6. Calling the New Guy

6

Calling the New Guy

NICOLE LAMB

Nicole and the techs gathered in the lab conference room.

She shook her phone, a gesture she hoped everyone would understand as a reference to the mass email they’d all received from Last Chance, Inc. that morning. “The heck! The actual heck!”

Much grumbling from Arvind and the other techs around the table told her that she was not the only one riled up by this email missive from their new corporate overlords.

She shook her phone again. “Did they think this would placate us?”

Her phone in her hand pinged, and she caught a quick glance at an email from Kingston Moore, probably in reply to her what-the-hell email to him.

He’d written, I didn’t think it was that bad. As a matter of fact, I thought it was quite reassuring. Those Last Chance guys said that they weren’t currently planning any layoffs.

Oh, Nicole hoped Kingston wasn’t one of those corporate stooges who believed anything that anyone in authority told them. Surely, he was more independent than that.

Well, no time like the present to suss things out.

She tapped the phone number in Kingston’s sig file at the bottom of his email, and her phone rang once before the call clicked. Kingston’s voice asked, “Nicole?”

“Yeah. I’m in a meeting with the other lab members, and I thought you might want to sit in as a new employee of Sidewinder Golf.”

“Well, that’s very open of you,” he said.

“We are all going to have to work together to have a viable company on the other side of this.”

“I’m glad you put it that way. As a matter of fact?—”

“I’m putting you on speaker so you can participate.” A grinding roar emanated from her phone’s speaker as she tapped the button. “Are you on a plane right now, Kingston? You shouldn’t be talking on a cell phone on an airplane! It interferes with the radar or something, plus it’s rude.”

“Oh, no. I’m not on a plane,” he said.

The roar sounded like he was on a plane, like maybe he was sitting on the wing. “There must be a lot of wind or something.”

“Yeah, it’s wind. I have a layover in Chicago, and they don’t call it the Windy City for nothing. It’s wind. Chicago wind.”

“Did you go outside the airport or something?”

“I wanted to get outside and walk around for a few minutes, so I’m in the airport’s outdoor smoking area for fresh air. Even though I don’t smoke.”

“But it’s not fresh air because you’re standing around with a bunch of smokers, right?”

“I’m upwind. And like I said, it’s windy. And you can probably hear the planes taking off out on the runway. That’s why it’s so noisy. Wind. And airplanes. In Chicago.”

“Okay, it’s your health, I guess. Anyway, we were just talking about the email that Last Chance sent this morning. What a bunch of bull hockey.”

Airplane-engine roar filled his long pause. “Tell me why you view it like that.”

Nicole sure as heck told him, and she added in the comments that her techs yelled out while she was talking.

Last Chance obviously had no idea what it’s like to be a working person in today’s marketplace in California, where there were way more high-tech job openings than qualified people.

Companies were expanding and needed experienced admins, HR, accounting, etc., too. Anybody at Sidewinder Golf who wanted another job could network, go through the HR process, and start their new job by Monday, probably with a signing bonus.

Those Last Chance venture capitalists must’ve thought they were being cute by trying to reassure Sidewinder’s employees that there would be no layoffs “this month,” but again, people have car payments and mortgages. People aren’t going to stick around for “maybe layoffs next month.”

Being coy about people’s jobs and livelihoods was not reassuring.

“I didn’t think it sounded coy,” Kingston said on the speaker. “To me, it sounded like Last Chance was trying to be genuine and honest. Transparent, even. But also not promising something they couldn’t deliver.”

“They’re venture capitalists,” Nicole told him. “They’re never honest or genuine about anything.”

“Do you think it’s fair to pre-judge people like that?”

“Venture capitalists never have the company’s best interests at the top of their agenda. Their whole agenda is to make money and nothing but make money. For everyone else involved, a venture capitalist buying your company is a tragedy.”

Kingston didn’t speak for a few beats after that, and then he asked, “Are you going to tell our people that they should quit and go to other companies?”

“As a high-level manager, it’s my duty to tell people the truth. If somebody has an opportunity with a different company that isn’t owned by a venture capital firm, I would tell them to seriously consider the offer.”

“That’s—very honest of you.”

“What else could I say? These are my friends.” She gestured to the eight people sitting around the break room table, even though Kingston couldn’t see her. “This new venture capital company hasn’t done anything to earn my loyalty, and Joe Flanagan lost our loyalty to him because he sold the firm without even notifying us until after the deal was done. This is so shady.”

“You’re right,” Kingston’s voice said. “That’s an interesting way of looking at it, and it’s valid.”

Heck yeah, it was valid. “I’m glad you think so.” She tried to keep the snark out of her voice but probably failed miserably. “I just wish there was some way that we could tell the guys at Last Chance, the evil venture capital firm, how we’re feeling.”

“You should write an email,” Kingston said. “You should say all this to them so they can rectify the situation or address people’s concerns.”

She rolled her eyes, and the other people around the table laughed out loud. “Jeez Louise, Kingston. Are you trying to get me fired?”

“Not at all,” but he chuckled. “However, it sounds like these guys might be a little clueless, and maybe if they had this feedback, their emails could consider Sidewinder’s company environment when they craft emails or policy.”

“That still sounds like a spectacularly bad idea,” Nicole said. “The nail that sticks its head up gets hammered first.”

“Make sure you reply directly to that email address on their previous email, not to any other email address you find online. I’ve heard that’s the best way to make sure that the person you want to talk to gets your email. And of course, make sure you don’t reply-all. I hope whoever sent it was smart enough to send it BCC, but you never know what will happen if you click the wrong button on an email app.”

“That’s the truth. Reply-all is the bane of my existence. Are you sure this isn’t a ploy to get me fired?”

“I promise it isn’t. If anyone tries to fire you for this, I’ll go up the line of command and make sure everything’s okay. This is an important set of circumstances that corporate needs to know.”

All this time, the wind roared behind his voice like a hurricane. “It sure is windy in Chicago.”

“Oh, yes. Terribly windy.”

When they hung up, Arvind and Caitlin Moffett were looking at each other and then at her.

“What?” she asked.

Everyone around the table started shrugging extravagantly, and finally, Caitlin said, “Interesting that you dialed the new sales guy into a closed-door lab meeting call. That’s all.”

“He’s a new hire. The sales department is cliquish and weird. They probably aren’t letting him inside the circle of trust yet, but he deserves to know what’s going on because he works here.”

“Right,” Arvind said, nodding.

“Right, what?”

He sucked both of his lips inside his mouth and looked at everyone else at the table, who all looked up at the ceiling or at their laps.

“What?” Nicole asked.

Arvind shrugged. “You like this guy?”

“No,” she said. “I have terrible taste in men. If I like him, he’s probably a cheater or an embezzler. I am a perfect negative indicator.”

Caitlin asked, “Do you want to date him?”

“I—what? No. I’d have to think about it.”