The Honest One: A Novel/Business Book on the Dark Side of Work

Copyright: Frances Horibe 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights herein may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical—without the prior written permission of the author.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Horibe, Frances Dale

The Honest One: A Novel/Business Book on the Dark Side of Work

ISBN 978-0-9949290-3-7

1. Personnel management 2. Careers 3. Corporate culture I. Title

Cover design: Deanna Fenwick

Contents

The Dark Side of Work: Introduction

What Undercurrents?

The Set-Up of the Book

01 David

A TGIF

Protech needs new ideas

Nick’s idea

David develops Nick’s idea

02 David

David picks up Mandy

Mandy helps David with the idea

03 David

Is technology taking over the world?

Parents

04 Gord

Gord in his study

Gord and the Soviet Union

05 Becky

Becky’s job offer

Becky’s discontent

06 David

David pitches idea to Bryan

David pitches idea to Zoe

Nick complained to Bryan

Nick confronts David

07 David

The Executive Committee pitch

A rival pitch

08 Becky

Becky ponders the job offer

Becky asks her sister’s advice

Becky trying to get a promotion

The real reason Becky should take the job

09 Gord

Gord puts his foot in it

Gord tries to make amends

10 David

David meets the other project leader

The rival project

The rival product’s pitch to the Executive Committee

11 David

Naming the product

Kartin power play

Kartin takes over

12 David

David keeps Dynagroup

David and Mandy talk strategy

Zoe leaves

Bryan blows Raj off

Bryan calls in a marker

13 Gord

Gord asks for a three-month leave

Gord’s boss reprimands him

Becky

Becky’s retirement party

Becky’s speech

14 Becky

Becky leaves Gord

15 David

David finds out about the separation

Did Becky ever love Gord?

16 David

Surprise trip to Vegas

Becky urges David to go for Bryan’s job

17 David

David asks for a promotion

Kartin double-crosses David

Bryan is fired

Promotion fallout

18 Becky

The difficult middle

Gord wants her back

Gord and Becky college days

19 Gord

Gord punches a co-worker

A reprimand for Gord

20 David

David and Raj make a deal

The problems with the interruption feature

David solves the interruption feature problem

21 David

Sonja joins the team

22 Becky

Petra helps Becky

Becky’s fashion show

23 David

Little niggles

Status in groups

Are Nick and Raj plotting?

David asks Sonja’s advice

24 David

The deadline gets moved up

David drives everyone

David demos the prototype to Kartin

25 Becky

Becky’s cash flow problems

David comes to dinner

Becky tells Petra the problems

26 David

Setting up the field tests

Mrs. Kartin’s board meeting

DynaGroup analysis is wrong

David and Sonja invited to a conference

Mandy brings dinner

27 David

David and Sonja present at the conference

28 David

The large group test fails

David thinks he knows the answer

29 Gord

Gord will be fired

Gord and David fight about work

David confronts Gord

Gord reveals Becky’s secret

30 David

David and Mandy fight

The summer David was ten

31 David

David’s groupthink

Sonja quits the project

David alters Sonja’s reports

David gets the new money

Debugging DynaGroup

32 Becky

Petra helps Becky with the business side

Petra becomes a partner

David confronts Becky about the abortion

33 David

Mandy goes on vacation

Sonja demands he tell the truth

David plots against Sonja

Auger’s reaction

34 Becky

Gord is fired

Becky cannot help

35 Gord

Gord asks Becky to attend a funeral

Gord asks Becky to come back

It comes crashing in

36 David

Nick gets his revenge

DynaGroup and the Executive Committee

Fix it, David.

An honest man

37 David

Gord, the honest one?

WORKING

Ambitious, But Not Too Ambitious

But I’m not ambitious

How to act ambitious but not too ambitious

Office Politics Can Hurt You

Even if David had known, would it have made any difference?

Can you do anything to prevent being a casualty?

Easy to say, but what would that mean in practice?

Do You Have to Play the Game?

Do I lay low or play the game?

The perils of laying low

The risks of action and inaction

My Boss Keeps Changing His Mind!

How to deal with an indecisive boss

How do you manage an indecisive boss?

What if that doesn’t work?

Going Over the Boss’ Head

Should you go over your boss’ head?

When should you go over your boss’ head?

Being Too Closely Allied With One Side

Being the go-to guy

Zoe gets fired

Do you ally yourself with the boss?

Should you try to become the go-to guy/gal?

One Big Happy Family

Why Didn’t Raj Speak Up?

The reasons why Raj kept silent

Should he have said something?

Relationships and Work-life Balance

What is work-life balance anyway?

It’s not in the employer’s interest

Do you even want work-life balance?

Affairs at Work

Both of you are unattached and at the same working level

One or both of you is attached and at the same working level

Affair with senior person

Stalin

Groupthink

How to minimize the chances of groupthink

BEING TRUE TO YOURSELF AT WORK

Did David Really Steal the Idea?

David stole the idea

Does the company care?

What could/should David have done?

Being Liked Versus Being Right

How to put your view forward

Achievement Dissatisfaction

Why does she do it?

How do I avoid achievement dissatisfaction?

Passion and integrity

Not Backing Down

A cautionary tale

Was she right?

Calling all Gords

Position power always wins

What can you do if you are fighting for the right?

Is David Paranoid or Realistic?

Why is he so paranoid?

Is he paranoid?

He shouldn’t have done them in

Can he do anything to prevent the payback?

Counterfeit

The Toll

David is learning the toll early

Was he fooling himself?

Getting Out

Who is The Honest One?

Gord?

David?

Becky?

Who is the honest one?

I find it hard to decide

FOLLOWING YOUR PASSION

What Can Becky and Gord Tell Me about My Career?

Dreams Deferred

Deferred dreams are a good thing

Deferred dreams are a bad thing

Do you have a deferred dream?

It’s Not About Logic

Are you a risk taker?

Going for Broke

Stupid and smart risk

Becky and Gord’s risks

Risk and consequences

The intangibles

How do you know if you are taking a stupid risk?

Obsession

Perspective and obsession

Should you be obsessive?

Financing Your Passion

Inconvenient passions

It’s all about risk

Not stupid risk

If not now, when?

Well-Meaning Critics

It will too work!

Maybe you’re right.

Dealing with well-meaning critics

The Difficult Middle

Perseverance

Smart perseverance

Knowing when to throw in the towel

MANAGEMENT

Driving People Hard

Picking up the latest fad

Managing Difficult Meetings

Allowing sniping

Not driving to a decision

Allowing off-agenda items

Weak interventions

Things to remember

Fake Consulting

Maybe I shouldn’t consult them then

Does that mean I have to do what they want?

An Open Door Policy

How to have an open door policy

Why Doesn’t Lucas Just Fire Gord?

Why try to keep Gord?

How to try to socialize difficult but valuable employees

Lucas as Bad Guy

Expect it

Don’t shy away from the tough decisions

How to handle George

Keep people’s dignity

Can He Change?

Three questions

The Dark Side of Work: Introduction

Have you ever been blind-sided? That is, something happens at work, often to your detriment, which you didn’t see coming. Might be that you expected the promotion which went to another guy, much less able than you. Or you tell it like it is and find yourself on the outs with the rest of the team. Or worse, going along with a group decision even though you know it’s wrong.

These are examples of what I call the dark side—those unseen, usually unspoken, and often unconscious undercurrents at work which are much more powerful than people usually recognize. They influence the shape of events and of your career much more than you’d expect. Unless you’re aware of them, you can be towed under by them.

What Undercurrents?

There can be many, but the ones I cover in my blog, the Dark Side of Work are:

•Power and Ambition : This is a huge undercurrent. Most people are looking to increase their power all the while denying the pursuit (which is what makes it an undercurrent) because power is currency in organizations. Without it, you’re at the whim of the people who have it and with it, you have greater degrees of freedom to control your work life and that of others.

•The Need to Lie : We all lie but organizations actually require it of its employees, either by omission or commission. Not informing a customer that the product has some serious flaws, telling your staff that the new strategy will work when you actually have grave doubts, omitting the one fact in the report which would tank the project. The pressure to do this can be overwhelming.

•The Need for Harmony : We all prefer to work in a pleasant environment with people we like. However, the need for harmony in a group may be so strong that people will avoid raising an important but contentious issue for fear of generating conflict. Thus, unfair or damaging approaches might continue because everyone’s afraid to speak up.

•Groupthink : This is a particularly pernicious undercurrent because most people are completely unaware they’re falling under its influence. For example, if someone is particularly adamant in a group about a certain path, rather than argue with him, others may start to feel they must be wrong and support his choice even if it wasn’t theirs to begin with. This is one example of the ways that groups can distort their perceptions without even knowing it.

•Being Oneself : In some ways, it all comes down to this. If you continue to put up, shut up, and go along, year after year, eventually I think it can take a toll on your ability to be yourself—with your values intact—at work. You start to become who the company wants you to become rather than your true self.

Being aware of the undercurrents at your workplace can help you do two things. First, it will provide a guide on the right steps to take to further your career or at least prevent you from slipping back. Second and more importantly, it will up the chances that you can finish work, whether a work day or work life, with a sense of staying true to yourself in situations which pressure you to be otherwise.

The Set-Up of the Book

The format of the book is a bit different from most. It is a novel which illustrates how the dark side of work can play out in people’s lives. In the course of the chapter, there’s an essay expands on one aspect of the dark side and either discusses the phenomenon or suggests how to combat or even leverage it.

You can either read the essay attached to each chapter right away so that you can think about things as you go, or you can read the whole novel and then pick up the essays that are of particular interest (a list appears at the end of the novel).

Since my blog http://www.darksideofwork.com covers the topics noted above, the essays for this book explore slightly different (but sometimes overlapping) themes:

•Working: how to manage the dark side of work

•Being true to yourself at work: staying who you are or being what the company wants you to be.

•Following your passion: Do you have to ignore a true passion to make a living?

•Management: tricks of the trade to be a better people manager

As you will see, the dark side of work can have much more influence on your career than you might have thought. This combination of novel and essays will help you work through the convoluted paths which might figure in your own career.

01 David

A TGIF

Nick is on his fifth beer. Or possibly sixth. David has lost count. He’s pretty sure he’s only had three. Nick is at least a couple ahead of him.

Justin stands and brushes off some non-existent crumbs. Well, guys, gotta go.

Nick makes a grab for Justin’s arm and misses. Ah, come on, the night’s young. And begins a protracted monologue on why Justin should stay when he so clearly wants to leave.

David smiles at Nick’s half-comic, half-witty protestations.

Nick seems so young. Although he’s only 23 to David’s 30. But 30. Something serious about 30. Time to be your own man. But Nick is 23 in everything he does. The mocking Hi, boss! he uses every morning, the way he slouches across from David at the end of the day to shoot the shit. The TGIF religiously observed, to be remarked upon on Monday for its excess.

David cultivates the opposite so when Nick asks about his weekend, he shrugs. Same old, same old. Mandy and I went to a BBQ on Saturday and then we did some gardening on Sunday. Well, she did the gardening—I was the heavy labor.

You guys—like an old married couple. Nick gives an elaborate shudder. Not for me.

But the BBQ with other couples, the well-kept garden, it is all of a piece. He likes the feeling. It’s the right time in his life for it. As it’s the right time for him at work.

David smiles. Twenty-three.

Justin finally manages to get far enough from the table to wave. See ya Monday.

Nick shrugs and turns back to David with beer-fueled energy. Davy, how come you’re gracing us with your presence? He encompasses the whole bar with the sweep of his hand.

David repeats, possibly for the third time, about Mandy and sick mother and empty apartment. He also vaguely recognizes Nick shouldn’t be left on his own. Did you drive in this morning?

Of course. I like Bryan, don’t you? Good guy. For a manager anyhow. Although, he eyes David as if seeing him for the first time, You’re okay as a supervisor, too. Not bad.

Thanks. Maybe I should pour you into a cab.

In fact, you’re quite the golden boy, aren’t you?

David dismisses that with a wave. Just doing my job.

Nick waves a finger at him. No, no. You’re the go-to guy. You’re Bryan’s guy.

We’re all Bryan’s guys. He stands. Come on, Nick, let me get you a cab.

Cab! I don’t need a cab. He peers into the semi-darkness. But I could use another. Where’s the damn waiter?

I have a better idea. Mandy left a roast beef. Let’s go back to my place and make some sandwiches.

You hungry? Well, let’s get that waiter to bring us a menu with the next round.

Nah, David pulls Nick to his feet. Mandy’ll kill me if I don’t eat most of it. Anyway, I’ve got a couple of beers at home, too.

The beer promise seems to render the offer acceptable and Nick doesn’t protest when David hails a cab. He falls asleep in it almost immediately.

David shakes his head and smiles. Nick has got a lot to learn. One of them certainly is that a TGIF is not a frat boy kegger. But other things. Like the staff meeting with Bryan this afternoon.

Protech needs new ideas

They had all gotten the e-mail from the President.

Economic conditions make this a challenging market place. Although security continues to be a priority, the effectiveness of our security systems in the nation as a whole has, I believe, made companies somewhat complacent. In the medium to longer term, the security installations Protech specializes in will decline in priority in IT budgets. A major security incident with the world-wide impact of 9/11 would reverse that trend but it is not, of course, something we should include as a planning assumption.

Therefore, Protech needs a new vision of itself—a vision that will sustain us well in the 21st century. This vision is:

Better, faster, smarter—Protech leads.

To implement this new vision, I invite all employees to suggest new businesses. Ideas should be discussed with your supervisor and appropriate ones will be forwarded to me. By the end of the quarter, I would like to have several new ideas to further this new vision. As always, I count on your support of Protech.

Followed by another from Bryan, marked urgent. Meeting in conference room in 10. Bring your thinking caps.

As they walked to the meeting, Nick asked, So what’s this about, boss?

David was still a new enough supervisor to register the title with what might be pleasure. He shrugged elaborately. I’ve noticed it, too. Fewer orders and the ones we get are for patches and upgrades rather than new systems.

It took considerably more than 10 minutes for people to wander in and just as they were about to start, Bryan left the room, his ear glued to his Blackberry.

Nick tapped his pen on the table. Tap, tap, tap. And then a staccato. Tap-tap-tap-tap. And then a slow movement. Tap…tap…tap. Back to the main theme. Tap, tap, tap.

Hey, could you quit that? David asked.

The pen suspended in mid-air. What?

Your pen.

Nick gave a kind of college prank grin. Sorry, didn’t know I was doing it.

David remembered his first corporate meeting. He had been terrified lest the Boss—it took him three months to stop capitalizing the word in his mind—call on him and he’d look stupid in front of all the others, loose-limbed and loose-mouthed in their experience and savvy. It’s okay. Just listen and get the lay of the land.

Bryan came back into the room. Shall we get started?

He wasn’t a bad guy. Old, of course. David thought at least in his forties although some speculation pegged it higher but David rejected that as too fantastical. But he was dazzled by his own voice. Not so much one-on-one. But give him a crowd of any size and his mouth took to the open road. David dipped in and out of the monologue. Innovation is the lifeblood of any company… Hard economic times… President’s call for new ideas…

It took a moment for David to realize Bryan had stopped. The rest of the group must have been zoning out too as there was silence. Bryan said, This is your chance, guys. What bright ideas can I pass along to the President?

Silence again. Bryan’s voice went a little higher. Come on, guys, let’s brainstorm a couple of good ones.

Justin, never one to let a silence go unfilled, Well, finally the top guys realize it’s us who make the company. It’s about time they asked our opinions.

Sure. So lay one on me.

Naturally and of course, Justin was better at talking than thinking. David didn’t bother listening. It would be a brainless idea, or if Justin was having a good day, a rehash that had been old in the 90s. The only entertainment was watching Bryan trying to avoid the idea without actually using ‘stupid’ or ‘retread.’

Well, Justin, Bryan was drawing it out, Thanks for getting us started. It’s an interesting idea for sure, but I wonder if I didn’t see something very similar…

No need to listen. David glanced over to Nick who had already slouched slightly in his chair, already with the loose-limbed look of I’m-too-cool-to-care, already small almost imperceptible shakes of his head in reaction to Justin’s pitch. David was somehow slightly offended. It took him six months to feel one of the gang and Nick assuming that mantle at the first meeting. Bryan turned off Justin and was now in the process of dissecting another idea from Sandra. Her only virtue was that she used apology rather than bravado to present the idea. But as shopworn as Justin’s. What could he suggest? Despite his disclaimer to Nick, he knew Bryan would be counting on him to come up with something. He scoured the corners of his mind. Maybe, maybe. You know, Bryan, our customers are always complaining about the Help function. Why don’t we fix that?

Bryan sat up a little straighter. Like what?

David shrugged as he tried to pull from deep down somewhere. With most Help functions, and not just ours, you have to be a mind reader. Unless you know the exact term the programmer used for a function, you can’t find it, much less get help on it.

Yeah, but who’s got time to think of all the stupid ways a customer could misname a function? demanded Justin. One of the prime culprits, if rumor was correct.

Nick sat up and addressed Bryan directly. But if we did a lexicon of word equivalents—generically, if you know what I mean—it could be applied against any Help function.

Like what, Nick? Bryan asked.

David had an obscure feeling Bryan should have been asking him, but Nick replied. I dunno. Some simple ones I can think of—the Office Suite—Word, Access—stuff like that.

David jumped in. If we do a lexicon of word equivalents, we could even package it as a product for other companies assembling Help functions.

David was relieved to see Bryan’s eyes shift to him. But you’d need a capacity for specialized word equivalents, for the vocab specific to that application.

Nick slouched back in his chair. Nah, not gonna work. You gotta think Google’s already done that. And all kinds of vocab too.

The focus shifted back to Nick. Ah, shit, you’re right, Bryan said.

Okay, David licked his lips, What about a smaller product that specializes in security vocabulary."

Bryan shook his head. The President is looking for innovation not just improvement. And then the final insult. But good try.

Bryan looked at his watch. Gotta go. I want to meet once a week until we come up with something good. To the collective groan, he said, It’s serious, guys. The company is hurting and this is our chance. Just as he was leaving, he turned. And Nick—glad to see you’re jumping in. Keep it up.

David looks at Nick, snoring slightly, wedged into the corner of the cab. You see, another thing where Nick is too young. David started working about the same age as Nick. With the same early morning freshness and absorptive mind. Taking in and taking on everything. He hadn’t thought it a bad thing when his supervisor said, Wow, slow down there, David. Need to learn the ropes before you climb them.

He didn’t think it was a bad thing to be thought ambitious. But there was a nuancing that took a while to catch on to. Ambitious was all right, but too ambitious was bad. So when his supervisor joked—with a penetrating stare accompanying it—when he joked, You must be after my job, David knew by then to reply, Are you kidding? All that hassle and responsibility? You can keep it, thanks. And was rewarded by the slightest relaxing of spine and It’s not that bad. As I’m sure you’ll find out one day.

Nick needed to learn to rein in his need for attention.

Ambitious, but not too ambitious

Nick’s idea

David pays the cab and gets Nick into his apartment. Nick is on the couch but as David is slicing the beef, he can see him slowly slipping into a sprawl. All to the good. But Nick suddenly shakes himself and calls out, Hey, I thought you said beer.

David brings the beer and sandwiches into the living room. Nick ignores the plate.

He takes a good swig. You know the problem with the company?

What?

No guts. No guts.

Guts? Have a sandwich. You need something to soak up all that beer.

Nick makes a double feint toward the plate before he latches onto one. Yeah, guts. It’s all safe stuff.

It’s what clients will pay for.

No, no, Nick waves the sandwich earnestly, the top slice slipping out of alignment, That’s why Protech is in trouble. The big money is the killer app—the one you didn’t know you needed until you use it. Then clients can’t live without it.

But that takes big money. All that R&D.

Nah, it’s about guts, Nick empties his can and eyes it. Got any more?

David is aware of the six-pack in the fridge. Instead, he says, So if Protech had more guts, what would we do?

Nick looks again significantly at the can but some vestige of his mother’s teaching seems to stay him. He shrugs. Cool stuff.

Oh, yeah? Like what? Go on, lay a cool one on me. For a moment, David is afraid his phrasing might turn Nick back to beer but he says, All right, I will. He pauses and his lids begin to waiver, so David is hopeful. But again, he rallies.

I was reading some stuff the other day. Do you know there’s a professor somewhere who can tell within five minutes whether a married couple will stay together just by listening to them talk to each other?

So what? All that touchy feely stuff—you can’t do anything with it.

It got me thinking. What if you could do that for work groups? What if you could tell within five minutes whether a group’s working well together? A lot of companies would pay big money to know that.

Maybe but so what? Can’t turn that stuff into a good app.

Nick sits up. The whole HR thing could be the next big area for technology. Not just doing the stupid stuff faster but the people stuff.

But that’s AI. Nobody’s gonna pay for that kind of research.

Nick actually puts down his beer and it is as if the talk has cleared his system. Not necessarily. Say we miked up everybody in our group when we had a meeting. So we’d have a separate recording for everybody.

He pauses. And then a torrent. A program to track how often one person talked and how long. To spit out stats to identify the loudmouths and the dormice. Count how often a person got cut off.

So what? David says. We all know this stuff all ready. Justin never stops talking and Han never says anything. What’s the point?

Nick is getting excited. Yeah, but can you tell Justin to shut up?

Are you kidding? It would be ugly.

Nick leans forward. Exactly. But what if you had a statistical count you could lay on everyone? Don’t have to say anything—just let the stats speak for themselves. Justin’s a loud mouth but he’s not a dummy. If meeting after meeting he’s shown taking up all the air time, he’d get the picture.

He’d probably put it down to how valuable his ideas are.

Nick shrugs. So, we put in normative data. What percentage each person should take up for the group to function well.

David stands. An interesting idea but you’re right, I can’t see Bryan going for it. Too expensive, too chancy. He picks up the sandwich plate. You better crash on the couch. I’ll get you a pillow.

Ah, I’m good for another couple of rounds. Are you pooping out on me already? Nick inclines his head towards the fridge.

Nope, I think you’re done. You’re gonna have the worst head tomorrow.

Nick doesn’t put up much of a fight. The adrenaline seems to have worn off and he can barely drag the blanket over himself. He is out before David can switch off the lights.

David also feels as if he is towing himself to bed. He vaguely registers missing Mandy before he is out.

David develops Nick’s idea

Suddenly, he is awake. No gradual transition, no grogginess. He looks at the clock. 3:04. He knows how to do it. He jumps out of bed and switches on his laptop. He starts to program. Have to identify the boss of the meeting. You’d expect him to talk more. Also, you could track how long items took to resolve. That would be easy. If the boss had an electronic version of the agenda, he could just check when an item was finished and that would give the end time of the item and the beginning of the next. So, you’d get how efficient the group was as well as how well they got along.

The more he works on it, the more excited he gets. The infrastructure might be pretty simple. Most of it is based on simple counts. The interpretation would of course be automated.

David is just about to start a costing when he hears a loud retching from the living room. Shit! He closes the laptop lid.

He races into the living room in time to see Nick rolling off the couch, face down in what he has already produced. Shit, man! Mandy’s gonna kill me.

He runs into the kitchen for rags and sees the six-pack ring lying on the floor. He looks back. There are three cans beside Nick and who knows where the others are. Shit! Shit! Shit! He grabs a roll of paper towels.

He knows something is wrong even before he touches him. He pulls Nick up by the arm. What the fuck? Nick is just hanging. What the fuck? Oh, my god. He’s not breathing!

David bangs him on the back. Nick! Nick! Wake up. He tries to calm himself. What’s happening? Nick! Nick!

He looks down wildly at the thick puddle of ex-roast beef sandwiches. Then he forces open Nick’s mouth. It is filled