Government Men

by Gary J. Davies

CHAPTER 5

  ON THE ESTABLISHMENT AND USE OF POWER IN THE OFFICE PLACE

  Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

  - Lord Action

  About 4000 kilometers from Janet Garb's observatory, where she slept to recover from working most of the night and to escape the awful knowledge that the Earth would be destroyed in less than two weeks, and only a mile from a concealed alien base where a terrified Dr. Barns struggled to maintain his sanity, the new Head of the DOD was attempting to recover from partying most of the previous night.

  Of the three, Bates may have had the worst of it. He awoke early in the morning moaning in abject pain and misery and found that he was lying across three auditorium seats in a position that could only have been accomplished without serious injury by a professional contortionist or a very drunk physicist.

  On top of the pain from sleeping for several hours as a pretzel, he recognized immediately that he had a terrific hangover. He hadn't been quite this drunk in many years, not since his graduate school days. Whatever fun he had the night before simply could not have been worth the misery he was now suffering. He tried to move. He didn't really want to move, but he had to; he had urgent reasons to get to a bathroom pronto.

  After struggling gingerly and moaning pitifully for several minutes, he found himself sitting upright more comfortably in one of the seats. He tried applying pressure to pain relieving acupuncture points at various places on his body, including the outside corners of his eye sockets and the bridge of his nose. He had read how to do so weeks earlier in an unreliable scandal newspaper while he was waiting in line at the supermarket. Much to his astonishment, though he suspected that his hands were too weak and shaky to really do it properly, the procedure provided significant pain relief!

  Looking around him, he found that he was alone in the auditorium. Good, he thought, that suggested that none of his employees were irresponsible enough to drink themselves silly, and that none were on hand to observe their new boss in his current pitiful condition. Looking at his watch, he found that it was six AM, still an hour or two before most employees would start to arrive. Plenty of time to get himself together, he figured.

  Despite his miserable state of health, he resolved to make his first full day as boss a meaningful one. Fighting pain and nausea, he finally stood up. He was dizzy for a few moments after accomplishing this monumental feat, and his poor head pounded like a base drum, but the pounding soon subsided to tolerable levels. Calling on inner reserves of strength that he hadn't tapped in years, he stumbled off towards the nearest men's room, dodging the empty pizza boxes, sandwich wrappers, and paper cups that littered the floor. Why the hells had he let himself drink so damn much beer? Getting drunk was a young man's game and required far more stamina than he had!

  During the process of relieving himself, he remembered his dog Milo. Poor Milo! Had he left the doggie door open at his apartment? Milo would be famished by now, or forced to eat some of the tasteless kibble that was always left out for him. And when was the last time he fed his goldfish? He couldn't remember. Wincing with pain he stumbled out to the Nitro and zoomed out the gate, which as it happens, had just moments before been opened by Hank. Aided by Premium Fuel, the Nitro had him home in three minutes.

  Fortunately Bates had indeed left the apartment doggie door open. He found that out when he opened his car door and a joyful Milo, all thirty-two pudgy pounds of him, launched himself into the Nitro through the driver-side window and onto Bates, assaulting him with muddy paws, wagging tail, and slobbering tongue. This of course, didn’t bother Bates at all, since Milo was his closest and most faithful of buddies, and he was fully as happy to see his dog as his dog was to see him.

  Milo was a basset hound, or maybe as much as half basset hound, according to the vet. What other breeds were involved, nobody could say. He was brown and white and black and short-haired, with great floppy ears, long snout, thick, well fed body, sad eyes, and friendly waging tail and licking tongue. Whatever his genetic background he was altogether a fine figure of a dog, Bates reasoned.

  Bates felt slightly invigorated. The rush of adrenaline involved in hurrying home to check on Milo had flushed much of the remaining alcohol out of his system. Now although he still felt like shit, at least he wasn't as seriously incapacitated.

  He resolved to make things up to his poor neglected pet. He stayed at his apartment only long enough to visit his bathroom, feed his goldfish, and fetch Milo's collar and other gear. Then he and Milo left together in the Nitro. He stopped at McDonald's to buy the two of them several Egg McMuffins for breakfast and visit the bathroom, and then drove back to the office.

  Bates recalled reading an article on management years ago that advised new managers to 'take charge' immediately and decisively. So it was that when Margaret arrived at work, she was greeted by Milo and by Bates' first official directive as the new Head of DOD. From now on, pets of employees would be allowed on Base. Bates was sure that this bold new directive would show everyone that he meant business.

  For the rest of the morning, his time was occupied by unpacking and by visits from a rather large number of coworkers. Everyone got along well with Milo of course, but many visitors didn't quite know how to treat Bates, now that he was the boss and an apparent mob figure. Many came only as far as the door, peeked in with astonished looks on their faces, shook their heads, and left without saying a word. Confirming that Narbando T. Bates was in the Head Office was much more astonishing to most of them than discovering Milo there. Many were convinced that the complete end of DOD must be near, if Bates could be made boss. Barns probably had inside information and had abandoned ship just in time, leaving the rest of them to rearrange deck chairs and sing songs while DOD sank into oblivion. But they kept such thoughts to themselves, and given his lingering hangover, Bates was just as happy not to talk with most of them.

  As a favor to Bates, Oscar moved the remainder of Barn’s and Twig's belongings to Annex 3, except for the massive over-sized safe in Bates' new office. That item was far too heavy even for Oscar to move. With Twig’s stuff gone, the two men then helped Margaret move into the spaces vacated by Twig.

  That afternoon Sandra Kruger dropped in to give Bates paperwork confirming that his salary was tripling. Bates was certainly pleased but he was also surprised and puzzled. He thought that all DOD salaries had been frozen by law, such that any promotions were essentially 'honorary'. Sandra informed him that though that was true, the Head of DOD still had the authority to 'move' a staff member into a vacated DOD position. Bates, formerly at level GS-12, had inherited Barns' highest level Senior Executive Service (SES) position and salary.

  Even though still suffering from the hangover or perhaps because of it, the potential implications were immediately obvious to Bates. "Sandra," he inquired, "won't someone in the Government monitoring DOD notice when a person's salary increases?”

  "I doubt it," replied Sandra. "They haven't in the past. They only seem to notice the total staff level. That's what the MAPRA limits, not salary.”

  Bates looked thoughtful. "And how many SES salaried people exist on the Base now?”

  Sandra thought for a moment. "I'm not sure. Not many. Six maybe. Most left many years ago.”

  "And how many vacated SES positions does DOD have right now?" he asked.

  "Well," she replied, "thousands, I imagine.”

  "Good," said Bates. "Is there overhead funding that can be applied to salaries?"

  "Yes, there is plenty of that. Much more than we can spend, actually."

  "Then let's move all remaining employees into vacated SES positions."

  Sandra's jaw dropped. Stunned, she sat down heavily in the nearest chair, which was a mistake, since it happened to be one of the defective chairs. As she sat back in the chair, it simply kept going back and over. Chair and aeronautics engineer hit the floor with a loud thud. When he and Milo rushed to her aid, Bates was relieved to find her smiling widely as Milo licked he
r face. She grabbed the dog by his big floppy ears and hugged him, causing Milo to retreat to a safe distance from the too affectionate engineer.

  "Christmas! Are you all right?” Bates asked, kneeling beside her.

  "All right? Am I all right?" she gushed. "Boss! You're an absolute genius!” She grabbed Bates by both ears and shook and hugged him as she had done with Milo. Bates supposed this was a positive reaction, but like Milo, was glad when she finally let go. His ears were sore, but what struck him most about the incident is that she had actually called him 'boss' and she meant it. He stood then reached down to help her up but she was already nimbly getting to her feet.

  "So," he asked her, as she brushed herself off, apparently none the worse after her spill, "do you think it could work?”

  "I think so," she replied. "Just give me a few days to work out the details red-tape wise.”

  "Well," said Bates, returning to his reclining chair behind the desk, "if you can come up with the paper work, I'll certainly sign it, or whatever else it takes. And please do it immediately; this will be a great Christmas gift for everyone.”

  "OK, boss! You got it!” Still all smiles, she saluted Bates smartly, patted Milo on the backside and headed for the door.

  Bates got a real charge out of being called 'boss' and he thought that the salute was a very nice touch. Maybe he’d ask all of his employees to do it. On balance, thought Bates, his first full day as boss had gone quite well. He had put into effect his first official directive, reversing a long standing injustice to pets, and employees were starting to call him 'boss' instead of Narb. Now if he could simply get everyone’s salaries doubled or tripled before Christmas, that would really be something positive!

  This job will be a snap, he thought. After all, what could possibly go wrong? And of course he never thought of Barns even once.

  ****