before my anniversary, Keith sent me an email and told me that I had to go to one of our suppliers to deal with an intermittent problem with the "black boxes" we were getting from them. I wrote back and told him that I had my 25th anniversary coming up, and that I already had been given approval for my three days off, and I wouldn't be able to go.
The response I got was blistering. Basically I was told that if I didn't put the company first, then that would be reflected in my annual review, and further that he would be required to look into whether or not I was setting a proper example for the engineers working for me.
I had seen this once before. Bob, one of my peers, had refused to go on a trip that was going to conflict with his son's graduation. Keith had written a performance review that was absolutely devastating. Bob had been given every shit job that came down the pike, and when they didn't work out perfectly (from Keith's viewpoint) he was given a reprimand. Ultimately he was put on a performance plan, and just before the poor bastard was going to be fired, he quit. Yet Bob was one of the best managers, and engineers, that I had ever known. Apparently you did not cross Keith. It took Bob months to find a new job, and then it was only at a significantly reduced salary.
So I bit the bullet, and told Sara that night that I was going to have to take off for two days to do the business trip. Sara was pissed beyond belief, and let it be known.
The morning of our anniversary, I woke up in the wee dark hours of the morning, and caught a flight to our supplier. Sara barely kissed me goodbye, she was still that pissed.
When I got there, about 7:30am, I asked for Tim Martin, the head of the quality control department. When Tim saw me, he was incredulous that I was there.
"What the hell are you doing here? I called Keith yesterday morning and told him that the problem had been figured out, and the stuff was even going to be delivered a day early."
I explained that this was all news to me, and asked if he could at least explain to me what the problem had been, then I could complete my report and maybe get the hell out of there.
It took all of the morning to get the full explanation, which was actually very simple. A supplier had been a bit short of a part needed, so had supplied a part that was very similar, but much faster. As the black box had been designed with the slower part in mind, there occasionally was a "race condition" which resulted in a lockup. The choice was to go back to the original part, or fix the race condition. They fixed it almost immediately, in a manner that allowed for both parts, and were off and running.
By noon, I was ready to leave, and called Sara on her cell phone to tell her that I was going to try to change my reservations to be home in time for the evening's festivities. Unfortunately, her cell was turned off, and like an idiot, I didn't leave a message, just deciding that I would try to surprise her. Well, I wasn't able to get a different flight until later that afternoon, one that would get me home in just enough time to drive from the airport to the theatre for the second act.
I landed, found my car, and drove like a madman to the theatre. I got there just as the intermission was ending and went to the will call windows to pick up my ticket. To my surprise, I was told the ticket had already been picked up, and that the play was completely sold out.
Okay, so I went to plan 'B'. I drove around looking for Sara's car, but no luck. That wasn't too surprising as parking was at a premium, and God knows where she had to park.
I waited until the play was over, then stood at the front entrance, hoping she would come out that way, rather than through one of the side doors, at least one of which opened onto another street. Again, no luck.
I called the restaurant to see if the reservation was still valid, but was told that it had been canceled that morning.
Having no other options, I simply went home, fixed myself a bit of dinner from leftovers, and waited for Sara to come home. It was getting later and later, and I thought that she must have gone to dinner somewhere else, so I made a drink, actually a rather strong one, and went to bed with my book, intending to wait up for her.
I must have fell asleep, because the next thing I knew the sun was streaming in the window, into my eyes, and it was 7:30am.
The first thing I tried was calling Sara's cell. It went immediately to voice mail, so it was turned off. I next tried Sara's twin sister (not an identical twin), and Tara had no idea where Sara was.
Incidentally, Tara had two children also, a bit younger than ours, and was widowed. Her husband had been killed in an auto wreck about five years ago. Tara and I were friendly, and I had helped her out with her genealogy work a year or so before. Tara's husband had really been into researching genealogy, and when he was killed she took it up with a vengeance.
Sara and Tara had been adopted as babies. Sara didn't seem to really care, but Tara was determined to find out who her folks were and all the other stuff that seemed to flow from it. Their adopted parents had been helpful, to the extent that they could. They knew that the biological parents had been killed in some kind of an accident, and thought that there might have been a brother or sister, but just weren't sure. They had been stretching their resources adopting twins, and just hadn't had the ability to take on a complete family.
In any event, Tara hadn't heard a word from Sara in days, so I started on the hospitals and the sheriff's department. Nobody had a clue where Sara was. No accidents, no "Jane Doe" admissions. Nothing.
About 9:30 I gave up, and went into the office thinking that it would at least take my mind off things. Every 30 minutes or so I would call Sara's cell, and then her direct line at her office. No joy.
I was in the break room getting my tea, when I heard Keith outside in the hall talking to someone.
"Boy, talk about banker's hours."
"A friend had tickets to a wonderful play last night, her husband couldn't make it, so I got the pleasure of going to it with her."
After Keith told him what play, I got a bit sick to my stomach. It was the same play that I had gotten tickets to for our anniversary. It had been sold out for months.
"Yeah, the play was wonderful, but afterwards I took her to dinner and then the evening got even better."
They moved off down the hall, and I couldn't hear anything more.
