Damon Knight - Orbit 14

“Take a message for him, will you? Tell him the Creativity Group meeting is moved up to oh seventy-eight sharp. I’m sorry it had to be so early, but Gene Fine has got a bunch of other stuff and we couldn’t figure out anything else to do short of canceling. And we couldn’t get a room, so we’re meeting in the hall outside the drilling and boring shop. There’s definitely going to be a film. Have you got that?”

“I think so,” Forlesen said. “Oh seventy-eight, hall outside the drill room, movie.” He heard someone behind him and turned to look. It was Miss Fawn, so he said, “Do you know where Mr. Dillingham is? I’m taking a call for him.”

“He died,” Miss Fawn said. “Let me talk to them.” She took the receiver. “Who’s calling please? . . . Mr. Franklin, Mr. Dillingham died. . . . Last night. . . . Yes, it is. Mr. Forlesen is taking his place in your group—you should have gotten a memo on it . . . On Mr. Dillingham’s old number; you were just talking to him. He’s right here. Wait a moment.” She turned back to Forlesen: “It’s for you.”

He took the telephone and a voice in the earpiece said, “Are you Forlesen? Listen, this is Ned Franklin. You may not have been notified yet, but you’re in our creativity group, and we’re meeting— wait a minute, I’ve got a memo on it under all this crap somewhere.”

“Oh seventy-eight,” Forlesen said.

“Right. I realize that’s pretty early—

“We wouldn’t want to try to get along without Gene Fine,” Forlesen said.

“Right. Try to be there.”

Miss Fawn seemed to be leaving. Forlesen turned to see how she would appear in the rippled glass as he said, “What are we going to try and create?”

“Creativity. We create creativity itself—we learn to be creative.”

“I see,” Forlesen said. He watched Miss Fawn become pretty while remaining sexless, like a mannequin. He said, “I thought we’d just take some clay or something and start in.”

“Not that sort of creativity, for crap’s sake!”

“All right,” Forlesen said.

“Just show up, okay? Mr. Frick is solidly behind this and he gets upset when we have less than full attendance.”

“Maybe he could get us a meeting room then,” Forlesen suggested. He had no idea who Mr. Frick was, but he was obviously important.

“Hell, I couldn’t ask Mr. Frick that. Anyway, he never asks where we had the meeting—just how many came and what we discussed, and whether we feel we’re making progress.”

“He could be saving it.”

“Yeah, I guess he could. Listen, Cappy, if I can get us a room I’ll call you, okay?”

“Right,” said Forlesen. He hung up, wondered vaguely why Miss Fawn had come, then saw that she had left a stack of papers on a corner of his desk. “Well, the hell with you,” he said, and pushed them toward the wall. “I haven’t even looked at this desk yet.”

It was a metal desk, and somewhat smaller, older, and shabbier than the one in Fields’ office. It seemed odd to Forlesen that he should find old furniture in a part of the building which was still— judging from the sounds that occasionally drifted through the walls and window boards—under construction; but the desk, and his chair as well, were unquestionably nearing the end of their useful lives. The center desk drawer contained a dead insect, a penknife with yellowed imitation-ivory sides and a broken blade, a drawing of a bracket (very neatly lettered, Forlesen noticed) on crumpled tracing paper, and a dirty stomach mint. He threw this last away (his wastebasket was new, made of plastic, and did not seem to fit in with the other furnishings of the office) and opened the top right-hand drawer. It contained an assortment of pencils (all more or less chewed), a cube of art gum with the corners worn off, and some sheets of blank paper with one corner folded. The next drawer down yielded a wrinkled brown paper bag that disgorged a wad of wax paper, a stale half cookie, and the sharp smell of apples. The last two drawers proved to be a single file drawer in masquerade; there were five empty file folders in it, including one with a column of twenty-seven figures written on it in pencil, the first and lowest being 8,750 and the last and highest 12,500; they were not totaled. On the left side of the desk what looked like four more drawers proved to be a device for concealing a typewriter; it was empty.

Forlesen closed it and leaned back in his chair, aware that inventorying the desk had depressed him. After a moment he remembered Fields saying that he would find a list of his responsibilities in the office, and discovered it on top of the stack of papers Miss Fawn had left with him. It read:

MANAGEMENT PERSONNEL

Make M.P.P. Co. profitable and keep it profitable.

Assist in carrying out corporate goals.

Maintain employee discipline by reporting violators’ names to their superiors.

Help keep costs down.

If any problems come up help to deal with them in accord with company policy.

Training, production, sales, and public relations are all supervised by management personnel.

Forlesen threw the paper in the wastebasket.

The second paper in the stack was headed sample leadership problem #105, and read:

A young woman named Enid Fenton was hired recently as clerical help. Her work has not been satisfactory, but because clerical help has been in short supply she has not been told this. Recently a reduction in the work load in her department made it possible to transfer three girls to another department. Miss Fenton asked for one of the transfers and when told that they had already been assigned to others behaved in such a manner as to suggest (though nothing was actually said) that she was considering resignation. Her work consists of keypunching, typing, and filing. Should her supervisor:

[ ] Discharge her.

[ ] Indicate to her that her work has been satisfactory but hint that she may be laid off.

[ ] Offer her a six-week leave of absence (without pay) during which she may obtain further training.

[ ] Threaten her with a disciplinary fine.

[ ] Assign her to assist one of the older women.

[ ] Ask the advice of the other members of his Leadership group, following it only if he agrees the group has reached a correct decision in this case.

[ ] Reassign her to small-parts assembly.

NOTE: QUESTIONS CONCERNING THIS SAMPLE LEADERSHIP PROBLEM SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO ERIC FAIRCHILD--EX 8173.

After reading the problem through twice Forlesen picked up his telephone and dialed the number. A female voice said, “Mr. Fairchild’s office.”

Forlesen identified himself, and a moment later a male voice announced, “Eric Fairchild.”

“It’s about the leadership problem—number one oh five?”

“Oh, yes.” Fairchild’s voice was hearty; Forlesen imagined him slapping backs and challenging people to Indian wrestle at parties. “I’ve had quite a few calls about that one. You can check as many answers as you like if they’re not mutually exclusive—okay?”

“That wasn’t what I was going to ask,” Forlesen said. “This girl’s work—”

“Wait a minute,” Fairchild said. And then, much more faintly, “Get me the Leadership file, Miss Fenton.”

“What did you say?” Forlesen asked.

“Wait a minute,” Fairchild said again. “If we’re going to dig into this thing in depth I want to have a copy of the problem in front of me. Thank you. Okay, you can shoot now. What did you say your name was?”

“Forlesen. I meant after you said ‘Wait a minute’ the first time. I thought I heard you call your secretary Miss Fenton.”

“Ha ha ha.”

“Didn’t you?”

“My secretary’s name is Mrs. Fairchild, Mr. Forlesen. No, she’s not my wife, if that’s what you’re thinking, Mr. Frick doesn’t approve of nepotism. She’s just a nice lady who happens to be named Mrs. Fairchild, and I was addressing Miss Fetton, who is filling in for her today.”