Nazi Terrorism Begins in Earnest

One interesting item did get disseminated during that day. During the discussion of sales, Darth presented a chart of industry wide sales of the different foundry binder systems. One did not need to be a genius to see that the new Better Supplies “Fast Set” which was the object of the lawsuit, and the sister system “Ice Box” were rapidly replacing the older systems. If one extended those trends, in less than five years Better Supplies would totally dominate the foundry binder business at the expense of Gamma Supplies and several large chemical companies.

Since Better Supplies had such extensive protective patent coverage, the development of competitive seemed prohibited. The data reinforced the need to break up the Better Supplies' patents and confirmed my suspicions that the litigation was important to more companies than just Gamma Supplies. The questions which ran through my head were for whom was I really working and what was their plans for me. I was beginning to get more than a little concerned.

The next day I ran into Ralpgh Sampson and he asked me about the sales meeting. I told him for my purposes the meeting was pretty much a waste of time. Then I related to him the coincidence about what Darth said at the meeting and what I had said to Pete Dini. When Ralph said nothing I emphasized that not only did Darth state the same thought, but he used the same words! Still, Ralph expressed no thought on the subject. I couldn't understand his lack of reaction to the incident.

Minor incidents also occurred which bothered me. Sometimes when I would get bored with my work I would take a break and frequently go down to the computer room and chat with Dave Lipton. On one occasion we were discussing Carl's role in the company. Dave was rather gruff person and in only a manner that he could do it, he stated “Every time I see that worthless SOB he is sitting at his desk reading the paper”.

I said, “Well, I don't know about that, but I do know he runs the laboratory from a distance. After a while I left Dave's office and returned to my office. Amazingly, the next three times I walked past Carl's office on a way to meet with someone, there was Ralph sitting there reading the paper. I thought it's almost as if it was staged, but the thought seemed ridiculous to me.

The most frightening coincidence, and the one that would eventually be used to make life a real nightmare involved a comment I made at the last management meeting I was to attend. Darth as usual informed me of the date of the meeting and then gave me a book titled “Corporation Man” by Anthony Jay. He told me the three chapters I was responsible for covering. Then he mentioned that he was going to cover another book by Anthony Jay titled “Machiavelli and Management” which he had used at sales meetings, but he thought that given the circumstances, he would do “Corporation Man” first. I did not ask what the circumstances were, but somehow I couldn't help but feel the circumstances involved me. Darth also gave me the responsibility for finding a place for the meeting and for putting out a memo to the other people announcing the meeting.

By now I knew I had been used and had no future at Gamma Supplies. To protect myself I was documenting as many of the unusual happenings as I could. As luck would have it, a week before I sent out the meeting notice, a story on the drought in the Chicago area appeared in the paper and accompanying the article was a picture of a man trying to locate underground water with a divining rod. Finding water and nickels with a divining rod had been an unannounced topic at our previous management meeting. The memo I sent out had a picture of the man holding a divining rod and all of the pertinent information regarding the next meeting. The day the memo was sent out Darth summoned me to his office and asked who was responsible for the memo. I told him I was. Darth acted very annoyed, but made no direct comments expressing his disapproval. I could only assume his reaction was because I had put on paper a reminder of the ridiculous subjects we had covered the previous meeting. The conversation amounted to little more than Darth saying “I don't like this.”