“I have some contacts at the Detroit Automotive Gazette,” Bernie finally said, breaking the silence. “I’ll give them a call, see if I can put the lid on this ‘story’ about UP&S. I don’t know what kind of an exposé they might be planning, other than revealing the fact that we have two very ungrateful employees on our payroll. But it’s possible that a rogue journalist on their staff might try to run with the idea. Some of them can never pass up a chance to give a reputable company a black eye. Craig, I don’t suppose Alan told you who he was talking to at the Gazette, did he?”
“No. And I figured that he would be suspicious if I asked him. Alan is a cagey one.”
Bernie nodded. “Of course he is. The man is trying to stab his employer in the back. I would be hyper-vigilant myself, if I were him.”
“This is an outrage,” Kurt Myers said. “An unmitigated outrage.”
Kurt Myers had barely spoken throughout my description of the plots that Alan and Lucy were hatching. His face had grown red during my telling, and he had relied on Bernie and Beth to ask for clarifications and additional details.
“I’m absolutely disgusted by those two,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I’m of half a mind to simply call them both in here right now and fire them on the spot. Today. Without further ado.”
“No,” Bernie interjected. “I don’t think that would be wise. We could be accused of interfering with their freedom of speech.”
“They can have all the freedom of speech they want outside of these walls,” Kurt said, sweeping his arm in a wide gesture meant to indicate the physical shell of the company. “I don’t care whom they vote for come election day. I don’t care if they’re evangelical Christians, Jews, Muslims, Catholics, or atheists. I don’t care if they’re monogamous, celibate, or swingers. I’ve never meddled in the private affairs of my rank-and-file subordinates, like Henry Ford did.”
Kurt was referring to the moralistic and intrusive management practices of Henry Ford, the founder of the automaker that still bears his name. Henry Ford had established a “social department” that was responsible for maintaining high moral standards among his employees—including those at the lowest levels of his organization. Ford Motor Company investigators ferreted out after-hours misbehavior of all kinds, including drinking, gambling, consorting with loose women, and even the failure to attend religious services. As the author of a tract entitled The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, Henry Ford had also been known for his anti-Semitic views. Nazi Germany bestowed the Grand Cross of the German Eagle on Ford in 1938, the year before the outbreak of the Second World War.
“All I ask,” Kurt went on. “Is that my employees work hard, follow the company’s rules, and be loyal team players. These two have betrayed our trust. They have broken the basic social contract that underlies every employment relationship. And they will both suffer the consequences.”
Chapter 23
After that meeting, I didn’t want to go back to my desk immediately. I decided to make my own little tour of the plant floor—maybe I could pretend to check the inventory of some of the items my department purchased. Or I could simply pretend to be the eager new employee who was overly anxious to learn about UP&S’s manufacturing operations.
I was quite sure that neither Alan nor Lucy would have the slightest inkling of what I was up to. Nevertheless, I didn't want to be among them just then. It wasn’t exactly guilt that was holding me back. I firmly believed that both of them were sowing the seeds of their own destruction. Maybe it was simply the regret that I was not in a position to take them aside and warn them of what was coming.
Donning the required safety gear from the little storage room in the hallway leading to the plant, I stepped through the double doors and into the noise and bustle of the plant floor. I followed more or less the same trajectory that I taken with Alan only days before.
I came upon the workstation of Roy Jones and Helen Dufresne. To my surprise, they both recognized me. Roy hailed me in a loud voice.
“Hey, College Boy!” he shouted. “You been readin’ any Plato?”
I walked closer to them before answering, so I wouldn’t have to shout.
“Actually, I’m reading Posidonius today,” I said, referring to a mostly forgotten stoic philosopher who had lived during the Roman era. It was an obscure name that I barely recalled from one of my undergraduate philosophy courses. I had decided to see if Roy and Helen could receive as well as they gave.
“Posey who?” Roy asked.
“He lived about three hundred years after Plato.”
Roy paused. “Can you spell that guy’s name for me, College Boy?”
“Forget it,” I said. “I don’t want to tell you. If I do that, next you’ll ask me a question that will really stump me.”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t take much to stump old Roy here,” Helen said, pulling a fresh part off the rack of stampings beside her machine. She placed the oblong stamped component on the bed of her riveting machine, closed the clamps, and pressed the red cycle-start button. The riveting machine began to do its thing: Clatters and hisses. Burning smells. The cycle lasted no more than fifteen seconds. Once it was over, Helen proceeded to repeat the process. Working quickly, she lifted the completed part off the machine bed and placed it atop the pile on another rack—this one for finished parts.
Neither of these two had any connection to my assignment at TP Automotive. My contract involved Alan, Lucy, and the two suspected embezzlers on the loading and receiving dock, Nick King and Michael O’Rourke. Strictly speaking, Roy and Helen were out-of-bounds, as far as I was concerned.
Nevertheless, I made a habit of learning as much as possible about the organizations in which I operated. I had long ago reached an important realization: I would never grasp the complete picture from either a company’s senior management, or from one of senior management’s targets. Senior managers would seldom admit that there was anything wrong inside an organization (with the exception of under-motivated and ungrateful employees, of course). The targets of my termination assignments, on the other hand, were by definition suffering from motivation and/or morale issues. They weren’t exactly unbiased sources either.
This is why I frequently needed to tap other individuals in an organization in order to understand the big picture. Roy and Helen seemed perfect: They weren’t members of the company’s hierarchy. Nor had they come to anyone’s attention thus far as disgruntled employees.
“You two have a minute?” I asked.
“Sure, what’s up, College Boy?” Roy asked me.
I knew that I would have to be careful here. I had to make my questions as innocuous as possible, so that they were unlikely to remember this conversation as anything unusual. And I certainly couldn’t ask anything that was openly leading. Nor could I distract them from their tasks for long. A protracted conversation would attract the attention of one of the production supervisors, and inevitably lead to inquiries.
“You guys have both been here a long time, right?”
“You mean at UP&S? Sure,” Roy said. “Me and Helen both been here more or less since they opened the doors, just like Alan tol’ you the other day.”
“You two would be a good source for me, then.”
“’Source’? What you talkin’ about, College Boy?” Roy’s demeanor was still fundamentally friendly, but cautious now.
“I’m new here,” I said. “I’m trying to learn the ropes, get the lay of the land. You understand?”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
“Well, I’ve been hearing some talk about the new management. You know: People are telling me that things have changed—and that things are not as good as before. What do you think? Has TP Automotive ruined the environment here?”
That was, I reflected upon saying it, a fairly leading question. But subtlety likely wouldn’t get me the answer I was looking for.
“Shee-it,” Roy said with a toothy smile. “I don’t know about nothing bei
ng ‘ruined.’ I’m just happy to have my job. I was one of the ones they let go during the temporary shutdown, before them folks from TP Automotive come in and bought the place. All I could find was some part-time gig in Columbus, stocking shelves in a Walmart. You ever work in a Walmart, College Boy?”
Roy temporarily returned his attention to the task before him: His rivet-welding machine clamped down on an aluminum part. There was the smell of ozone.
“No,” I said honestly. “I can’t say as I have.”
A smile. “I didn’t think so. Well, this job beats the pants off of that any day. Here we get decent pay and benefits. You work retail, you live hand to mouth for the rest o’ your life.”
Helen nodded at this sentiment. “I’m glad to be here, too. To tell you the truth, I’m grateful.”
Was this display of company spirit nothing more than a show for a suit from the front office? I wondered. I wanted to find out, so decided to push them a bit further.
“Well, tell me this: Haven’t there been any changes in work procedures since the TP Automotive buyout? They say that when a big corporation like that takes over a place, the new management team doesn’t leave things as they are. Surely you guys have seen some changes.”
Now I was certainly leading too much. I sounded almost like a union organizer myself, I thought.
Roy pointed a finger at me: “Sure there been some changes,” Roy said. “But let me tell you one thing, College Boy: They ain’t nothing that we can’t handle. And if it keeps my job from going to China or Mexico, I ain’t going to complain none,” he said.
Helen nodded in agreement. “TP Automotive isn’t asking for much—not really,” she said. “A little more output per hour. It’s amounted to some shortened cycle times. But like Roy said, we can handle it—when we aren’t being distracted by some wet-behind-the-ears college boy, that is.”
“Hey, you guys were the ones who called out to me.”
“That’s because we felt sorry for you,” Roy said “We knew that nobody else was going to talk to your sorry college boy ass, so we decided to do what we could to make you feel at home.”
“Well, remind me to include you both in my will!” I said, waving and taking my leave of them.
“I’ll be countin’ on it, College Boy!” Roy said. “I’ll be enjoyin’ myself on all them stock options o’ yours!”
I shook my head and walked away. I’ve gone undercover in a lot of factory environments, and virtually all of them are like that: Every joke is simultaneously personal, biting, and good-humored. These cheerful insults were, believe it or not, Helen and Roy’s way of showing me that they liked me.
Their comments also helped me to see the jeremiads of Kevin Lang, Lucy Browning, and Alan Ferguson in a different light. Clearly, not every employee perceived TP Automotive as some sort of evil empire. Roy and Helen seemed to understand the score clearly enough: America’s postwar era of hothouse capitalism and gentlemanly competition had been replaced by something that was brutal and cutthroat—something that demanded a new set of rules. Of course, nobody likes to have cycle times shortened and production quotas increased—but it's preferable to losing one’s job.
And in my own small way, I thought, I was doing my part to preserve the jobs of men and women like Roy and Helen—hardworking Americans who wanted nothing more than a shot at a solid middle-class life.
Chapter 24
The monthly meeting was about to begin, and Shawn Myers was absolutely terrified.
He passed through the doorway to the meeting room, his personal copy of the inventory report tucked under his arm. He was five minutes early, and the meeting room was still a chaotic flux of people.
I would give anything to be in a strip bar right now, Shawn Myers thought sourly. Then he reflected that even his desk back at the UP&S factory in New Hastings would be preferable to these high-pressure surroundings.
He saw his father on the other side of the room. Kurt gave him a smile and a nod. Shawn returned the gesture as best he could, nodding back at his father and smiling weakly.
They were in a large meeting room within the TP Automotive headquarters complex in Livonia, a suburb of Detroit. The other attendees were taking their seats among four empty tables that had been arranged in the shape of a wide square. At one end of the room a screen had been pulled down to display images from a projector. A prim and attractive female assistant sat at the projector, making last-minute preparations prior to the start of this month’s dog and pony show. Shawn wondered, in complete futility, if there was any chance that the projector would malfunction. Then the meeting would have to be delayed, even cancelled. There was a chance…
Don’t be a fucking idiot, he scolded himself. Nothing short of a nuclear war would delay the monthly meeting. And even a nuclear war would be no guarantee—unless a warhead happened to land somewhere in the Detroit metro area.
Shawn knew that this last thought was an exaggeration; but he also knew the gravity attached to the monthly meeting. This was the gathering in which TP Automotive’s management team convened each month to put their accomplishments on display, and to scrutinize the accomplishments and shortcomings of their peers. What took place here would be talked about for weeks, in every branch office and factory that bore the logo of TP Automotive or one of its many affiliates. The monthly meeting was a highly ritualized, highly anticipated event throughout the company, one that demanded the preparation of high-level managers, mid-level staff professionals, and lowly administrative assistants alike.
A total of about fifty TP Automotive executives would be in attendance, and most of them seemed to have already arrived. The conversations were dying down now. Shawn took a seat at one corner of the table that was closest to the door.
Tom Galloway had been designated as the leader for this month’s meeting. As he opened his mouth to speak, the last traces of whispering faded to total silence.
“All right, everyone. Thank you for attending this month’s meeting. We have quite a packed agenda today, so let’s get started.” Tom Galloway was a senior executive who was more or less at his father’s level. He spoke imperiously, without humor.
This entire meeting is without humor! Shawn thought frantically. In the hours before the meeting he had dared to imagine that if his presentation hit a few rough spots, then he might be able to bluff and joke his way through it. Perhaps, he had speculated, his audience would go along with the gag if he gently poked fun at himself. But now he saw the stark fact that he had previously denied: These people took this meeting as a deathly serious business, as if they were planning a military operation in which lives and the fates of nations hung in the balance.
Galloway motioned to the assistant operating the projector. She clicked a few buttons on the device, and the agenda appeared on the screen, a PowerPoint slide with white letters and a blue background. Shawn noted—with a minor bit of relief—that he was not the first speaker, at least. Three people were scheduled to give their presentations before his turn would come.
As he listened to the first three presenters, Shawn made several last-ditch attempts to fully grasp all of the details of the inventory report, and the questions that he knew would be inevitable. The UP&S plant—like most automotive plants nowadays—ran according to lean production principles. That meant a detailed accounting of inventories at each stage, cycle times, and takt times (whatever those were). Each of these factors was interrelated to the others—or so he had been told.
“And now we’ll hear from Sean Myers,” Tom Galloway announced. “Vice President of Operations at UP&S, one of our new subsidiaries in Ohio.”
Shawn rose and stared at the projected image—the summary table from the first page of the inventory report. He knew that all of the senior managers in the room had been previously provided with a copy of the document. Each of them would now be analyzing its contents and drawing their own conclusions.
Where to begin? The inventory report was nothing but a sea of numbers, and these people expec
ted him to talk about them in some meaningful way for ten minutes. How could you talk meaningfully about numbers? There was nothing to talk about: Numbers were simply numbers, after all.
Tom Galloway cleared his throat. “I think we’re all ready, Shawn,” he said. “Please begin.”
“Okay,” Shawn said. He pointed his laser pointer at the screen. The little red dot landed on the first number in the table column labeled “WIP”. Then Shawn began to read each number along with the descriptions given in his printout copy of the report. He knew that this was not what they were expecting, but maybe it would get him through, he thought.
There was the sound of shuffling throughout the room. One male voice—whose owner Shawn could not identify—said “mmmm” in a mildy skeptical tone.
“As you can see,” Shawn said. “WIP has decreased over this month.”
He knew immediately that he had said something wrong. Every face in the semi-darkened room was fixed on him, taking cruel delight in his torment.
“I uh—” Shawn began. But the words seemed to be stuck in his throat. Why did they all continue to stare at him so intently?
Finally the silence had to be broken. So Tom Galloway, as this month’s designated meeting leader, took it upon himself to break it.
“WIP has increased this past month,” Tom Galloway said, as if WIP were the most important thing in the world. Increased—decreased, so what? The point was that the number had changed. Why did these people have to be so goddamned picky?
Then the gray-templed executive leaned back and held his own copy of the report out in front of him, drawing the attention of the room to the printed pages.
“No, that’s not it,” he said. “That’s not it at all. I’m afraid we have a few inconsistencies between your presentation and the information presented here.”
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