The Mighty Dictator

Darth's power and appearance of total control was reinforced by Paul Johnson and Ralph Sampson. Pauk commented that Darth treated everyone the way that I was being treated.

Ralph came in one day and said, “Darth is treating you the way the Chinese treats their prisoners. He likes to break people down, and then he molds them the way he likes them." He laughed and then departed.

I did not find his comment humorous at all, and I thought the analogy to the communist treatment of prisoners was not a totally inaccurate description. Jay Wells reiterated that Darth had the Cline's ear and he had the final word in everything. The bottom line was that Darth was all powerful in Gamma Supplies.

More subtle means of conveying Darth's power ran from the ridiculous to the sublime. During quality control studies of a particular product, the question arose as to how to determine the point in time when a reaction was complete in order that the product could be drummed and a new batch could be started as quickly as possible. I was discussing the problem with Jay and I suggested we put a torque meter on the stirrer shaft, since there was a sharp increase in the thickness of the product when the reaction was complete. Jay said he didn't like the idea. When I asked why he said, “Well, Darth told me we should hook up an amp meter to the stirrer motors and then measure the increase in the current on the motors when the reaction became complete.” After some more discussion, I said fine, and eventually the quality control committee agreed to recommend Darth's solution to the
problem to Darth for action. The incident enforced the idea that all changes came from Darth and more importantly, it placed Jay as Darth's official spokesman in the quality control group. It again appeared that Darth was undermining my position in the quality control group. This was after Darth took great pains to tell the group that I was heading up the task force. It looked like the old “magic act” again.

To make sure that Darth had actually told Jay that the amp meter was the solution Darth wanted, when we presented our group findings to Darth I said, “Of course, we did consider monitoring the torque on the stirrer as an alternative. What do you think of that?”

Darth just glared at me as if to say, what do you think you are doing, you
insubordinate? Then he said, “The amp meter should work fine”.

I remained silent the rest of the meeting.

The ridiculous means of conveying Darth's position of power took very subtle
psychological forms. In Darth's office, across from his desk, was a couch which was very low. When you sat on the couch, your knees came up to your chest, making the occupant quit uncomfortable. One day I was talking with Jay and I mentioned a book I had read by Michael Korda called Power. In the book, Mr. Korda related how some managers arrange their furniture in their office to give them a position of power when they talked with someone. It is a subtle form of intimidation. One example in Korda's book was about a manager who had his furniture so low that the people in his office felt uncomfortable, and the manager from behind his desk had a feeling of towering over his subjects. For a vertically challenged person like Darth, he probably wanted to feel he towered over other people.

JaY blurted out, “Yeah, just like Darth's couch.”

I said, “Yes, exactly like that.”

We both laughed and I didn't think anymore of the conversation until a couple of days later. I went into Darth's office , sat down on the couch and was surprised that the couch had been raised to a comfortable level. The timing relative to my conversation with Jay bothered me immensely. And this was another time when something I told a coworker in private seemed to have made its way to one of my managers. I was baffled as to why that should be happening.