Chapter II
The interview
Earlier in the day, the interview had gone very well, even if luck had played an outsized role.
“So, Mr. Bush, let’s look and see what else might qualify you for a position here at VBI,” pausing a moment to peer at this strange man, “besides your claim to be from the distant past.” Abelard couldn’t immediately reconcile the sustained squeak and the ample person speaking to him. He had expected something deeper, something that resonated power.
The Vice-President, Human Resources was used to this by now. Might as well have told her he was from another planet. It wouldn’t have mattered. A relative or close friend of the boss needs a job and would Alberta be a dear and see if anything could be conjured up. By her rough reckoning she probably spends a good fifth of her time dealing with what she likes to call ‘paying her dues’. It’s not as though Alberta does this useless stuff for free. On occasion she does cash in her IOU’s. A seat on the company jet, an extended vacation, questionable expense claims easily approved. All executives get to buy and sell privileges. The boss of course, being at the top of the heap, gets the most privileges. One such is the right to ask Alberta to interview otherwise unemployable people.
To Abelard, sitting primed and confident in the straight backed seat he had chosen over the plush altogether too red leather armchair he was shown, the scene had quite another perspective. In his world, filled with complex engagement rules, the social taxonomy begins with a prey-predator distinction and then branches down through many finer features – helpful, hindering, good, evil, important, unimportant, amusing, boring, innocuous, harmful, friend, enemy, attractive, repelling, and all the other ways in which a person can be described, once the prey-predator label had been settled upon. And, to complicate matters, we are all sometimes predators and sometimes prey.
Although Abelard knew better, Alberta imagined herself to be the hunter. Her closely set eyes had covered the field, searching for weaknesses, of which there were a great many. She had quickly picked one from the pack. The birth date is what had caught her unwanted attention.
Alberta was now working very hard to create an illusion for the benefit of Abelard Bush. She hunched her considerable bulk over the single sheet that constituted Abelard’s entire Curriculum Vitae, and engaged what little body language she possessed to convey to this applicant that she was deeply interested in finding for him a future at VBI. She scrunched her eyes in exaggerated concentration, vigorously shook her head and fluttered her lips, gestures she expected would impress even this moron that she was actually reading his crummy little CV. And it was truly tiny, barely covering half the page.
She had long ago learned that as a woman she needed to put in that extra effort to overcome any wrong impressions her appearance could easily leave with the casual observer. Had she been a man, something she sometimes mused about, she would not have been seen with enhanced lips, big hair, florid skin and an altogether too tight and too short dress – oops, must be at the wrong interview. Little about her appearance would have mattered.
“Ah, Abe. Do you mind if I call you Abe?” Alberta didn’t like using full or formal names. She didn’t want interviewees to feel she might be predisposed against them. For her, familiarity was meant to breed comfort and confidence.
“If it’s all the same to you, I would rather you call me either Abelard or Mr. Bush.” It also occurred to him that he should have listened to Felicity and left his birth date off the CV. He automatically put in the one he remembers most, the one in his false memories. No one puts it in anymore. Something about age discrimination being illegal.
“Of course, that's your name and why shouldn’t you want me to use it,” she gushed, as solicitously as her growing discomfort would permit. No one had ever objected. Her annoyance, try as she might, was no more containable than flesh that might spill over the bounds of inadequate clothing. She’ll give him another five minutes and then send him on his way. Even if this jerk is the CEO’s niece’s boyfriend, there is no way she is going to bring him in to endanger the cozy culture at VBI. She’s given enough ‘suggestions-from-the-boss’ jobs and has the right to decline now and then. This would be one of those nows.
“You’ve an MBA from a fine b-school, but you don’t seem to have much management experience.” Even discounting his advanced age, which in fairness she generously ascribed to a typographical error; this would make him overqualified for an entry level position and under qualified for anything else. “In your own words, Mr. Bush, what would you envisage for yourself here at VBI?”
“A job with power, influence and money,” without the least hint that he was pulling her visibly nervous leg, the one he could see through the thick glass desk, pumping with impatience, most of the other she had somehow managed to tuck out of sight under her sofa sized chair.
“That’s not what I meant Mr. Bush,” impatiently folding and unfolding her surprisingly long, slender fingers. “What I did mean was why should VBI want to hire you?”
Here Abelard seemed genuinely stumped. Was he dealing with an imbecile? His next response was, if nothing else, equally candid. “Because I’m well connected.”
“Mr. Bush,” exasperation now increasing the squeaky quality of her voice, “connectedness has never been a criterion for hiring at VBI,” except perhaps for the idiot now in marketing, the chairman’s son-in-law. “What can you contribute to VBI that will make it a better company?”
“What do you mean by a better company?”
Alberta remained silent for a time, trying to regain her composure, trying to keep from yelling. But she thought better of long explanations about Company Values, Company Reputation, Company Social Responsibility and some of the other stuff on the little plastic coated cards all the employees were supposed to carry around lest they forgot the VBI core values the folks in Organizational Development had invented. Keep it simple and get rid of him. Fast.
“I mean, what can you do to make VBI more profitable?”
This was easy. Abelard didn’t take any time at all to answer. He’d prepared for this question. He’d read up on VBI’s recent transactions, what analysts were saying and what public perceptions had been forming. Combined with vivid memories of a violent past, he felt perfectly matched with the company. “I believe I have exactly what you need. VBI has traditionally grown through M&A and I have probably more experience than anyone here in fast, efficient, cost effective takeovers. Also, if you think VBI has a reputation for giving no quarter, taking no prisoners, you haven’t seen anything. My own notoriety for dealing with troublesome competition is really quite awesome. I would say that I’ve cleared out more competitors than VBI will ever have, and I did so with very little loss…at low cost is what I meant.”
Alberta was now more than just a little perplexed and thinking she might be dealing with a madman. He couldn’t be more than 30, despite his CV. Too young for so much experience. “But, Mr. Bush, where did you get all that experience? None of this is anywhere indicated on your CV.”
Abelard was ready for this. He shuffled a bit in his chair and shifted his gaze to the floor, trying to appear uncomfortable. Had he still been looking at Alberta he would have seen surprise and more than a little consternation perk up her jowls as she watched the CEO quietly slip into her office. The door had been ajar and he’d been standing at the threshold, intrigued by Abelard’s putative qualifications. And Abelard knew he was there. He had been conveniently reflected in the tinted windows behind Alberta. But before either the CEO or Alberta could stop him he began to speak.
“You see, Miss, er, what do I call you?”
“Bertie is what I like and…” not fast enough. She couldn’t stop him.
“You see, Bertie, my approach to takeovers and competition is very effective but it wouldn’t do to talk about it in public. Some people could be offended even though it’s pretty common practice. You know, values and all that other stuff you mentioned earlier. I thought it best to just bring it
up informally.”
Now Bertie was in a pickle. The potential Uncle-in-Law, the CEO, Milford Yonkers Lord – aka Milly – was an interested party, was her boss’ boss’ boss and was right there. She was going to tell Abelard that she would be in touch and then simply throw out his file and let time bury it beyond memory. But now she would have to be more definitive. Stale dating was one of Milly’s favourite management strategies, but he didn’t like to see others using it – values and so on.
“Hey, I like that,” speaking as he strode into the office, also solving Bertie’s dilemma. “What’s your name son? Mine’s Milly, Milly Lord. Oh yes, met you with my niece at the wedding. Told you to call Bertie here. Bush something? Right? Well I really like your frankness and I get the sense that you might be someone who truly understands the jungle.”
He rambled on a bit more with almost sentences – while Abelard was still considering the possibility of being transferred to a distant rainforest – and wouldn’t let go of Abelard’s hand. He was a strongly built man. Easily as tall as Abelard, but considerably stockier. Much like a hockey player who’d forgotten to remove all the padding.
M.Y. Lord had very plainly taken a liking to Abelard. Well, not really a liking. M.Y. Lord didn’t like anyone, other than himself, of course. He found others useless, useful, helpful and very helpful. No one was necessary or indispensable. Abelard, he guessed would be somewhere between helpful and very helpful. With a little coaching from him and his team he guessed Abelard would soon be at the top of the ‘very helpful’ heap. And M.Y. Lord was seldom wrong about these speculations.
“Bertie,” who’d been trying to understand the unexpected turn of events, was momentarily inattentive and did not at once respond. The second “BERTIE,” did the trick, jiggling her fleshy face to attention.
“I’ve certainly heard enough to make up my mind about this young man. What about you?”
Indeed, Bertie had also made up her mind about young Abelard, a mere 675 years old, barely a geological blink. But in light of all this new very reliable input from M.Y. Lord, she was prepared to rethink her original judgement.
“Yes I have, sir…, I mean Milly.” M.Y. Lord very much wanted all his executives to call him Milly. Not that he cared a fig for the name. He believed that first names like nicknames helped create a family like atmosphere and, with it, a cocoon of loyalty.
“So, what do think, start him at the bottom, let him learn the ropes and work his way to the top, eh? Merit, merit, merit is what guarantees excellence in our ranks and competitive advantage in the marketplace.” Shifting his gaze to Abelard, he added, “I’ve a feeling about you, that you’re like us, that you’ll see in our culture all the values with which you’ve grown up.” It was to Abelard as though Milly shared his presumably bogus memories.
“Bertie, what do you think of putting him into M&A, with Robby? Since that awkward incident that took Hook from us, Robby’s been desperate for a new VP.”
“VP sir…, er, Milly? Are you sure? I thought you wanted an entry level…..I haven’t even run a background check on him,” all this while Abelard stood expressionless next to M.Y. Lord. “We also don’t know about his qualifications. I mean he’s told us what he did and maybe we could discuss it a little more deeply, even though I’m sure there shouldn’t be any problem,” she quickly added as a growing scowl hardened M.Y. Lord’s far from genial features.
“Of course, of course, you must run a background check, but I’m sure there wouldn’t be anything we couldn’t fix if need be. And, Bertie, don’t go worrying about his technical, you know, financial and statistical modelling skills. We have enough of those nerds.”
M.Y. Lord was not particularly fond of analysis. ‘Bullshit,’ was pretty much his usual conclusion to adverse analyses on his investment decisions and ‘So what, not news to me,’ to those reports validating his thinking. He was a man of action. He followed his instincts.
*
Abelard had known men like Milly all his made up life. He knew how to deal with them. He had to because he wanted to be one of those men. And had it not been for the incident, which seemed so real it still gave him phantom pains, he would have been well on his way to becoming one. But now he had a second chance. Sure, much had changed, but the most important stuff had remained the same. Humanum est, thankfully human nature would always be there to guide him.