100 People:xvi. James Phineas Gage

The knot of his tie was slightly off center; and it was very wrinkled. His hair, according to his accounting, was three weeks past the time he would have liked it cut by. The contacts in his eyes had not been removed for three weeks. The little, soft-plastic lenses burned his eyes like the seasonal summer fires in southern California. He blinked for four or five seconds every minute or so trying to make his eyes moist again. James Phineas Gage was also battling a headache that he imagined felt somewhat like a bullet being shot between his eyes, without the effects of death or his brains splattering all over whatever wall was behind him, causing some scene full of black humor as one detective disused the merits of his wife’s delicious apple pie to another detective as they performed various forensic what-not’s that James never understood the fascination with to justify at least seven different television shows based on such forensics.

James was also hungry. He was dieting. Again.

Lewis, the district manager, was standing at—what he designated—as the front of the conference room, which was a rectangular room that could be arranged in a number of configurations and had no designated front, back, left, or right. The only directions that seemed fixed were up and down, and that was only because anti-gravity repulsors were still a secret of the United States military as James had confirmed on the internet. Lewis was describing the loss of revenue for the retail company that he, James, and the rest of the managers in the room worked for.

James scratched his chin, which along with the rest of his face, he had not shaved in six days. Then he stuck one of his fingers into his ear and used the fingernail to scrape out any wax that was in the ear canal. He pulled his finger out and looked at the wax he had excavated and then wiped it off on his pants. Lewis was describing corporate’s plan for increasing sales. James wondered is corporate and pirate were etymologically related.

“However, I would like to recognize James and his branch. Their sales are up twenty-four percent over last year. He’s twenty-point-three percent above goal for revenue this month; which translates to almost thirty-one thousand extra dollars,” Lewis said, “James, can you speak on how you’ve been able to mobilize your time to achieve this great performance?”

James sat up straight in his chair and pressed his lips together. “Should I stand?” he asked.

“Uh…no. We can all see you from here,” said Lewis.

“Oh…yeah…um…I don’t know. My branch is pretty competitive in nature. I mean, previously, they’ve been giving the crappiest managers and for the first time they feel they have someone that actually cares about them and wants to see them succeed.”

Lewis interrupted, “I think that is a critical point. We need to invest in our people. If we take care of our team, then they’ll take care of the customer. Continue.”

James cleared his throat. “Yeah, so we’re pretty competitive now. We want to completely destroy all you others in the district. Really, our mentality is like our caveman…and cavewoman, I guess…ancestors,” James said looking at the two female managers in the room.. Then he looked down and continued, “I mean, beating everyone in sales, customer satisfaction, and those metrics that corporate tracks that’s our motivation. That’s like one caveman tribe totally destroying another tribe. And that pumps us up, gets us excited. Beating all of your in sales and growth is like burning your tribe’s village to the ground and raping all your women.”

“Um, okay, that’s…” Lewis began.

“We’re enslaving the young men. Killing the elderly, because what are they good for? Eating all your corn or dinosaur meat or whatever. You know, um, we just like winning.”

Some managers were trying to contain their laughter. Others were shaking their head. Lewis was um’ing and ah’ing trying to maintain control of the situation. Finally the room fell into silence. “So we see that driving our teams to be the best they can be [i]does[/i] produce results. Now one of the changes that we need to make is really understanding the marginal areas where we have room to negotiate possible revenue,” Lewis continued on describing corporate’s strategy for revenue growth.

Dave, who was seating next to James, leaned over and whispered, “Man, why do you always do that kind of stuff?”

“Com’on, that’s probably the first good laugh you’ve had in like six months. What was I supposed to say: Dumb luck? Because that is why we’re doing so well. I spend most of my days sitting in my office bouncing a tennis ball against the wall,” James said.

Dave knodded. “Yeah. I don’t know. I’m just looking forward to fishing the weekend.”