Mister Jinnah Mysteries 3-Book Bundle. Donald J. Hauka
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management was supposed to manage.
“Sir, the timing and execution of their so-called initiative suggests a willful circumvention of managerial responsibility —”
“Or,” smiled the Publisher. “That you and I were at the opera, Church was at the basketball game and when news happened, the employees we deputized to take our places used their best judgment.”
“Best subterfuge,” corrected Blacklock.
“Has it occurred to you, Connie, that they pulled the wool over your eyes because they knew you wouldn’t listen to them?”
“What on earth are you talking about, sir?”
“Come on!” laughed the Publisher. “They pulled a fast one on you because they knew you’d nix their idea to change stories. It seems to me, Connie, that if we are to trust our employees to use their best judgment, then they also have to trust us to let them exercise it in our absence, right?”
“But the chain of command! The ladder of accountability, the painstaking planning —”
“Connie, stuff happens. The first four letters of the word newspaper are news, after all. They did a kick-ass job. Everyone but everyone is eating our dust. The competing paper looks sick. We have to keep this up.”
The pater familias of the Tribune looked at the Emperor and contemplated deicide. What sort of strange management seminars did they attend in advertising? Blacklock was left to stew and fume while a tall, blond woman in a power suit gushed all over the Publisher about what an absolutely fabulous event the breakfast had been and how the entire promotions staff were just over the moon, really…. By the time she had finished, Blacklock realized he’d compacted the front page in his hand into a tiny, tight ball. The Publisher returned his attention to the unhappy editor-in-chief.
“Now, Connie, about Jinnah and Frost: I want you to have a chat with them this morning.”
A few minutes ago, Blacklock would have felt a vague stirring of hope. A chat: management code for a good old-fashioned verbal thrashing in the editor’s woodshed. But not now. All he felt was an impending sense of doom.
“Oh, yes?” he said, curious, but without enthusiasm.
“Yes. Be sure Mister Church attends as well. I’d like you to include Mister Grant. I want you to develop a team-approach to this story. Be positive, let them carry the agenda. Then report back to me at noon on how they intend to advance the story.”
This was as close as Blacklock had come to receiving the corporate equivalent of the black spot. For if this was not an outright death-sentence, it was the beginning of a sort of mental torture that would only end when one of them — himself or the Publisher — died, metaphorically. Blacklock was damned if it was going to be him, so he forced himself to smile.
“Very good, Phil,” he said, teeth gritted. “Perhaps I should order some coffee and danishes from the cafeteria as well?”
“Good idea,” the Publisher said, taking off his chef’s hat and apron. “And by the way, I think it would be a good idea for you to attend this training seminar down at the Hyatt this afternoon —”
“Training seminar!” gasped Blacklock. “But sir! I’ve attended every —”
The Publisher waved a spatula at Blacklock.
“Connie, Connie! A little refresher course in synergy never hurt anyone.”
Synergy. Touchy-feely, EST-like claptrap. Writing out your true feelings and discovering how to empower your employees. It was not to be borne.
“But I’m needed! The afternoon news meeting —”
“Runs very well while you’re on vacation. Don’t worry — I’ll take your place.”
The Publisher handed his spatula to a promotions employee and put on his jacket.
“And Connie? It’s a three-week course, so you’d better get used to the idea.”
“Of course, Phil.”
The Publisher moved off, surrounded by a coterie of adoring staff. Blacklock realized that his hand hurt. He looked down and discovered the little ball of newsprint now resembled a tiny sphere of cardboard, so tightly was it compressed. His fingers were smeared black with ink. He watched the Publisher disappear into the building and the promotions staff start the process of clearing away the cooking equipment, the banners and balloons. Blacklock tossed the wad of newsprint onto the grill the Publisher had used and watched it start to smoke, curl, and finally, burst into flames.
“Thus we bid the world good-bye,” he said and walked to his office like a man facing examination by the Spanish Inquisition.
If Blacklock’s morning had been ruined, Jinnah’s had been made. He awoke to the sweetest sound a print reporter can hear: a radio announcer reading his copy virtually verbatim over the airwaves at the top of the news. He knew that Graham would be angry, Paula Schuster furious, and Blacklock — well, words could not adequately describe how Blacklock would react. Possibly he would resemble one of the djinn who followed Iblis, the Despairer, the fallen angel who had rejected the true faith. Such creatures were made of fire and had haunted Jinnah’s childhood nightmares. He closed the gate and looked back at his house. Framed by a charming, white picket fence, it glowed in the sun. All was perfect bliss.
By the time he got to the office that morning, the anticipation of seeing the look on Grant’s face had replaced any apprehension about Blacklock’s reaction. He had driven to work singing. He went into the building by the front entrance: partly because the paranoid streak in him was convinced that Sam Schuster’s murderer would be waiting for him in the back alley, but mostly because he wanted to enter the newsroom by the reception desk and see the adoring look on Crystal’s face. But when Jinnah arrived at the glass cubicle, Crystal’s look was anything but adoring. It was absorbed in the task of packing up her desk.
“What’s all this?” Jinnah demanded, leaping up the stairs into the glass cubicle and onto the small platform where Crystal was putting her files, stationery, and other effects into a cardboard box.
“I’m outta here, that’s what,” said Crystal dryly.
There was only one conclusion Jinnah could come to and it made his heart burn.
“That bastard! Blacklock got you fired, did he? I’ll show him!”
“Hakeem —”
Jinnah looked frantically about the newsroom. From his elevated vantage point, he spied Ronald Sanderson sitting quietly at his desk, reading his newspaper.
“Sanderson! You’re a shop steward! Do something for this poor woman!”
“As Shakespeare once said: ‘Get while the getting is good,’ Hakeem,” Sanderson said, keeping his eyes riveted to the page in front of him.
“Hakeem,” said Crystal. “This ain’t a union thing.”
“To hell it isn’t! If our contract can’t protect employees from wrongful dismissal, what use is it?”
“Your concern is touching, but —”
“Listen, everybody!” Jinnah bellowed at the newsroom. “We’re waffling! Everyone down tools!”
No one looked up. Sanderson smiled.
“The term you’re searching for is ‘wobble,’ Hakeem.”
“Whatever. We won’t stand for this!”
Crystal calmly finished tucking the cardboard flaps of her box into each other, sealing the container, and stood up, holding it against her stomach.
“Hakeem, Blacklock didn’t have me fired. I’m leaving for another job.”
Jinnah looked at her with wide-eyed surprise, then narrow-orbed suspicion.
“What other job? Where?” he said.