2 Executive Retention

by Maria E. Schneider

  Once outside, we stood near the door to stay out of the wind.

  "I, uh, I was wondering if you saw anyone in the lab when you went in there last night," he asked.

  I thought about it. Well, I knew the answer. I was actually trying to think of what to tell him. "I dunno. I got down there after the computer was down. I was gonna check on my tests before I went home."

  He nodded and crammed his hands into his pockets. His denim jacket wasn't very heavy, and it was cold out. "You got there just after the servers went down though. I was thinking maybe you saw someone leaving or something."

  I glanced over at him in surprise. How did he know exactly when I got there? He flipped his hair back, and I caught sight of eyes that were a murky green, kind of hazel. It didn't take long for me to stare him down. "How do you know that?"

  He shuffled his feet. "I got paged."

  "Yeah," I said slowly, "you got paged when the servers went down. But how would you know that I went in the lab after the equipment went down and not before?"

  He stopped shuffling and froze in place like a statue. Deke showed up just then, but it didn't derail my train of thought. Unless there were cams in the lab, and I was pretty sure there weren't, there was only one other mechanism by which the IT guy could have known the time I entered. He would have had to break into the computer database that kept records of badge use. Every employee at Actel had a uniquely-coded badge. Every time the badge was used, like to get into the lab, the name and time of the entry was sent to a secure database. The company could use the database to track employee movement in case of equipment thefts or other mishaps. As an employee, IT guy shouldn't even know where the records were kept, never mind who had entered or exited.

  After paying Deke and scurrying back inside, I led the way to the cafeteria, stopping at the soda machine for a couple of drinks. My IT buddy followed even more reluctantly than he had on the way out. I sat down and pulled out his rice. He grabbed it and started to walk away without another word.

  "Hey, wait. Um…" I had never asked his name. "What did you say your name was?"

  "I didn't." He kept walking so I had to raise my voice.

  "I didn't think so," I replied, taking a bite of my beef and vegetables. "But I do believe you were about to tell me how you got access to the list that shows who has gone into the lab and what time they were there."

  He stopped. His shoulders didn't slump, but he hunched a bit.

  Hey, it wasn't my fault. What did he think I was, an idiot? Okay, given his one encounter with me so far, I could see where his first impression might not have been completely flattering.

  For a minute, I thought he might walk away, but he came back and sat down with a clunk. He opened his two boxes of rice and stared at them. I handed him a plastic fork.

  "To answer your question, I didn't see anyone go in or out of the lab." I took another bite, pleased at my accuracy. I hadn't seen Mark go through any doors. He had come in behind me when we entered the lab. "Your food is getting cold. There might have been another guy in the lab." I pretended to think about it. "I'm new here so I don't know everyone, and I wasn't paying a lot of attention, you know?"

  "But you're paying attention now." He stabbed the rice rather viciously.

  I kept eating. "So," I said around a mouthful of food, "you thought you'd accuse me of turning your servers off because I was there?"

  He shook his head. Once he got around to eating, he went at it pretty hard. "No, I said I knew you went into the lab after they were down. I didn't say you had been in the server room." He pushed the hair away and stared at me.

  I had been so pleased at catching him in a no-no, I hadn't thought very carefully about my words. "Uh…yeah, I guess that's true."

  "What did the guy look like?"

  "Why? I told you I don't know who it was."

  "Maybe I know him. And then I can ask him how he got in the lab without a badge and how he then got in the server room."

  His questions gave me a reason to turn my brain back on and fast. I hadn't thought about Mark getting in the lab. He obviously didn't have a badge. When I was with him, he had followed me back in. My badge would be the only one showing up in any database. I chewed slowly.

  "Well?" he prompted.

  "Mhm," I replied around my food. IT man was already more than half done with the fried rice order. He showed no signs of slowing down either. Unbelievable. No way could I eat an entire order of fried rice from Happy Family. The stuff was good, but they were generous with the portions. "Wow. Were you hungry or what?"

  He looked down as he emptied the last of the cartons and shrugged. "It's good. I'd eat there again."

  "Yeah, but geez. I'd make myself sick if I ate like that." I knew that from real life experience, and I hadn't even eaten the whole order.

  He didn't look too sick or too concerned.

  I swallowed my bite and drank some of my soda. "He had dark hair. A white t-shirt." I vividly remembered the t-shirt. I had been smashed against it for several minutes. "What makes you think he did something to the computers?"

  "They were shut down."

  "Maybe they just went down. That happens a lot to computers."

  He shook his head stubbornly. "One of them maybe, but not all of the racks, all at the same time."

  I couldn't think of a good reason for the entire system to go down either. "Overheated?"

  "Nah, if that happens, it sets a flag so I can always tell. Besides, they still wouldn't have all shut down at the exact same time. It looked like the things got switched off from the main power surge protector or the electricity glitched or something. But none of the test servers in the outer lab suffered from an electrical glitch." He fiddled with the leftover boxes. "What I can't figure out is why? I mean, if I hack into something, say a database with badge reader information, I have a reason. Is the guy just a loser with nothing better to do or what?"

  "You mean someone screwing with you personally?"

  He nodded. "To make me have to drag my ass back in here at seven or eight o'clock."

  "Has it happened before?" Who knew how long Mark had been at his task. Shoot, both Huntingtons could have been working on this for a couple of months before getting me involved.

  "Nah. This was the first time. Most people are glad to not have to deal with the servers, but this place is kind of weird. They hired a dude to work here on the IT stuff. I was only supposed to work in San Jose, but the troll here can barely manage to find his office each morning, if that. Half the time he can't even create new users when we get new employees. I'm always having to fix his mistakes. But who else would even care?"

  "Got that right." Most sane people did not want to be involved in running a network. It was way too much work. "Maybe I can tell you if I see the guy again. The lights were already on save power so they were dimmed. I didn't turn the main lights on in the lab back when I went in, so I didn't really get a good look at him."

  IT stared at me through his hair for a long time. "You walked in a half dark room at night, saw a guy standing around and didn't pay much attention at all, huh?"

  I stopped chewing. Okay, only a blooming idiot would do that, and it would be especially stupid of a lone female. No wonder the guy didn't think I'd catch on to his hacking. One minute I was a genius, the next, a duck waddling into a shooting gallery. "It wasn't my best night."

  "Yeah," he agreed, picking up his trash. "You didn't look so good when I saw you." He threw his stuff away on the way out.

  Brilliant. I had very effectively moved myself back to suspect numero uno. Mark would be so pleased.

  Chapter 12

  I was very late getting to work the next morning. When the phone on my desk rang, I was hoping it wasn't Jacques. Strangely, answering it didn't help me figure out who was calling.

  "What am I going to do?" a voice whispered in my ear.

  "About what? Who is this?"

  "Me," the voice whispered. "I have to tell work, and I'm worried that they will as
k me to quit."

  "Me who?" I was having trouble imagining anyone I knew that would be worried about getting fired. Someone from Strandfrost? Maybe management was going after other people besides me. "Is this Sally?"

  "Sally who?" the voice forgot to whisper.

  The light went on. "Brenda?"

  "Shhh! Don't tell anyone." Her voice instantly went back to the quieter, more breathless quality.

  "What is wrong? Who is trying to fire you?" Brenda's job at Crestwood Hospital should have been relatively secure. For one, she was a good nurse and nurses were always in short supply and two, what could she have possibly done to get herself in trouble? Cooked for a patient? Brought them her leftovers?

  "The nursing supervisor is a total hag. I mean, we all have to sub for each other, and she isn't going to like it when she finds out! She won't be able to put me on call. If I'm not on call like the others, they'll hate me too. How long before you think I should tell?"

  I was at a total loss. "Tell what?"

  "You know," she whispered. "The secret."

  "The secret." Maybe she had cooked a meal for a patient and killed the guy. "What secret?" I was worried that she was going to ask me to cart a body away.

  There was a long pause. She had either set the phone down or even worse, she was coming up with more coded words for me to decipher.

  "Sean told you, and you dropped off the chocolate."

  "Oh." I hadn't known it was a secret. "Why would they fire you because you're pregnant? Good heavens. Brenda, in case you haven't noticed, your husband is a lawyer. I'm pretty sure no one--"

  "They could make me do desk work."

  "You mean as opposed to working with patients?"

  "Exactly." Her voice squeaked and then ended with a miserable sniffling.

  "But why wouldn't they let you work with the patients?"

  "The chief of staff is Doctor Johnson, and he is really old. He's always talking about how things used to be. I heard him mention when Alice was expecting that pregnant women didn't work in his day."

  "Didn't work or didn't have to work?"

  "It doesn't matter," she wailed. "He's overly protective, and I don't think he likes me, and I'm due for a promotion too. I've been taking extra care classes. I'm very close to finishing. If I don't get promoted, I won't have as much say in picking vacation, and what if they put me on nights or something because it's quieter?"

  "Brenda, I don't think it's legal to remove you from your current duties because you're pregnant. And I'm certain they have to promote you if you're earned it. Have you talked to Sean about this?"

  "I thought you of all people would understand! I don't want to get the promotion because they are afraid of Sean. What if they find out I'm pregnant and promote me just because of that?"

  I had thought I was following the problem pretty well, but obviously I was wrong. "Wait a minute. I thought you were worried that if you told, you wouldn't get promoted. Now you're saying if you tell, you think you'll be promoted and that worries you because you'll never know if you deserved it or not?"

  "Exactly! And they moved Alice to nights because it was quieter. It was a long time ago, and she got her job back, but my God! I can't go through that!"

  I still wasn't certain I understood the problem. Actually it sounded like she had more than one worry. "What exactly do you want me to do to help?"

  "I need you to help me with the presentation."

  "The presentation?"

  "How do I tell my supervisor? I have to convince her that the pregnancy won't interfere with my job duties, and that I'm still going to finish my classes. I want her to know that I deserve the promotion, but not because of Sean!"

  "Why don't you tell her like you just told me?"

  "Oh, no way will she promote me then. She'll justify leaving me where I am because of the time I have to take off for the pregnancy. She'll say she has to have an extra nurse helping me because I'm pregnant. Sure, they won't phrase it that way, but they'll get another nurse. Then when it's review time, bam, she'll tell me she had to get extra help! I know she agrees totally with Johnson on this. I heard her call another pregnant nurse a slacker."

  "Well--"

  "And she was," Brenda interrupted. "I mean, Cassandra was totally milking being pregnant, but I'm not like that. I get a little more tired now, but it isn't as though anything has changed. I'm thinking of not saying anything for a few more weeks. What do you think? You're a career woman, what would you do?"

  My mind almost stopped working. I didn't want to think about being pregnant, and my career such as it was, did not need any additional risk factors. "I guess I would just tell them. Maybe the sooner you tell them, the more time they'll have to schedule, and the nicer they will be."

  "Or if I tell them later, the less time they'll have to plot against me. Maybe I should wait until I get promoted."

  "That would work," I agreed in relief. "When is that?"

  "Reviews are in about three months."

  I didn't even need a calculator for that. "Brenda, aren't you on the fourteenth week? You work in a hospital. You're telling me that no one is going to notice before you're six months pregnant?"

  "It won't be fourteen weeks until the end of this week so I'm really only at thirteen."

  I closed my eyes and pictured her dainty frame. "You're going to have to tell them before that, Brenda. Even if you worked with engineers like I do, they would notice a six-month pregnant woman."

  "Maybe they'll think I've gained weight."

  "You will have gained weight." I pictured my friend Suzy at six months. She had been huge. Totally huge. "It will be very, very obvious by that time."

  "I'll never get the promotion! This is so unfair!"

  I was pretty sure bringing Sean into the mix again wasn't the right answer. "Brenda, maybe you can tell your supervisor's supervisor and explain that you're worried about the promotion."

  "Are you kidding me? If I go around my supervisor, they'll fire me! Could you get away with that? Oh, you're so lucky. At least in engineering no one would try and say a pregnancy affected your job. All you have to do is think. They can't say it affects your ability to give out medications and be on your feet all day."

  I was pretty sure that most engineering managers didn't like it when a woman informed them a project schedule might be affected due to maternity leave. In desperation, I suggested, "Look, why don't we get together later, and we can talk about it a bit more?"

  "Oh, could we? I know you've been through this with your friend, and I don't know what to do! How about you come to the next ultra sound? You'll get to see the baby and everything! Oh no, wait. The next one isn't until nineteen weeks and we're going to find out the sex of the baby. Sean is going with me."

  My eyes crossed. "We can make it some other time." I was very certain I didn't want to sit through an appointment with Brenda. Every doctor's office I'd ever been to required patients to sit half naked in a room for thirty minutes, all for the pleasure of being eyed, poked at and asked a bunch of nosy personal questions. Sitting through such an ordeal with any pregnant woman, let alone my sister-in-law, was not on my list of fun things to do in life.

  "Let me check my work schedule. I'll call you tonight and we can set a time to get together!"

  "Sure."

  After I hung up, I thought about looking on the web for advice on how to handle pregnant women. Instead, I sent Suzy an email and asked her opinion on the whole when and how to tell one's boss.

  Sheesh. It didn't seem worth getting pregnant.

  Talking with Brenda almost made me late to a meeting. Every Thursday the managers met with the engineers to go over projects and various company business. I was eager to attend because all the current project names would be mentioned. I should easily be able to verify the names on Huntington's list.

  On my way to the meeting, I saw my IT buddy in the hallway, but instead of going to the meeting, he went the other way. Everyone else appeared to be in the meeting; the technici
ans, the managers and a bunch of engineers that I hadn't met yet.

  Jacques, my illustrious boss, got up and gave a rundown on his projects. He tapped his leg with a highlighter as he talked. The nervous tapping provided an obvious clue as to how his pants ended up with pen marks. Jacques introduced me and then listed my first assignments. When he mentioned the Kronology project, Arnold, the other manager, actually laughed out loud.

  Not surprisingly, when it was Arnold's turn to talk, he adjusted his smarmy glasses and went on at great length about his projects and responsibilities. The man actually charted his projects against those of the other managers, including managers in San Jose. Mind you, it wasn't a chart showing his success rate, it was simply the number of projects he was handling. "If any of you have slack time, let me know. I have," he pretended to stop and consider, "at least four companies I could bring on board if I had more people."

  Vi, the other female technician I had met, leaned over and whispered, "This is the same reorganization speech he gave to A.J. and Pete a few days ago. He wants to hire more people."

  Since Arnold was now glaring in our direction, I raised my hand to ask a question. "What are the companies you're current working with?" Okay, maybe it was a too obvious dig for information, but his chart didn't tell me anything I needed to know.

  "The names?" he repeated. I heard a couple of groans, and Bill actually made a snoring noise before burying his furry face in his hands. Arnold looked so delighted, I thought he might break out in song. "I happen to have that in another presentation. Let me see…" he worked at his laptop for a moment and then pulled up some more slides. Within seconds, the company names were displayed on the wall. "Now, here we have the breakdown by size of company, the type of account, the length of time they've been a customer, which as you can see," out came a spiffy laser pointer, "the longer they have been with us, the more they spend." On to another slide. "Here is the group overall," the laser made little circling motions. "And this is my group."