Answers Out of Nowhere(or Heaven)!

I was not pleased at all with his answer because it did not solve my immediate stress problem and the related health problems, and Darth despite all his power had not acted sooner to rectify the problem.

I replied, “Fine, if you get rid of Ravi, I will stay and see your lawsuit through to a successful completion.” At that point I had decided as soon as the lawsuit was completed, I was out of Delta Oil.

Then the conversation turned to my research results. As we were discussing what should be done, Darth quired, “what about the free formaldehyde?” Since I saw no reason from my work as to why free formaldehyde should be important, I tended to ignore his comment and continued on with what I thought was important.

After the meeting that day, we all gathered in the cocktail lounge for a drink. Darth joined us and soon everyone was listening to his business philosophy. After a couple of drinks, Darth began to brag more. He took great pride in telling how he and some friend had operated a telephone scam designed to bilk old ladies out of their savings. As I sat there and listened I couldn't help but think what a sad state of affairs it was to have a man like that as a business and community leader. In addition he pointed out that he was an Elder at a church in his community.

The next day, Darth came into my office and handed me a sheet of paper.

“Here are some thoughts I jotted down this morning on what should be done. I gave Ravi a copy. Why don't you draw up some plans and give them to Ravi.”

I looked at this list and there was item number 4, “What effect does free formaldehyde have?” The question again surfaced in my mind as to why he was so insistent on looking into the free formaldehyde. It seemed to me that he had been told that the free formaldehyde was critical. But by whom and why had Darth been given that information.

I drew up a detailed research plan, but I didn't include any work on free formaldehyde because I couldn't get all the work done by myself. I had my research plans typed and had a copy sent to Ravi and Darth.

The direct response I was expecting did not come from neither Ravi nor Darth.
Instead, John showed up in the upper lab and started to work on making phenolic resins to determine what the effect of free formaldehyde was on the “Quick Set” formulation. The results were dramatic. The correct level of free formaldehyde was critical to get the optimum performance on “Quick Set”. Now I was completely baffled as to how Darth knew that. He had been so insistent on it that he had to have known. And there were at least a dozen other parameters we could have looked at, but originally, the only thing he told me he was interested in was the free formaldehyde.

And in a later conversation, Darth all but admitted he had been given the information when we were talking about the free formaldehyde and he said, “I should have thought of that! It is comparable to another product we have.” I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth.