by Jim CaJacob
Wilton checked email. He had a Mac at home, a Unix workstation here, plus the lunch box Unix box that he took on the road. Jenny had started the coffee, so he had his first of several cups of the day.
Val bustled in. “Morning everybody. Ten minutes in my office, OK?” The team worked enough irregular hours and Val wasn’t a stickler about starting time. Wilton could feel there was some big new assignment and was anxious to hear about it.
He sat down in a comfortable swivel chair at Val’s small round table. There was a white board, and a monitor with a small videoconferencing camera aimed at the table. Videoconferencing always sounded like a good idea but they seldom used it.
Val’s office was sunny but cluttered. It contained the three states of business matter: unpiled documents strewn on every flat surface, loosely piled documents collected on the same surfaces, and neatly filed books and binders which were almost never touched. Val managed the entropic process in fits. Every few weeks he couldn’t stand the ratio of strewn to piled papers, so he adjusted it, in the process throwing out the 40 percent or so of both which had become worthless through the natural process of aging.
Jenny came in, carrying her customary yellow legal pad, and sat down. Val finished typing an email, jabbed the Enter key with his little finger ten times harder than necessary, and deftly rolled his chair over to the table.
“Hi guys. This one should be interesting. You remember the Tavron job?”
Wilton and Jenny nodded.
“Well, Max Leavitt, the partner from MB&A, has some what you might call follow-up work for us.”
They remained silent.
“The MB&A technical team that had been at Tavron before us are now working on a government gig. Y2K in fact. Max is, shall we say, a little nervous about it. He’s not convinced they weren't involved in the Tavron scam, and this government work is very sensitive.”
“DOD?" Jenny said.
“No, not Defense. I thought so too at first. This is in the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
Wilton wondered off-hand what a labor statistic would be. How many shovels-full of dirt per man per day?
“The BLS publishes all kinds of statistics about the economy; some monthly, some quarterly, some annually. You’ve probably heard about some of them – even you, Wilton.”
Wilton had gotten a late start, but since he had moved here his TV viewing hours per day was way above the statistical mean. CNN was a staple.
“Does Mr. Leavitt suspect anything specific?” Jenny asked.
“No. And the team hasn’t been there long. Let’s just say his firm is willing to invest in the best” – he winked – “to cover their bases. Let’s go over the approach. First, unfortunately, we have to work in DC. The good news is we get to stay at the Ritz-Carlton. The assignment should only a couple months, but will mean long hours and weekends. Probably only one or two trips home during that time.”
They were used to this. Wilton, in fact, didn’t mind it. His apartment was more or less a staging area to exchange a suitcase full of clean laundry with the product of the last trip. His state-of-the-art stereo and big screen TV were sadly underutilized. He liked to cook for friends, but relied heavily on takeout pizza and Chinese food. The take-out Chinese was barely recognizable as his native cuisine. For one thing, every dish had about eight times as much meat as he was used to. Still, he enjoyed it.
“I’ll make sure your credit cards are working.” Mrs. Braga, Val’s long-suffering bookkeeper, waged a continuous war of attrition with various Accounts Payable departments to try to keep the cash flow moving.
“Now, the work. The Bureau has thousands of old, mostly mainframe-based programs. Obviously we don’t have time to check our boys’ work line-by-line. We need a better approach.”
“I assume they’ll be using some methodology tool. Will we have access to it?”
“Yes and no. Our cover story is that we’re doing a QA audit for the firm. I’ll spend most of my time looking at the paper trail, and interviewing Bureau people. Wilton, I’ll get you physical access to the network but then you’ll have to hack the overall security before you and Jenny can get to the real goodies.”
“Sounds straightforward so far.” In Wilton’s lexicon, ‘straightforward’ could mean anything from ‘routine’ to ‘barely possible’.
“Jenny, how’s your statistics theory these days?”
“I think I remember Mean, Median and Mode. The rest is a little fuzzy.”
“Funny. Seriously, you have to get right inside the math of these programs. Then you and Wilton the Wiz have to deconstruct the code to see if it does what it’s supposed to. Did I mention that the programs are written in a tantalizing combination of mainframe assembler, Fortran, PL/1, RPG, ADA and COBOL?”
“Real mainframe RPG? Cool.”
Val and Jenny looked at each other and rolled their eyes. When Wilton encountered an esoteric curiosity like the RPG language running on an IBM mainframe he acted like an eccentric British naturalist staring at an undiscovered species of beetle.
“What do you guys think?”
Wilton deferred to Jenny.
She began. “Well, I’ll be very surprised if the technical doc is very useful. I’m afraid we’re going to have to reverse engineer the programs using the math, then compare what they’re doing with what we think they should be doing. There’s no way we can do that for all the programs they’re checking. Wilton, any ideas?”
“Well, if we know where these people are supposed to be working, we should be able to compare where they’re working versus where they say they’re working. Can we get a backup to look at?" Wilton said.
“I’ll try to make that happen. What else?”
“This doesn’t seem as obvious an opportunity to steal as Tavron. Do we have a hunch what they might be up to?" Jenny said.
“No. But I’ll work on that too," Val said. “Anything else?”
Jenny shook her head no. Wilton said “This is why we make the big bucks, right?” Wilton had a hard time getting a handle on Val. Val obviously knew his way around the corporate world. And while he didn’t pretend to be technical, he always seemed to understand when Wilton or Jenny explained something. Once Val told Wilton that Val’s job was to be Wilton’s and Jenny’s number one helper. Val meant he had to first make sure that they knew what was expected. Then, according to Val, his job became doing whatever it took to allow Wilton and Jenny to do their job. This could entail administrative tasks, running interference with the client or with the other consultants, or digging for information on the business side. Or ordering pizza for that matter.
Val said. “We leave day after tomorrow. E-tickets. One good thing Wilton, there’s good jazz in DC.”
Wilton glanced at his watch. He had a softball game in twenty-five minutes. “Business casual, boss?”
“Wilton, the way I see it you’re hardly going to see the light of day for three weeks. You can wear a Nehru jacket for all I care.”
“A what?”
“Never mind, Wilton. Just try not to give me a nervous breakdown at the airport this time, OK?”
Chapter 15
Josh squirmed in the chair, the chair Mona called ‘important’. He just knew it was uncomfortable, like most of their furniture. He had just come in from Penn Station. As usual, the cab got stuck in the Friday night theatre district jam. He had given up trying to give the cabby cross-town directions. Still, he wasn’t about to take the subway. After you, Mr. Mayor.
One of the Headline News regulars was on. Ted Turner had long ago made the journalistic judgment that if you were going to pay someone a lot of money to read on the television, they might as well be really good looking. This one was a total babe with a blonde bob, a slightly cleft chin and pouty lips, and a rack her business suit tastefully flaunted.
“In economic news, the Consumer Price Index remained steady at 2.3%, surprising some analysts. Reversing a t
rend of recent months, the Index was helped by falling fuel prices.”
Josh had seen the number on the net at 8:30 that morning, the scheduled release time. He wanted to see how it was reported.
Mona was at an opening. She hadn’t really insisted that Josh go, which wasn’t unusual. She was a little embarrassed to bring him when the crowd was what she considered ultra-hip. In that circle, having an actual job was considered a little – what was the word they used? – “sensible”. He was fine with not going. They served warmish jug Chardonnay and held their chins and said things like “how sly!”
Josh intentionally didn’t call Scott. He had arranged to meet with Hansi the next time the banker was in the city, probably in a week or two. He would definitely seem too eager if he called or emailed him. He wanted to talk to somebody. He called Estelle.
She answered on her cell phone. There was the unmistakable sound of the yuppie bar scene in the background. She couldn’t talk right then but she would call him back.
He was restless. He got on the web and looked at some travel sites. Mona loved to travel, to exotic locales that did what she considered to be a good job of recreating the Upper East Side. Her version of foreign language study was to evaluate how cute one waiter’s accent was compared to another.
What about Bali? Bali was cool, right? Josh knew next to nothing about Bali, other than it was an island. What else did you need to know? He clicked on a site. There were women dancing with funny hats and guys, with a different kind of funny hat, playing what looked like preschool xylophones mounted on dragon carvings.
He clicked on a BMW site. The new convertible looked cool. The price was in the 60s. He surfed a little and found a Ferrari site. He had read somewhere about companies that took stock Ferraris and souped them up. How much could that cost? “Souped up” doesn’t come with the $300K list price model?
The phone rang. “Calder,” he said.
It was Estelle. A bunch of them were in a cab heading downtown to dance at the new place. She was in her flirty mode.
“She’s at an opening. She said about eleven,” Josh said. He wanted to talk about the Index.
“I can’t. I said I’d wait up for her.”
Someone screamed in Estelle’s cab – the New York party scream.
“She does not. It’s my choice. Listen, call us in the morning, Estelle. No, don’t. I won’t be able to hear the horn up here. Later.”
He called Scott after all and got his machine. Scott’s voice said ‘leave your message after the be-bop’.
The magazines on the weird-shaped coffee table were all Mona’s. The only sports on TV was hockey. He sat in the middle of the couch, foot tapping like crazy, and flipped the channels.
Chapter 16
Val chose an old fashioned steak house.
“I don’t think I have time for Bauer’s. I only get an hour,” Malcolm said.
“Relax. I spoke to Mr. Simmons. Lunch is on me, we can take as long as we like, and if you want a cocktail I’ll consider that my government duty,” Val said.
They hung their blazers on the back of their chairs, but Malcolm left on his yellow cardigan.
The waiters still wore garter belts on their sleeves, for that old tyme look that became popular in the mid-70s, just as bell-bottoms were phasing out. Many sported Wyatt Earp mustaches.
Malcolm ordered a single malt scotch that Val had never heard of. Val would have guessed him as a 7 and 7 man. Val had a Chardonnay. He was convinced that lunch Chardonnay was shipped by the container load in 55-gallon drums from some third world country. Other than France, of course.
“First, let me thank you for your help to my team,” Val said. “You can’t imagine how difficult some people make it for us. Not that I expect you to start feeling sorry for consultants.”
“We can use all the help we can get, believe me,” Malcolm said. “How’s the work going?”
“We’re making headway, in spite of the typical roadblocks. Things look pretty clean compared to most Fed shops.”
“That’s nice to hear,” Malcolm said. Val noticed that Malcolm drank his scotch neat, with a couple drops of water.
No entrée cost less than ten bucks. Val ordered Dover sole, Malcolm the gravlax. Another surprise – this guy was obviously not all meat and potatoes.
“You must have tales to tell, with all the flitting about you get to do,” Malcolm said.
“A lot of the work is repetitive. Only the faces change. But yes, once in a while we come across something really funny, or strange, or both.”
“Tell me a good story.”
“Let’s see. Once I was working in Clinton, Illinois, home of Revere Ware. At lunchtime someone asked "Do you guys want to eat in the bowling alley or would you rather go somewhere quick?"
“Oh my,” Malcolm said.
Malcolm shook his head as he spread horseradish over the grilled salmon.
“Malcolm, I confess this is a working lunch. I wanted to pick your brain about something. I guarantee I have Mr. Simmons’ go-ahead to ask, but feel free to call him if you’re uncomfortable with the conversation.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t mislead me about something like that, Val.”
“Thanks. That makes things easier. What I wanted to ask was this. I know you’ve been working with the Y2K consulting team that was brought in.”
“Well, I’ve been trying to help them where I can. I’ve been around a long time and I know where some of the skeletons are, programmatically speaking that is.”
“How long, exactly?”
“Let’s see. Oh my goodness. Twenty-nine years. Nixon was president. I’m not sure he took a direct role in hiring me, however.” Malcolm smiled.
“Too bad for him. Things might have turned out different if he had a few more Malcolm Eberles and a few less Chuck Colsons.”
When the waiter checked Val asked if they could get a side order of the garlic mashed potatoes. He figured that averaging the sole and the potatoes, he would come in well under the double cheeseburger, fries and a Coke standard for calorie load.
“But back to our boys. Part of our job is to sort of check out their work. I’m sure your shop has sound QA practices, but management feels that they can’t be too careful,” Val said.
“If by ‘sound QA practices’ you mean trying to cover every square foot of wall space with quality posters, you’re right. If you mean peer review of design and code and things like that, you must be kidding. We’re lucky to meet the deadlines as it is.”
“That bad.”
“Getting worse all the time. This Y2K hubbub is just the latest excuse. You should have been here when the Director decided we were going to switch to ADA before any other Department.”
Someone had described the once-trendy programming language ADA as the Defense Department’s attempt to sign a computer language non-proliferation treaty with itself. It had apparently made some headway in other government shops.
“So it’s possible that some of these people’s code could go unchecked?" Val said.
“Of course, they came in touting their ‘methodology’. That’s still a pretty popular consulting term. It includes thorough QA. But you have to wonder about the built-in bias.”
“The same team creating the code checks the code?”
“Exactly. But don’t get me wrong. They seem like very capable young people. Scott Crane is a nice young man – very conscientious.”
“He’s the tall blonde guy, right?”
“Right. He wears suspenders, but not the – what’s the term? – yuppie style. He seems to favor more of a 40s look.”
The waiter checked back. Malcolm suggested that they each have an Armagnac. He asked the waiter for a particular brand. The waiter said he would have to check, then came back with a tray. On it were two enormous brandy snifters balanced over tumblers half full with steaming water.
“I’m sorry,” Malcolm said,
“that will ruin the bouquet of the Armagnac. In fact it already has. The snifter, at least a normally sized one, is designed to let the warmth of your hand warm the liquor gently, releasing the flavor. You might as well boil these in a saucepan on the stove. Do you mind bringing us two the old fashioned way? We’ll pay for them if necessary.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” the waiter said. “We probably move about a half bottle of this stuff a year.”
Val had to admit he was impressed with this shy, colorless bureaucrat. “Who’s the curly, dark-haired one? Jeremy, is it?" Val said.
“Josh. Josh Calder. He seems a little too busy with whatever his agenda is to hobnob with the peons like me. Unless I miss my guess Scott does the lion’s share of the work and Josh takes most of the credit. Funny though, it doesn’t seem to bother Scott.”
“Yeah, Calder. Actually we’ve come across his work on previous assignments. He’s a smart guy, but apparently a little abrasive.”
“Even for a consultant.”
“Ouch. Got me Malcolm. Anything else in particular catch your eye?”
“Well, now that you mention it, I did notice one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“It seemed to me that they spent quite a while in the X-11 modules.”
“What are those? X-11?”
“Sorry. As you know, many of the indexes we publish are adjusted for seasonality. The X-11 modules are used to make those adjustments.”
“Seasonality?”
“Sorry again. We do live in a world of jargon. Seasonality is the effect of the time of the year, or sometimes even the day, on economic performance. For example, many retailers do half of their annual business between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We try to adjust for that to give people a clearer picture of what’s really going on.”
“Sounds important. Why would it be unusual for the Y2K team to spend a lot of time working there?”
“Well, think about it. The seasonal adjustment modules are specifically designed to deal with dated information. They’re probably the only programs in the whole Federal Government that were Y2K – what’s the word? – compliant before all this ruckus started. They had to be or they wouldn’t work.”
