Mick The Manager

Mick The Manager

by Michael Driver

Smashwords Edition | Copyright 2014 Michael Driver

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Epilogue

Appendix

About the Author

Chapter 1

It's hard to believe some of the things I've done. But what can I say? I'm a heterosexual white male.

Even so, I've learned a few things recently. My former secretary had a lot to do with that.

I'll have to admit that I never paid much attention to her until the day she stuck her head in my office doorway and told me that her husband was on his way up.

That's good, I said, not bothering to look up from the sales figures I was studying. The store was doing great and I loved those figures. You know, I've never met him, I added casually.

He's coming here to kill you, Jackie said.

That got my attention; I looked up. Jackie was terror-stricken.

He thinks you're screwing me like you are every other woman in the store, she said.

At first, I just sat there dumbfounded. Over the years, I had had a few disagreements with husbands, although never anything really serious. Judging from Jackie's reaction, my time had come and for no good reason, I thought, but that was beside the point under the circumstances. I had to do something.

I sat there staring at my name on the door: Mick Manage, Vice President, Store Manager. I know, I know. Wiseass all you want to but it happens to be my real name. I just pity all the Fartwells out there. For a moment, I thought about changing the name on my door. I'm actually a brilliant guy—at least in some ways. That just didn't happen to be one of my better thoughts.

Hurry, Mick! Jackie shouted. He was already running up the escalator from the first floor when somebody called.

Hearing that, I leaped from my chair and bolted past Jackie into the hall, looking for a means of escape. The offices were a dead-end—not even a fire door—and outside was the open sales floor where I would be a sitting duck like the target at a carnival sideshow. And it was beneath my dignity to run from room setting to room setting, from chair to sofa dodging some maniac.

So, I jumped in a trash buggy when a cleaning man rounded the corner. Let's go, Jimmy, I said, kneeling inside and lowering the top.

Mr. Manage? Jimmy said in a what-the-hell-is-going-on tone.

Move it, I said in a hoarse whisper, choking on the stench. Jimmy ignored the rest of his rounds and headed straight to the stockroom. Jimmy was smart. If he had a degree, a bank account, some investments, a big house, at least one elegant set of wheels plus a RV, a lawyer, an ex-wife, maybe a current one, and a different skin pigment, maybe things would have been different for him. Maybe I would have been pushing the buggy for him.

That's it, I thought. I should have put on his overalls, then I wouldn't have had to get inside the trash buggy.

Just as I had that too late flash of brilliance, Jimmy swerved to avoid something. From the hum, I could tell we were near the escalator, then I heard a voice say something about killing the son-of-a-bitch. That had to have been Jackie's husband and Jimmy instantly surmised the identity of the intended victim.

As the buggy picked up speed, I wondered what was happening in the office. It had just been painted. It was too bad an apparently nice girl like Jackie had to marry a jerk like that, I thought. I wondered about the paint again.

Just then, Jimmy slowed the buggy abruptly. I had no way of knowing he was behind a group of elderly people leisurely examining colonial furniture on their way to the restroom. But I knew Jimmy had to have a good reason to slow down on such an important occasion.

Move your ass, man, said Leroy, another cleaning man who approached suddenly.

You're slower than a raise in this fucking place.

Shut up, Leroy, said Jimmy. I didn't know it but he was motioning with his head toward the trash buggy. Leroy didn't get it.

Those old douche bags can't hear shit, said Leroy.

Shut up, Jimmy said again. Then suddenly he was moaning, Nooooo!

Quicker than anything else I had seen him do, Leroy lifted the top of the buggy just a little. I saw a flash of light then a glimpse of red instantly followed by ice and cold liquid dripping down my head.

Nooooo, noooo, nooo, Jimmy scolded.

I'm helping you do your job, man, said Leroy. You dumb fucker.

Jimmy muttered something and shoved the buggy hard. Leroy muttered back at him and kept it up. I could tell from the clack of the wheels that we were off the carpet nearing the stockroom. The swinging doors slammed against the buggy and Jimmy abruptly stopped. We were safe in the stockroom.

The moment the buggy was still, I pushed the top and stood straight up. You should have seen Leroy's face. I didn't say anything at first, I just stood there with slush dripping down my head, looking him straight in the eye.

The whites of Leroy’s eyes were yellowish. Alcohol? Drugs? Maybe it came from spending too much time looking up Suzy Chen's dress. I felt a little jaundiced about doing that myself sometimes.

I thought about saying something clever such as, talk about dumb... but I didn’t. I just stood there.

Finally, I took a clump of ice out of my hair and placed it in the palm of Leroy’s hand. You have an appointment with Mr. Pirkle at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, I said. He will reevaluate your work assignment and employment status. There was nothing like a little professional language to unnerve the rank and file.

Pirkle was the Operations Manager, which made him in charge of personnel since that was part of operations along with things like air conditioning and escalators. Pirkle was a chain-smoking accountant with the disposition of a hornet. But that was okay because he mostly stayed in his office controlling expenses. I'm more of a people person and spent most of my time on the sales floor, so we balanced each other. It made for an orderly, disciplined store blended with compassion and fairness that yielded high morale.

As I climbed out of the trash buggy, Leroy just stood there with ice melting in his hand. I may have been mussed and smelly but he was in shock.

Fortunately, the freight elevator was right there, open and ready to go just like me. I stepped inside, thanked Jimmy, and disappeared behind the broad smile of a modern Otis.

On the way down, it occurred to me that Colonel Springs used to have his office in a freight elevator so he could move from floor to floor taking care of business while watching the mill hands at work. It seemed very clever to me and I thought about installing a desk there for Pirkle.

After landing at the loading dock, I swallowed to push my stomach out of my throat and slammed a key in the side door next to the trucks and slipped into the parking lot undetected. Once I was behind the wheel of my cranberry red Morgan roadster (fire engine red would have been too much) I turned heads. What can I say? I was headed home to safety and a shower.

My house was a short distance from the store in one of those snooty new subdivisions for would-be or pretend-to-be young millionaires. It was very nice. It was partly two storey split level French provincial ranch style with a three-car garage. I parked between my Mercedes for those sedate, sedan kinds of occasions and my four wheel drive Jeep that was rarely used except to change its oil. From a door in back, I entered a garden between the patio and the pool.

The pool, I will admit, might seem like an extravagance but I actually used it. It was a wonderful way to relax after coming in from a hard day at the store. And the climate in Sunbelt City was such that it was usable most of the year. It also served as a convenient backdrop for parties, especially the two-person kind. There was something about a pool, particularly at night, which made otherwise timid girls think it was okay to take their clothes off. And it was all right, frequently very fine.

Just for the memories, I took a deep whiff of chlorine but I smelled myself instead. I was a sobering stench. Quickly, I entered the house through the back door and sped through room after room until I caught myself in the bathroom mirror.

It was easy to ignore the matted hair plastered to my forehead. That wasn't me. The eyes were me, and the face: a thirty-nine year old face—true years not on hold—and, yes, that didn't seem very definite. It wasn't just the lack of specific color. I had always wanted deep brown eyes to match my still dark brown hair and regretted the seemingly variable hazel that girls had often told me they liked. I wanted dark brown so much that I exaggerated the faint brown cast, observable only from certain angles in particular light. I even lied on my driver's license. Have you ever noticed that they take your word for everything down at the Department of Public Safety? The pictures they take may be awful but they let you compensate in the descriptions. I added an inch to my height to edge it over six feet and dropped ten pounds or so. Not that my weight was a problem. I was always lean and straight, if not especially muscular.

But the problem I noticed about my eyes went beyond lack of color. I just couldn't quite decide what was wrong.

Not that I thought anything was seriously wrong. Self-confidence had never been in short supply. Some people even said I was arrogant. For sure, I was keenly aware of my many strengths and abilities, although I had never wasted much time with introspection.

Still, something was missing. And after staring in the mirror awhile I decided that I wasn't going to find it right away.

After another sniff of myself, I began throwing clothes in a pile on the floor and turned on the shower. While regulating the water, I couldn't help thinking about why I was there in the middle of the afternoon. It was not the first time I was home in the middle of the afternoon taking a shower but it was the first time I was home in the middle of the afternoon talking a shower for not having done what I was usually at home in the middle of the afternoon taking a shower for.

Then I looked down toward what had long been a source of self-satisfaction. I really didn't deserve self-doubt. But something disturbing caught my eye. Age spots on my dick.

The shower was invigorating and I began to think about the situation at the store with Jackie's husband. Curiosity drove me and I dressed hurriedly to get back as soon as possible.

As a last stop, I checked the answering machine. There was a single message and I figured it was Jackie. I almost didn't bother to play it, knowing that she would simply tell me to call her and I wanted to get back and handle things in person. Jackie and I had a lot to talk about and the phone wasn't the right way to do it. But I relented.

This is Jackie, the machine repeated. Call me as soon as you can.

There was something unusual in her voice, like there was something other than her husband to talk about. So I called.

Mick, she said when I called, there are some men here from the federal government. Agents of some sort. They have cameras and guns.

Sure enough, they had cameras and guns and there was an office full of them waiting on me. A whole delegation of federal investigators, I thought, interrupting when I really wanted to talk to Jackie and find out what the hell was going on with her and her husband that seemed to involve me when it shouldn't. On the other hand, as we settled into my office, my curiosity increased about those federal guys. There were four of them: FBI, FDA, ICC and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. I had dealt with the FBI a number of times over the years when they would be looking for a particularly notorious bad check writer who had been through town or doing background investigations on former employees who wanted to fly F-16s or take groundwater samples on federal reservations. That's not the same as a Native American Reservation and I never dealt with anyone from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

It seemed terribly unusual that so many agencies would send agents snooping around a department store and I told them so straight out. Of course, they were federal law enforcement officers, so they told me damn near nothing.

The FBI dude was the first to talk. He asked if the store had advertised something called The Beauty Bullet. As a matter of fact, I told him, an ad for that product had run in the newspaper that very day. He had to have been a real dick to figure that one out.

Despite the word bullet in the name, I pointed out, the product did not really have anything to do with ammo and I didn't think the Firearms people would be much interested in something that was nothing more than a vitamin tablet. They were unimpressed.

The Food and Drug guy asked if I would have a bottle brought to the office. He was the one with the camera. I called the cosmetics department manager and asked her to bring a bottle up.

That call, I found out later, caused a sensation in the store. Everyone was already keyed up about feds with cameras and guns being in my office. The call to the cosmetics manager brought to mind a similar call the year before which resulted in the arrest of the cosmetics manager (a previous one) on charges of selling drugs, literally over the counter, to very special customers.

Once The Beauty Bullet was in my office, the federal boys passed the container around and examined it closely. The tablets themselves were bullet shaped and they came in a missile shaped bottle. The FDA guy wanted to take pictures. He placed the container on my desk and I sort of thought we might all gather around for a group shot with the Beauty Bullet in front of us, but all he was interested in was the product.

I still couldn't figure out what the big deal was. The principal ingredients were barley and hops. I took a liquid form of it everyday and had for years and it seemed to do me some good.

The purpose of the Beauty Bullet, according to the label, was to release the nutritive properties of nature's own health food deep into dermal cells to produce a fresher, more youthful you. I thought anybody would see that was bullshit but when I tried to be polite and used the term snake oil, the FDA man frowned. Personally, I thought it was okay if people bought something useless like that. To me, it was just like most of the junk in the cosmetics department. People would buy a fragrance and strut around like hens in heat or peacocks with their peckers out but nothing really changed about them, it was just the idea of smelling something else.

Speaking of which, I wondered if I had remembered to use my own cologne which made me wonder if all the stench was gone for sure which made me think about Jackie and her husband-jerk. I became anxious to end the nonsense about Beauty Bullet, but the discussion became a little more interesting when it took a different turn, so to speak.

We'd like to see your freight records, the Interstate Commerce man said.

Sure, I said and placed another phone call for the receiving log to be brought up. But why?

Instead of answering, he asked me another question. I must have been witnessing a fundamental part of federal flatfoot training. Where did you get it?

I picked up the bottle. Says here it's made in...

We know that, FDA interrupted.

How was it shipped to you? ICC inquired. What trucking company?

Kerplopski's, I answered with the name of the store. It's shipped to branch stores from the central warehouse in the store's own trucks. How it gets to our central receiving room, I have no idea.

All four feds were furiously making notes.

Do you know what route your truck takes? ICC asked.

Yeah. The main interstate from Capital City, I answered.

The FBI guy exchanged glances with the Booze, Smoke and Fire detective. I could tell they were in love with their jobs and apparently I had just said something titillating.

They prepared to leave—four Karl Maidens who had lost their hats. First, they made note of the corporate headquarters and warehouse addresses in Capital City. Then they each gave me a business card.

If you are able to think of anything else, please give us a call, said a G-man.

Gee, if I knew what all of this was about, maybe I would think of something, I thought.

What I was really thinking about was Jackie and her husband and wondering what was going on. At least, I figured as the feds filed out of my office, I would soon find out; and Jackie came into the office as soon as the visitors were out the door.

You have a message to call Mr. Kerplopski as soon as possible, Jackie said.

I know it's late but can we go have a cup of coffee? I said, ignoring the message. We really need to talk.

It will have to be quick, she said, because I've got to run downtown and take care of a little business. And right now you've got to call Mr. Kerplopski. Irene made it sound urgent.

Irene was Mr. Kerplopski's secretary and in a lot of ways she was the pulse of the company. I had to call immediately. But his line kept being busy and so did Irene's. So I had to hang on while the store operator tried to get one of the lines at Irene's desk.

I've really got to go, said Jackie. If I don't go ahead and leave, I'll get tied up in rush hour. We'll talk first thing in the morning.

Hardly anything seemed more important than a conversation with Jackie. I had a hard time seeing what could be so important to her that she couldn't stay and talk. Then again, there I was tied up on the telephone.

Finally, I got through to Irene. I started with a light, but to the point, What's up?

A meeting, she said. Mr. Kerplopski wants to meet with the senior executives at nine a.m. Irene was tense.

What's the subject? I asked.

He just said there would be a meeting.

I need to know what to prepare for, I said.

He didn't say anything about that, Irene said.

She was being evasive. I always treated Irene well. She was a secretary and she deserved the respect. Besides, by staying on good terms with her, she would generally keep me informed of some of the little things that I might otherwise miss not being at the corporate office all that often. But on this occasion, she was tough.

What's going on? I persisted.

It's big, Mick, Irene finally said. That's all I can tell you and I shouldn’t have said that much.

Chapter 2

Unanswered questions confounded me the remainder of the day. During the night, they became monsters thrashing around and copulating in my brain. By the time I woke up, they had dropped litters of pipsqueak uncertainties.

Coffee helped some. A shower was better still. But hitting the road early was the best relief.

Capital City was a hundred or so miles north. Ordinarily, I could be there easily in less than a couple of hours but since the meeting was scheduled for nine, I would have to endure their rush hour traffic. I wanted a chance to check with a few people before the meeting to scope the situation in advance. So at six-thirty I pulled off the loop onto the freeway and headed north.

There was a dense early morning fog that was typical for Sunbelt. The city sprawled across a plain in the elbow of State River as it drifted to the Gulf. After a few miles, I emerged from the fog into rolling hills that very gradually extended to the almost mountainous Capital City.

The freeway was the link between the two cities and beyond; pine trees provided continuity along the route. Jesus, there were a lot of pine trees. The only other place with more was between Tallahassee and Jacksonville that had the excuse of more miles to put them in. I saw more pine trees than a hundred Paul Bunyans could have felled in a giant lifetime.

As soon as I was comfortable on the freeway, I tried to grasp an overview of the questions confronting me, the monsters and their bastard offspring. But it was simply too much for my overloaded brain to handle while coping with the distractions of driving.

Then, I tried organizing the questions into categories: (one) Jackie and her jerk husband; (two) the federal snoop troops; and (three) Mr. Kerplopski's meeting. But I failed to concentrate even with the help of a formula. The subjects virtually vanished. But I didn't care because I was caught up in the thrill of a bracing roadster ride.

Problems simply escaped when the top was down. Troubles evaporated in the exhilarating breeze of the little car. Scarlet O'Hara should have had a Morgan.

Even random thoughts failed to stick. And all constructive thought ceased after I passed a pungent road kill. It was one of those enormous dogs that grow in proportion to the cumulative amount of sunlight absorbed. Eventually, it provided a bountiful, well-done feast for a flock of fortunate buzzards.

That made me think about my own breakfast. The nutritious goodness of whole grain cereal had already passed into my upper intestine. I was hungry.

When I reached the halfway oasis of greasy food and gasoline, I pulled through the drive-in of a Burger Doodle and picked up some biscuit burgers. In the time it takes to microwave whatever it is they put in the sausage, I was back on the freeway.

The remainder of the trip was not noteworthy until I reached the suburbs of Capital City. Except for one thing.

Understand that I'm neither naive nor cranky about stuff in everyday life. It's true that I don't drive as fast as I used to, but then, I don't walk as fast either. And occasionally I push it over the legal mark. There are reasons for driving fast sometimes. I also realize that truck drivers are out there trying to scratch a living around a bunch of government regulations that means cutting corners now and then.

But I have to complain about this incident. There I was minding my own business, tooling along at the top of the speed limit in the slow lane, when there was a roar, audible only a moment before this huge wall zoomed past leaving me rocking and reeling in its wind. If I hadn't seen the thing, I would have thought I might have skirted a tornado. Then, just as I was recovering, it happened again with an identical truck.

The second time I was barely able to recognize the logo of the truck line. The company was a growing presence around Sunbelt. It belonged to Joe Palmer, Jackie's husband. That made it a double piss-off. The jerk was pushing his drivers to run wide open.

Rounding a bend, there was more evidence. Some poor man was slogging around in the median, mad as hell and inspecting his car that was mired in mud. Far ahead were the two speeding rigs. I can imagine what happened. It's too bad I didn't have time to stop.

Approaching the city, I was forced to stop and start and stop and start and stop as traffic thickened and halted and crept in a ritual link of businesses and bedrooms. The reality of that connection was most interesting.

Women look good at that time of day, fresh, fucked and ready for the office. Maybe ready to fuck again.

You can see the preparations up and down the freeway every morning. Endless primping in the rear view mirror; some carry larger mirrors to prop in their laps or even set on the dashboard. Lipstick, brushes, eye shadow/liner. Buttons and straps; pushes and tugs.

Many are stark awake with eyes like headlights; others operate at half-doze. Some hang in there with the help of steaming coffee.

And unless they're just plain-can't-help-it ugly, they're all good looking. Half an hour or less ago they were just stepping out of the shower, a good, basic beginning. Having washed away their husbands and boyfriends, they stand in front of the mirror and look at their body—not their face because that is done separately and they're not ready for that yet and they especially look at their breasts, partly because they're interested in them and partly because they're looking at themselves as they know other people will be looking at them and they try to imagine the impression their bust will make. True, it's likely to be packaged in a blouse or a sweater but they know the goods will be examined one way or another. Then they cup their breasts in their own hands and fondle themselves. I'm not sure what they're thinking when they do that but not being allowed to reach out at will and do it for them at just any time during the day, I think it's interesting to think about them doing it earlier that morning before they go on display.

Soon after, they're wrinkle free and cute behind the wheel of their predictable little cars headed to work. That's the time I'm talking about.

It's one of the times they're most apt to flirt. They're sitting there looking as good as they're going to look in clothes and they have nothing but time as they creep and stop and creep. They feel safe because of all the people around, well insulated short distances apart which at the same time provides a kind of rolling intimacy that can transfer further down the freeway and sometimes be caught up with again.

It's even better in the Morgan. The glances are longer, the stares more penetrating and the smiles more seductive.

It was an oddly composed fog of lust and uncertainty that enveloped me as I neared the downtown business district. But after I exited the freeway, I actually began to focus on something productive.

It had always been that way. I never studied before I went to college because I absorbed everything in class and that was all it took to be impressive in those days.

Even later, by keeping up with things daily, I was able to produce programs and memos and such with little preparation. It helps that I read fast.

Frequently, by staying current on trends and ideas, I don't even have to read at all. One time, Mr. Kerplopski wanted all of the executives in the company to read The One Minute Manager. That boring stuff is just not my style, so I retained the spirit of the concept and read it in one minute. Actually, I glance at the table of contents but that's all I needed. I was already practicing all the good ideas in the book. Most good managers do and I'm a good manager even if I give the finger to the fluffy nonsense that goes on in business. And I'm never ill prepared for a meeting. I just don't have to worry much about it. The proof is in the results and I get results.

By the time I pulled into the parking deck, I had already quickly mentally reviewed various sales trends and specific figures. More importantly, I reviewed my current agenda. I have always found it helpful to maintain a list of objectives ranked by priority. Keeping that list in the back of my mind, I’ve been able to pursue opportunities as they arose, frequently at unexpected moments.

When I entered the Kerplopski building, I was instantly at work. The people who worked every day in the corporate offices took their contacts for granted. But I was rarely there more often than monthly; I had to mine every chance for communication with the people who could help my store's business. It was like being a politician. I calculated everything, including coffee conversation.

The first thing I did was to check a few offices. Empty. I knew where to go. The merchandise managers maintained a conference room of their own which was usually used for buyers' meetings or vendor presentations. That's where I found everyone I was looking for plus some.

Almost all vice presidents were there except for a couple that were conspicuously missing—the VPs for finance and merchandise data systems. Their absences caused a stir.

The atmosphere was tense. Everyone had the same questions: What's going on? Where's so-and-so? Speculation supplied the only answers. And the speculation was grim.

The consensus held that Mr. Kerplopski was planning to sell the store. Hearing the other guys say that shook my heart one good time but not my confidence. I remained calm and reasonable.

There did not seem to be much basis for the fear, although there had been speculation periodically for the past four years. But it was mostly during the first of those years that people were worked up about it.

Mr. Kerplopski had had two sons. One, Harlan, appeared to be very bright and business minded. He had already taken a leadership position in certain aspects of the company and promised to become an effective president/owner someday. Unfortunately, Harlan was flattened by a drunk driver one Saturday afternoon right in front of a competitor's store where he had gone to check out a big sale they were having.

That left Mr. Kerplopski's other son, Stephen. As fate would have it, Stephen didn't care for the family business. He was an architect who lived in another state, built unusual buildings and traveled in Asia.

At the time of Harlan's death, there was considerable concern that Mr. Kerplopski would sell the store since there was no one in the family to run it. But Mr. Kerplopski was still young by executive standards and enjoyed running the store himself. That had not changed and there had not lately been much concern about him selling.

To a few others, it seemed more probable that he planned to take the company public with a stock issue. Going that route would stoke the engine of Kerplopski's expansion with enough cash to develop budding markets. Some argued against the idea, citing the change in character that companies sometimes undergo in the process, but for an owner with foresight and fortitude, going public offered advantages.

But then, I wasn't the owner and it was ownership that counted. As it turned out, none of us were prepared for what was about to be announced. The room became quiet when Mr. Kerplopski entered followed by the finance VP and a couple of other people. The rest of us were seated around one of those huge corporate boardroom tables that stretched from barely-getting-there to arrived-in-a-big-way. In odd moments during meetings, I would inevitably fantasize that Mr. Kerplopski, resplendent in a suit of polished steel and chain mail, galloped down the table on a bristling stallion, withdrew a mighty sword, and tapped me to be Senior Executive Vice President, General Merchandise Manager, and Prince of the Company inasmuch as Stephen was off somewhere on the other side of the world studying pagodas.

On this occasion, Mr. Kerplopski banished all fantasy. Instead, he sparked nightmares of the most dreaded sort, horrors of the real world that bring tangible results, even death. I'm sorry that my son, Stephen, could not be here, Mr. Kerplopski began. He's somewhere. I can't even pronounce the name of the place.

Mr. Kerplopski's strength was drained. He had always been robust and energetic.

It's too bad he's not here even though he has not ever been part of the management of the company because what I have to say is important to my family as well as my store family.

Shit, I thought. He is selling the store. I have been told by doctors, he said, that I have an incurable cancer.

The mood in the room plunged from mere seriousness to something else. Gloom doesn't quite communicate. And it’s hard to describe how I felt personally. Racing through my repertoire of emotions, I failed to find a fit.

First, there was shock and horror followed immediately by concern for Mr. Kerplopski. Here was not just another human being revealing that he was dying, but someone I respected enormously and even loved and he was saying he would soon be gone forever. I wanted to take away the hurt, restore his health and return his vitality. A great sadness settled into my psyche like the fog I had left earlier that morning except much, much denser.

All of those feelings came within an instant. It was like some sort of cosmic chain reaction I had read about where astronomers described an event in graphic step-by-step detail involving seven major levels of change each with three observable sets of consequences, then they wind up mentioning that everything they have just delineated took place within one three-quarters of a hundredth of a millisecond. I'm sure everyone felt the same way.

Thinking about a cosmic event made me think of explosions and thinking of explosions made me think of destruction that made me think of losing my job. The consideration turned selfish. It was not that I feared being destitute because I had plenty enough to get me by even a long period of trying to find the right place to go. That was the problem, finding a place that was right. Kerplopski's was perfect as far as I was concerned. I had a set-up that suited me just fine. I was very productive and a real asset to the company and the company was comfortable for me. I was afraid that I would be unable to locate that perfect fit again.

Reassurance came easily. I would be very attractive to other stores. My experience and accomplishments were impressive and I was at the perfect age to make a change. Even if the store was not being sold, I told myself, I could probably improve my income level and graduate to even more responsibility by making a well-calculated job change. I might even be able to position myself for a CEO slot in the future.

Some of the other guys were not so lucky. A couple of them had virtually grown up at Kerplopski's; employers want their key people to have a range of experience that means multiple employment. Others were in less flexible financial condition and could not last the period of time necessary to find a position.

The most unfortunate of all were the men who were past the prime age of mobility or even general acceptance but who had much to contribute and who were far from ready to retire. They would suffer most of all. They would be rejected. They would quickly begin to feel useless and undesirable. Meanwhile, striking before they were prepared for retirement, they would face drastically reduced circumstances and possible disaster.

Some names flashed through my mind. I glanced around the room. It was sinking in before the words were uttered. Mr. Kerplopski said he was dying of cancer and scores of lives were about to change for the worse. Mr. Kerplopski would be dead and the others would limp on like wounded animals. I didn't blame him for doing what he was going to do; after all, he was the one facing actual death. But the others would be afflicted with a painful life.

Abraham Lincoln's famous death mask came to mind. As it slowly rose from his face, it acquired a sinister animation that haunted the vanquished, broken, suffering foe—fellow Americans they were, too—as they trudged south from the last battlefield. Then the mask turned sad and sadder and sadder until it ceased any movement except for a tear that slowly descended as the mask melded into Mr. Kerplopski's face. And I looked at him again and wiped my own tear.

Having said the minimum that communicated the maximum, Mr. Kerplopski focused on his responsibility to the living. He would deal with it in the only way he knew how.

As everyone knows, he began, I have no heirs who are interested in running the store.

This would be his last chance to ride down the table and anoint me, I thought. The idea seems never to have occurred to him.

For that reason, Mr. Kerplopski continued, I had to determine what to do that would be in the best interest of everyone. And I have decided to sell the company to Caruthers.

Everyone was again stunned. What kind of name is Caruthers? I thought.

As you are aware, Mr. Kerplopski said, Caruthers is also a family owned department store group very similar to our own. Since all of their units are located in Neighboring State, there will be no market conflict. And the similarity in size, volume and general merchandising philosophy will make the transition to new ownership relatively easy.

As Mr. Kerplopski spoke, I was trying hard to think but could not. I suspect everyone else was the same way. It was like a roomful of guys were on toilets and nothing was happening.

There are still some things which need to be decided, Mr. Kerplopski said. But the general package has been agreed upon, pending a final inventory. And an agreement has been signed by both of us. That is, Tom Caruthers and myself. I'll get to more on that in a minute.

Minute...minute, I thought. After something else takes a minute to say, no telling what will be changed. But he went straight into what was then foremost on everyone's mind.

"First, let me say something about employment opportunities at Caruthers as relates to Kerplopski associates. And I use the word 'opportunities' because with a larger store, Caruthers will be better positioned for greater growth and expansion that translates into more jobs. There are obviously other advantages such as greater vendor leverage but the thing I want to emphasize now is that Caruthers needs you. Do not look upon yourselves as being flung out the door. Obviously, there will have to be some adjustments. They will not need two sets of buying staffs, for example. So some people in both organizations will be making changes without losing their jobs. Take that example of buyers. They will keep some of their buyers and place others in different positions while replacing them with our buyers and some of ours will take different positions in their company. Bear in mind, that with the increased size of the company, there will be need for merchants of proven ability such as we have at Kerplopski's. It's just that the positions they hold may be different.

"Caruthers has pledged to offer every single Kerplopski associate a job in their company. That is important to me and I would not have made the agreement without that understanding. Cutting the best deal for all Kerplopski associates was one of my prime considerations.

"It would be less than responsible not to recognize that some of you who are in greater positions of responsibility might choose to decline their offers. I think that on the whole you will find the positions to be attractive and I urge all of you to give careful consideration to them.

"But let's face it. Most of