McLeod liked to underline the points he was making with movements of his hand, almost like an orchestra conductor, increasing the perceived arrogance of his demeanor. The man was insufferable.
“Bob, we encountered issues with the installation, and I filed the documentation with you two weeks ago. You knew about that… we discussed it.”
McLeod leaned back in his chair.
“I am tired, you know, tired of how I can’t get the message through to you. Not now, not ever. All I want you to do is own your issues, so we can work with them and make you and your team better professionals.”
“But, Bob—”
“You have filed the paperwork. I heard you the first time. You’ve covered your ass with paper. Do you think that’s what I care about? Do you think that’s what you should care about? We have a client who’s not able to deploy his vessel on time because of us, and we have a contract with the Navy that specifies penalties for all delays.”
“Bob, listen, please. The readiness assessment for the Lloyd was altogether wrong. The weapons control system was incompatible with this installation. I filed the findings, the change order, and the amended schedule with you and the client immediately after we discovered the discrepancy. It’s really not my fault. What was I supposed to do?”
“I’m gonna tell you again, although I can’t really figure out why I keep explaining. Quentin, you’re a smart engineer, talented, bright, yet you decide to oppose the company’s direction and mine with every opportunity. Your mind is hermetically closed, watertight even. Every piece of feedback I share, you take personally and decide to fight the change instead of embracing it. How am I supposed to work with you if you won’t accept any feedback? If you won’t make the tiniest effort to change, and if you consider your judgment to be above everyone else’s? This is a collaborative environment, we work as a team, and we care about our clients’ deliverables, not about the paper trail.”
Quentin felt the blood boil in his veins and made a supreme effort of will to not punch the idiot. Wrapping his stupidity in corporate lingo, McLeod was too much of a coward to ever stand up to someone and say he was wrong. That was, of course, if that someone was a higher up or a client. With him, and others on McLeod’s team, he showed no restraint, demeaning the value of their work with every opportunity he caught. Small steps, Quentin encouraged himself, small steps.
“Bob, please tell me how you would have wanted this situation handled. What would you have done if you found the weapons controller onboard the Lloyd to be incompatible with the new weapons system?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve done this, but fine. I would have explored the possibility of installing middleware instead of replacing the entire controller. I would have presented the client with alternatives. One was the alternative you took, a new weapons controller, very expensive and a hefty delay. I would have added the middleware alternative, much cheaper, minimum delay, and a recommendation to schedule the controller replacement at a later date.”
“You do realize the middleware option would have sent the Lloyd out to sea with an unreliable weapons configuration, right?”
“You’re missing the point, again. The point is to present the client with options and recommendations, and make it their decision, not yours.”
“But the client is not technically qualified to make this decision, we are!”
“Yet it’s their vessel and their money!”
Both men had stood up from their chairs, their postures matching their escalated frustration with each other. A few moments of loaded silence ensued, each of them throwing angry glares at the other.
McLeod broke eye contact and sat back down.
“I’m done explaining, Quentin. If you don’t see the value in what I just said, there’s no point. Not now, not ever. You’re dismissed.”
Dumbfounded at finding himself thrown out of his boss’s office like a misbehaving five year old, Quentin left the room, summoning whatever shred of dignity he could find. The moment he reached the privacy of his own office and slammed the door shut, he clenched his fists and started pacing the office angrily, mumbling curses at every step.
“Motherfucking asshole, can’t believe the nerve on that guy. Who the fuck does he think he is?”
He felt the blood rise to his head, the pounding of his own heartbeats deafening his ears and clouding his vision. Recognizing the signs of a high blood pressure attack, he tried to calm himself down, while reaching for his pills.
“The fucking idiot’s gonna give me a stroke, while he’s gonna live like all bastards do, until he’s a hundred years old.” He settled down at his desk and took his throbbing head in his hands. “God, I need a way out of this… can’t take another day!”
The thought of leaving infused a little hope in his weary mind, then that hope faded away. “Who am I kidding?” he mumbled, “where the fuck would I go?”
It hurt his ego badly to find himself so vulnerable, so defeated. He was better than that.
Quentin had been born in rural Virginia and started his early life as an isolated, lonely kid. Other kids rejected him, although he wanted to engage and play with them, to belong to their group. Soon he had learned to reject them too and be comfortable in his loneliness. Aloneness, he would call it, the state of being alone but without any of the negative connotations of loneliness, of missing the presence of others.
Naturally, he hated his first seven or eight years of school, years that forced the solitary boy to be involved in activities all day long. He deeply missed his aloneness and was bored beyond his wildest dreams. That was the perfect recipe for trouble, and little Quentin got into more than his share of that. Whatever school bully had the poor inspiration to pick on him would be punished well beyond the size of the offense. Quentin’s defense was always valid in the fact that he never started those fights. Yet he finished them each time, angrily, drawing blood mercilessly, making sure everyone got the message and left him alone.
He spent his alone time reading, absorbing a variety of books at an incredible pace. A school advisor who had the opportunity to notice Quentin’s behavior conducted a few tests, and then advised his parents that he didn’t belong there. She recommended that they move Quentin to a school for the gifted and enroll him in an accelerated study program, one that would challenge the young boy’s well-endowed brain. His parents did that, despite the fact that they had to uproot their comfortable rural life and move to the city, get new jobs, and adapt to an entirely different lifestyle. They struggled, but Quentin flourished.
He loved his new school and finished one-and-a-half years ahead of schedule. Then he had his choice of colleges and soon held a master of science degree in electrical engineering, with honors.
College life hadn’t changed his demeanor all that much though. He remained isolated, focused on his work, and a bit awkward around people. He understood many things quite well. Complex mathematical models, complicated technology, futuristic concepts were easy for him to grasp; people, not so much. Finding himself aware of his limitations, he continued to study and explore science rather than relationships.
His physical proximity to the plethora of military contractors in the area offered the new graduate a career path in weapons systems. He embraced it happily and soon held several unpublished patents that bore a numeric code instead of an intelligible title.
He’d been relatively happy in his career, as happy as someone like him could be if forced to be around people for eight hours a day. He’d made a name for himself in the industry, and his achievements were numerous and well recognized. Well, that had been true for the best part of his career, until the arrogant, political, and idiotic Bob McLeod had joined the organization as technical director and Quentin’s boss.