My Turn - Achieving the American Dream

by Jonathan Williams

  Chapter 7

  “Drug War”

  Raises come and since Chris is in this deep, he decides to take a look at what other people are getting paid. Prior to working here, these thoughts never crossed his mind. His mother always said “show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are.” Well in this case, it’s more like show me the people in upper management, and I’ll tell you who you are.

  In this case, though, these people are not friends. How can you have dishonest friends? Being trustworthy is just not part of their make-up, especially when it comes to making money. He’s never been friends with these types of people. But then again, making money was never a priority for Chris, but it is now. He wonders if others at the company now see him as one of them. Is he now one of those greedy people who places the dollar at the top of the list? At this point in the game, it doesn’t matter what they think. He wants the American dream.

  As suspected, people are making a fortune at Biokinz. Besides checking the payroll system, he also checks the system that handles stock and sees that there are some extremely rich people, regardless of drug approval. Once the drug is approved, these numbers will skyrocket even more. He has a good idea as to what everyone’s making. So when he asks for a bump in salary, his request is granted. Since he’s now part of upper management, he has a feeling that that’s why his request was approved. He’s now a team player. In hindsight, he probably should have asked for more.

  Being unethical is not only highly profitable, but it also pumps up Chris’s adrenaline. Meetings with his boss are going smoother, and they’re getting along. It’s interesting to see his growth. Every so often, just to get a reaction, he fabricates stories at bars on weekends. He comes up with the craziest stories and sees how far he can take them. About ninety percent of the girls believe him. The problem now is that he finds himself constantly calculating and being dishonest at the office. In fact, he’s becoming quite the seasoned manager. He’s working well with the auditors, and his boss wants to demonstrate his growth to upper management. He asks Chris to handle the next presentation, and they love it.

  At first, framing to upper management doesn’t feel right. But it’s what they want to hear, and it’s what is expected of him now. Don’t give them negative news. Frame everything in such a way that it looks positive. In other words, manipulate. It’s one of the unspoken rules in upper management. Unless things really hit the fan, don’t discuss anything negative. Cover it up, and chances are no one will discover it until you’re long gone and have already cashed in. The leaders of countries do the same. While they put their nations in more and more debt, they’re filling their own pockets at the same time.

  In corporate America, the dollar dictates one’s success. It doesn’t matter what you sell or how you get there. Is greed good though? For many people, it is. In corporate America, greed is institutionalized. The market expects it, the government expects it, and everyone with common sense expects it. It’s the nature of a capitalistic government. Even Putin commented on Americans’ greed during the last housing collapse. So if it’s not you being greedy and placing the dollar at the top of the list, it’ll just be someone else. People think the drug war is south of the border but, as mentioned before, the real drug war is in the U.S.’s backyard. There are billions being made trading on Wall Street. Chris has still not cashed out on any stock since jumping the fence, but he sure feels good being on the inside. Plus he knows it’s just a matter of time before the money starts to roll in.

  With Chris leading the presentation and working with the CEO and CFO, he’s also gearing up to work with the FDA auditors. This is the big one. He cannot mess it up. But luckily, his boss will be fielding the core of the questions. With zero background experience in the biotech world, Paul will have to wing it, but Chris is confident he’ll do well. At this level, knowing how to remold a set of questions or how to respond to a question without answering it is the most important type of experience to have. Twist the situation when required. Hiring Paul, at least from an unethical perspective, is a lot less risky than bringing someone in with an IT background. But, in the end, and to Chris’s surprise, it doesn’t matter because the FDA denies the application anyway.

  They’ve been making mistakes along the way such as accidently unblinding studies and sending the wrong reports to the statisticians who are analyzing the drug results. They make many other errors as well. Mistakes, at least Chris thought they were anyway, are common at Biokinz and are quickly covered up or glazed over.

  But given the experience and determination on campus, he’s not sure what went wrong. He doesn’t understand. It’s Chris’s turn to be the manipulator, not the one manipulated. He’s sick of being on the short end of the stick. He wants to be in the one percentile not the ninety-nine bracket. He votes for change in the 2008 election but the only change he sees is the color of the President. He wants change. He wants the American dream. They were supposed to get drug approval.

  “So that sucks,” Chris says as he walks into his boss’s office.

  “Yeah, but we’ll get there one way or another.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They denied the application based off a technicality. They originally asked us to have another endpoint for the study but we never did. They never came in to audit or ask us questions. It was just one guy with a big head that made a suggestion and because we didn’t take it, they rejected the application. So for the next round, we will take it and re-submit. We all play games including the FDA. We may have more layoffs or may need to raise more money, but I am confident we’ll get approval.”

  “Oh. How many people do you think may get laid off?” Chris is getting tired of going through layoffs.

  “It all depends on how much money we can raise. Our stock is going to tank but it’ll stabilize. Plus, just because the FDA denied our application, it doesn’t mean the Europeans will deny our drug.”

  “You mean the MAA?” The MAA is the Marketing Authorization Application which exists in Europe.

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  “Is the MAA easier to get a drug to pass?”

  “I’m not sure. Remember I didn’t even know what the FDA was all about when I first arrived,” he says laughing. I return a smile. “But history has proven that what fails in America usually succeeds in Europe or some other second-rate country. Take a look at David Hasselhoff’s singing career,” he says with that smirk.

  “You have a good point.” Chris laughs. “Let’s give this thing to the Euros!”

  “Second-hand products have a market as well.”

  “True.”

  If you really give it thought, it’s probably a common path that American products take, as well as other countries trying to offload their failures to the U.S. He certainly doesn’t see anything wrong with this practice at a high level. Sometimes a second-hand product is beneficial to a third world country. Then the question comes into play when a product is useless or causes harm. And based off people’s integrity at Biokinz, Chris has a hunch that this drug is a sham.

  Chris walks over to the Helpdesk to chat a bit.

  “Well, who is surfing what?”

  “Hey take a look at what Stephanie’s been Googling. Picture her in that!” Tony says. Chris walks over to his monitor and sees a sexy piece of lingerie.

  “Damn, that would be nice to see. Whoever is hitting that is a lucky man indeed. What else has she been looking at?”

  “Well this morning she bought a large quantity of tampons,” he says laughing.

  “Okay, that’s a little too much info.”

  “But you gotta love it.”

  “Yeah I guess I do. How about Erick? Is he surfing porn again?”

  “Yep, the usual. Maybe that’s why they have been trying to get rid of him.”

  “Who knows? But our lead scientist surfing porn at the office is kinda’ funny. Speaking of which, we should remove Paul’s name from the exception list.”

  “Dude, we sho
uld totally do that.”

  “Wonder what that guy is surfing.”

  “He’s so shady. I don’t even want to know. But he sure would be livid if he found out. Let me see if his name is still on the exception list.”

  “Yeah, but he should know that our firewall also picks up web traffic. There is always a way to track.”

  “Yep, looks like his name is still there, and it looks like someone added another automated notification rule. Seems like they’re tracking Jeff’s web browsing. Some of the key words being searched are ‘career and job.’”

  “Ah, so they are interested in seeing if he is looking for a new job. I wonder why.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t get along with other folks.”

  “C’mon, he’s like the nicest guy, and everyone I’ve spoken with, likes him. He’s also really sharp.”

  “That’s true. We can always sniff emails to get to the truth. I’m sure he upset someone upstairs if you know what I mean.”

  “Who are the alerts going to?”

  “Paul.”

  “So it must be someone higher up that wants his info. Paul could care less. He is one of our lead scientists. Kind of sucks when you like someone but know that you can’t really say anything to them.”

  Chris wonders what they’re doing with that information. He doesn’t want to give it too much thought. They’re probably watching him as well.

  “Yeah, it’s part of our job.”

  “What about Sandy?”

  “She joined Plentyoffish and has gone on quite a few dates off the site. Check out this guy that’s taking her out on Wednesday.” He loads the site and shows Chris an older man. “It looks like he has a couple of homes and also drives a Bentley.”

  “Dude, the guy is pretty old. How do you know this? Did you do the same thing Tim did?”

  “Yeah,” he says somewhat laughing.

  “So things are still good between you two?”

  “Yeah, we’re still having fun. But don’t get me wrong. You can see I am keeping an eye on what she’s up to. If she tells too many lies, I’ll pull the plug.”

  “Yeah, probably a good idea. Must be hard to compete with a guy with a Bentley.”

  “Or maybe it’s hard for an old man to keep up with a guy like me.”

  “That is true, you both have something to offer that is very different. You both make one man,” Chris says laughing.

  “Screw you,” he replies.

  Not sure where the disease starts. But it’s evident at Biokinz that it began with upper management. They start asking people to track users, delete emails that are not supposed to be deleted, and fabricate emails when required. Chris is sure that other unethical things are going on as well. But it’s apparent that the disease has spread, and several employees are now impacted and on board the unethical American corporate train.

  “Man, I’m going to have to check my laptop for a keyboard-logger. You guys are estaking everyone. So you log into her Plentyoffish account every day?”

  “Just about. What I do is monitor the days that she logs into the site. She usually logs in during the week. So I avoid the urge to look at it on weekends.”

  “Nice. Seems like you have it all figured out.” Chris walks out the door as Tony is smiling, still gazing at his monitor.

  He goes back to his desk and takes a look at what Debbie is surfing. He also logs into her personal email. With Tim’s help, they picked up her password from the keyboard-logger. It’s become a daily task. He needs to see what she’s doing. They each have their own woman that they’re estaking, and it’s so entertaining. They’re like private investigators and with just a few clicks of the mouse and keyboard, they have all the answers they need.

  Debbie had booked a dinner reservation at the Americana this coming Friday. It’s also a locale that Chris visits every so often. So it looks like he’s headed there this Friday.