More Suggestions and a "Promotion"

I was scheduled to take a trip to Tenneland, and as usual, I had the secretary
make the arrangements. I told her I would need a rental car and that I wanted a
compact car. When I arrived in Summerfield, I found the car reserved for me was a
mid-sized Cutlass Supreme, which was the standard company car for salesmen and
it was the same model company car that Ravi had driven as the Technical Director. Obviously the secretary had reserved the wrong car. On my previous trips to Summerfield the rental cars had been much less luxurious and roomy. Again the implication was that I, as Technical Director, would have a company car.

The suggestions about a company car become more blatant a week before the big
announcement. I was talking to Jay Wells and Paul Jones about a trip to Neenah Foundry in Neenah, Wisconsin. We were discussing how we were to make the trip and who going to drive.

Paul looked at me and said, “Maybe you should wait until next week and you can go in a new company car.”

Jay looked at Paul as if to say, “your getting a little too obvious.” After a period of awkward silence, the conversation continued until we decided to wait until the following week after the big announcement to determine who should drive.

The day before the announcement, Carl came into my office and told me that I would be the new Technical Director. At the same time, he would become Vice President of Technical Operations, and he would be moving into Ravi's old office next to mine. He also implied that he would be taking a more active role in the running of the laboratory operations, which meant that I would have even less say in running the laboratory than I already had. It was now evident why Carl had been “hidden” from me when I first joined the company and why his role in the company had never been well defined until now. The fact that Carl was a klutz and borderline competent was really disheartening. At least Ravi had been competent and scientifically knowledgeable and that was one of the major reasons I had come to Gamma Supplies originally.

The fact that Carl was going to play an increasing roll in the laboratory had been evident when in July he had informed me he was doing the laboratory budget for the next year and he wondered if there were any items I might want. After a year of trying, and now as “Technical Director”, I still did not even get a copy of the budget. The day after Carl had told me of my promotion, an official announcement was made in a memo which stated that I was the new Gamma Supplies "Technical Director." What confused me about all of this charade, was why was all of this being done in an official and public manner.
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* I always considered both Darth Corey and Carl Host to be marginally competent. I now know that as a fact, given that 20 years latter, Gamma Supplies has shown zero, none, nada growth in terms of real dollars. I don't know how many years Darth and Carl stayed on at Gamma Supplies after I left, but I do know they were there 6 years latter when I returned. In 1998, the Clines sold Gamma Supplies to HA International a large foreign owned company. I sure that they,Darth, and Carl if they were still there at the time, made a lot of money off of my efforts. But that's what makes america great; the powerful exploiting the poor.

For anyone reading this and who owns a business, Darth and Carl both claimed to have an advanced degree from the University of Chicago Business School. Based on their performance, I would discourage any business owner from hiring anyone from the Chicago School of Business!