Chapter Twenty-Four
Won’t Get Fooled Again
OK, so is this the end of the story? Not so much. I’m getting a little fuzzy headed again. Let me relay what I can before I go back to Never Never Land.
Chuck’s promise lasted a little over two weeks and fourteen holes.
While the plant was mostly shut down and the demolition crews were clearing out the reactor and collateral damage, we (management) had plenty of spare time on our hands. So, like good stewards of industry everywhere, we wisely spent it on the golf course. Earl and I joined Chuck’s country club, Asheville Acres. With our corporate discount, it was ten grand to join and two fifty per month. I floated about half of the upfront fee to Earl and told him he could make it up to me in golf bets. We both figured it was good “suck up” investment. Speaking of which, the seventh commandment in The Book of Dad was “Never beat your boss at golf.” Lucky for me, this was easy to comply with (and Earl was paying my golf bets). Chuck was a great golfer. It would take a very bad day for him and a VERY good day for me to beat him. This happened to be that day. It was time to sin!
Winter was fading and spring was moving in. A slight breeze was blowing from the south and the temperature was flirting with the low seventies. Perfect! We had just left the fourteenth green where I had sunk a miracle twenty footer for birdie. Chuck had not been able to get up and down from the greenside bunker and bogeyed the hole. I was three strokes ahead with four to play. Will and Earl were heading toward their normal hundred plus rounds. They were doing their best to stay out of our way and enjoy this rare momentous occasion.
We were waiting on the tee at the par three fifteenth. Mrs. Pockmeyer, the high school principal’s wife, was in the foursome ahead of us on the green bending over to line up her putt. My golfing buds were enjoying the view. My current squeeze, Ms. Holly Head, was also amongst them which added greatly to the entertainment value for the clowns around me. I was fine with the quick furtive glance at Mrs. P’s and my woman’s stunning hindquarters, but I drew the line when Earl started focusing his rangefinder there instead at the flagstick.
Chuck didn’t get to his position in life by not being a world class talent when it came to gamesmanship. I was on guard for him to start talking some trash. I was not surprised when he proceeded to chat away.
“Dudes, I sure am glad that the Elwood thing is behind us. I am really sorry about keeping his relationship a secret. The Shareholder was adamant about him standing on his own two feet.”
“I thought snakes crawled on their bellies.”
“Well put, Will.”
With that thought in mind, I stepped to the tee as the shapely group in front of us replaced the flag. We all watched as Holly’s splendid backside crested the hill behind the green and disappeared from view. At one hundred forty-five yards downwind, this was a perfect seven iron for me. I practiced a swing with a slight draw and took my stance. Like taking candy from a baby!
“Oh, did I mention that The Shareholder wants us to hire another MBA?”
I hadn’t finished my backswing, so I could’ve stopped. I knew Chuck had timed that comment to screw with my head. And, of course, that thought automatically made me think of screwing with my Head, as in Holly. These are not good swing thoughts to have bouncing around your frontal lobes as you are about to execute a very important golf shot. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me back down, so I went ahead and took the swing. The ball traveled skyward just as I had planned. However, my calculations did not include the forty-five degree turn to the left it took just as it reached the apex of its flight. It landed hole high but, to my dismay and Chuck’s delight, right in the middle of the swamp ten yards left of the green. And when I say swamp, I mean Creature from the Black Lagoon home base type. It was swallowed up, never to be seen again. I’m sure there is a classic rock reference here that could have been made to reflect my angst, but I was so upset that nothing came to mind.
Chuck was very sympathetic. “Ah, tough luck, kid. Hey, Will, stop humming I Fall to Pieces.”
The man is a Jedi Master of mental manipulation. Not only did he have a classic song reference, but it was a classic COUNTRY song reference. A double Mick zinger casually tossed off like it was nothing. And Will had not been humming.
As I’m sure you can guess, I choked my way on in and lost to Chuck by two strokes. I think I saw Earl shed a tear on the eighteenth fairway. He wanted me to finally beat Chuck and he really wanted to avoid paying for my twenty dollar bet. After the round, Chuck grabbed his money, quickly jumped in his car and took off leaving us all in suspense about his MBA bombshell. While I fumed in the front seat of Earl’s Subaru, Will was eloquently verbalizing our collective thoughts from the back.
“What the heck is that all about? I thought he promised.”
Earl chimed in with a typical Earlism, “Yeah, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you twice.”
“Well put Earl. How can Chuck agree to hire another one of these useless pukes? Is he that afraid to challenge the all high and mighty Shareholder?”
A loud “Yup” pinged around the stained faux leather interior after being simultaneously issued from deep within both Will and Earl.
“Okay, stupid question. But, c’mon, the moron blew the place up and now we’re going down the same path again? Well, first thing tomorrow, I’m giving Chuck a King Ranch sized piece of my mind. I don’t care how upset he gets, or how many times he tells me to shut up, I’m going in loaded for bear.”
With a total lack of sincerity, the wannabe Lennon sisters sung out a hearty, “Uh huh.”
“No, I mean it! You watch!”
The next morning, I stormed into The Circle meeting loaded for bear as promised.
“Ok, Mick, before you blow a gasket and spew all over the place, just hear me out.”
“But Charles…”
Up went the universal outward palm of silence accompanied by a male version of PMS face.
“Zip it.”
Before this devolved into a bad Austin Powers vignette, I somehow summoned the internal fortitude to chomp down on my tongue and let my face fade from crimson to bright pink. Thank God, Earl and Will weren’t part of The Circle. Had they been in this meeting, I would have been in for a month’s worth of “I told you so’s” and sissie jokes.
“Good boy. Now, I know y’all think I puckered up and let The Shareholder do whatever he wanted.”
I did throw up a bit in my mouth at that visual.
“Maybe I did somewhat, but not completely. I did set down some non-negotiable conditions. First, no relatives of anyone remotely related to this company can apply. Second, The Circle members will interview all candidates and have the final say. Third, we will have background checks done. And finally, the position will now report through Mick who will have total oversight to ensure duties are properly segregated. And, yes Mick, this does mean you will need to revise the Manual of Authorities. You should start first by actually reading it.”
Ah, man.
“Ok, Charles. That’s better than it could be. But why? Why do we need to hire another MBA? Why not give it back to Earl?”
“Fair questions, Mick. There are several reasons. First, Bayer doesn’t make enough aspirin for me to survive another financial update from Earl.” I fully agreed with him on that one.
“Second, the reasons behind bringing in Elwood in the first place are still valid. The world of finance and accounting is getting more complicated. Our competition is nipping at our heels. Our X-400 is keeping us in front of the pack, but we do need to understand and maximize our profit streams and keep our costs in check.”
“You mean like sticking us in trailers and letting our used banana peels pile up in the trash cans? Or do you mean like substituting raw materials that blast us to kingdom come?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s why we are placing you, our resident smart
aleck genius, in an oversight capacity. Not everything Elwood did was totally messed up. We need to get rid of the bad and improve on the good. We will go back to daily office trash pickup. And we are moving back into the administration building as soon as the damage is repaired.”
That news was met by a rousing cheer all the way around The Circle.
“It seems Elwood leased it to a rather shady concern. They were actually filming porn movies in the building using the plant as a backdrop. A few hit the local Asheville seedy stores with titles like Steam My Pipes, Debbie Does Distillation, Debottleneck This etc. etc. We will let the new MBA kick them out and negotiate better building financing terms for us.”
“And the revised Manual of Authorities will give me the approval to ship in Lysol by the tanker truck!”
My insightful commentary brought the meeting to a chuckling close as we went off in search of MBA number two.
MBA - Moron$ Ba$ and A$ PG Version Page 25
