Grand sat there in that squeaky little chair and philosophized about the plight of the aerospace industry in general and the bleak prospects for Anson Aerospace in particular.
«Not the best of times to approach management with a bold, innovative concept,» he concluded.
Omigod, I thought. He’s talked himself out of it! He was starting to get up and leave my cubicle.
«You know,» I said, literally grabbing his sleeve, «Winston Churchill backed a lot of bold, innovative ideas, didn’t he? Like, he pushed the development of tanks in World War I, even though he was in the navy, not the army.»
Grand gave me a strange look.
«And radar, in World War II,» I added.
«And the atomic bomb,» Grand replied. «Very few people realize it was Sir Winston who started the atomic bomb work, long before the Yanks got into it.»
The Yanks? I thought. This from a Jewish engineer from the Bronx High School for Science.
I sighed longingly. «If Churchill were here today, I bet he’d push the SSZ for all it’s worth. He had the courage of his convictions, Churchill did.»
Grand nodded, but said nothing and left me at my desk. The next morning, though, he came to my cubicle and told me to follow him.
Glad to get away from my claustrophobic work station, I headed after him, asking, «Where are we going?»
«Upstairs.»
Management territory!
«What for?»
«To broach the concept of the supersonic zeppelin,» said Grand, sticking out his lower lip in imitation of Churchillian pugnaciousness.
«The SSZ? For real?»
«Listen, my boy, and learn. The way this industry works is this: you grab onto an idea and ride it for all it’s worth. I’ve decided to hitch my wagon to the supersonic zeppelin, and you should too.»
I should too? Hell, I thought of it first!
John Driver had a whole office to himself and a luscious, sweet-tempered executive assistant of Greek-Italian ancestry, with almond-shaped dark eyes and lustrous hair even darker. Her name was Lisa, and half the male employees of Anson Aerospace fantasized about her, including me.
Driver’s desk was big enough to land a helicopter on, and he kept it immaculately clean, mainly because he seldom did anything except sit behind it and try to look important. Driver was head of several engineering sections, including APT. Like so many others in Anson, he had been promoted to his level of incompetency: a perfect example of the Peter Principle. Under his less-then-brilliant leadership APT had managed to avoid developing anything more advanced than a short-range drone aircraft that ran on ethanol. It didn’t fly very well, but the ground crew used the corn-based fuel to make booze that would peel the paint off a wall just by breathing at it from fifteen feet away.
I let Grand do the talking, of course. And, equally of course, he made Driver think the SSZ was his idea instead of mine.
«A supersonic zeppelin?» Driver snapped, once Grand had outlined the idea to him. «Ridiculous!»
Unperturbed by our boss’ hostility to new ideas, Grand said smoothly, «Don’t be too hasty to dismiss the concept. It may have considerable merit. At the very least I believe we could talk NASA or the Transportation Department into giving us some money to study the concept.»
At the word «money» Driver’s frown eased a little. Driver was lean-faced, with hard features and a gaze that he liked to think was piercing. He now subjected Grand to his piercingest stare.
«You have to spend money to make money in this business,» he said, in his best Forbes magazine acumen.
«I understand that,» Grand replied stiffly. «But we are quite willing to put some of our own time into this—until we can obtain government funding.»
«Your own time?» Driver queried.
We? I asked myself. And immediately answered myself, Damned right. This is my idea and I’m going to follow it to the top. Or bust.
«I really believe we may be onto something that can save this company,» Grand was purring.
Driver drummed his manicured fingers on his vast desk. «All right, if you feel so strongly about it. Do it on your own time and come back to me when you’ve got something worth showing. Don’t say a word to anyone else, understand? Just me.»
«Right, Chief.» I learned later that whenever Grand wanted to flatter Driver he called him Chief.
«Our own time» was aerospace industry jargon for bootlegging hours from legitimate projects. Engineers have to charge every hour they work against an ongoing contract, or else their time is paid by the company’s overhead account. Anson’s management—and the accounting department—was very definitely against spending any money out of the company’s overhead account. So I became a master bootlegger, finding charge numbers for my APT engineers. They accepted my bootlegging without a word of thanks, and complained when I couldn’t find a valid charge number and they actually had to work on their own time, after regular hours.
For the next six weeks Wisdom, Rohr, Kurtz and even I worked every night on the supersonic zeppelin. The engineers were doing calculations and making simulator runs in their computers. I was drawing up a business plan, as close to a work of fiction as anything on the Best Sellers list. My social life went to zero, which was—I have to admit—not all that much of a drop. Except for Driver’s luscious executive assistant, Lisa, who worked some nights to help us. I wished I had the time to ask her to dinner.
Grand worked away every night, too. On a glossy set of illustrations to use as a presentation.
We made our presentation to Driver. The guys’ calculations, my business plan, and Grand’s images. He didn’t seem impressed, and I left the meeting feeling pretty gunky. Over the six weeks I’d come to like the idea of a supersonic zeppelin, an SSZ. I really believed it was my ticket to advancement. Besides, now I had no excuse to see Lisa, up in Driver’s office.
On the plus side, though, none of the APT team was laid off. We went through the motions of the Christmas office party with the rest of the undead. Talk about a survivor’s reality show!
I was moping in my cubicle the morning after Christmas when my phone beeped and Driver’s face came up on my screen.
«Drop your socks and pack a bag. You’re going with me to Washington to sell the SSZ concept.»
«Yessir!» I said automatically. «Er … when?»
«Tomorrow, bright and early.»
I raced to Grand’s cubicle, but he already knew about it.
«So we’re both going,» I said, feeling pretty excited.
«No, only you and Driver,» he said.
«But why aren’t you—»
Grand gave me a knowing smile. «Driver wants all the credit for himself if the idea sells.»
That nettled me, but I knew better than to argue about it. Instead, I asked, «And if it doesn’t sell?»
«You get the blame for a stupid idea. You’re low enough on the totem pole to be offered up as a sacrificial victim.»
I nodded. I didn’t like it, but I had to admit it was a good lesson in management. I tucked it away in my mind for future reference.
I’d never been to Washington before. It was chilly, gray and clammy; no comparison to sunny Phoenix. The traffic made me dizzy, but Driver thought it was pretty light. «Half the town’s on holiday vacations,» he told me as we rode a seedy, beat-up taxicab to the magnificent glass and stainless steel high-rise office building that housed the Transportation Department.
As we climbed out of the smelly taxi I noticed the plaque on the wall by the revolving glass doors. It puzzled me.