Blown for Good - Marc Morgan Headley [132]
“Okay, man, have fun,” I said facetiously.
I managed to build everything on Trevor’s wish list for both Spain and New York in the next couple of days and ship them out to both locations.
As I was getting back to work in UV coating one day, I was approached by the Manufacturing Sec, a girl named Caroline. She was in way over her head on this post. I doubted she would last more than another year or so. She explained to me that a mission needed to go to New York org to install all of the new A/V systems. I explained to her that I had already built all of the components they needed and shipped them out earlier that week.
“I know that, Marc, I’m telling you because YOU are going to go install the New York AV systems,” she said.
The truth was that I loved working on systems. It one the one thing that I did at the Int Base that I actually truly loved and had fun while doing it. That is why I think I was never allowed to do that as my post. I just had too much fun and no one could stand that. For my last ten years at the Int Base, I had always gravitated back to working on A/V systems and someone would always take me off it. I was still, no matter what anybody said, the most qualified to work on systems and knew more technically than anybody else by far. But as of late I had given up on trying to work on it more than a few hours here and there. I did it more to help out and keep my chops up on the subject.
“You really think that is a good idea?” I asked. “I mean, I was born on the weekend, but not last weekend.”
“I know. No one thinks this is a good idea. It is our only option to get the systems done and ready before COB arrives in New York after Spain is opened,” she said.
“Well, whose idea was it to send me?”
“Marc Yager is the one that approved it,” she answered.
“I am so not going.” I walked back over to my UV coating machine. This conversation was over.
Marc Yager had been behind every bad thing that had ever happened to me. The IAS Tapes in 1993, the QC Gold fiasco in Clearwater, the A/V Manufacturing proposal and then the Systems blow up the year before. This guy was bad news. If I had learned my lesson, it was that any time I had been involved with something this guy had worked out, it would end up bad. I could already think this one through and see what he had planned. I would go to New York, the systems would flap with COB and Marc Yager would hang the whole flap right around my neck and that would be the end of me. I think it was well known that I did not have a high opinion of Marc Yager and he and I had clashed before on a number of occasions.
No way, I was not going to do it. No matter how much I loved working on A/V systems, this was just a trap.
“If you refuse to do this, Marc Yager is going to use that against you when it flaps in the end,” Caroline said to me.
It was a familiar position to be in at the Int base. Screwed if you do, screwed if you don’t. I had been here before and knew what would happen.
“Well, I guess I am flexible. When do I leave?” I asked Caroline.
“Tomorrow morning,” she answered. “You should go up to CMO Int and get briefed by them on exactly what is needed.”
“Okay,” I said. This sucked. It was a total set up.
I arrived in CMO Int. They were expecting me. I was told about all the stuff that had been happening in New York and where they stood on what they were supposed to have installed. The org was not even done being renovated. The renovations usually had to be completed before the systems could be installed and tested. This was the normal routine with these new orgs. They would drag the renovations on until the last possible second and then everything else would have to be done practically overnight in order to be ready by the time COB rolled in to inspect the place.
The only difference about this New York org was that with the time left, I did not see how it could possibly be done by the time the org was supposed to open. It was physically impossible. I told the CMO Int guys this. They knew this already.
“That is why it