VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [107]
“Mr. Reese, sir, it is because the analysts are so few in number – and yet so essential to so much of what we do as a company – that they are able to be a choke on the entire system,” said Murphy.
“You know,” said Amy, “it is true that nothing moves at Oakton until an analyst in Rockville has signed off on a production order.”
“Is that really necessary?” asked Wayne.
“It’s because of liability concerns,” said Amy. “About fifteen years ago, Hi-T got sued for hundreds of millions of dollars because of what the plaintiff claimed was negligence in producing a product that failed in its intended use. After that, the only way that we could appease the insurance company was to have a policy in place that all customer orders would be critically reviewed by the F&D analysts prior to production.”
“Man, the lawyers sure do run everything, don’t they,” said Garth.
“That’s reality,” said Amy. “All orders must pass analyst review. We may not like it, but that’s what we have to deal with.”
“In fact, nobody likes it,” said Sarah. “The analysts do the reviews because they’re part of their job description, but most if not all of them hate the process.”
“Why is that?” asked Amy.
“Because it’s tedious, boring – and yet they’re under a lot of professional pressure. If the analyst misses something, and there is a failure in the intended use of the product, it probably means some kind of tragedy has occurred. And on top of those negatives, they don’t get anything extra for doing the reviews.”
“Extra?” asked Amy. “Why should they get anything extra?”
“Well, let me put it this way,” said Sarah, “the analysts do get incentives for other aspects of their work.”
“Like what?”
“A production design review is just an internal charge-back to Hi-T. It’s treated like an expense. But when the analyst works on a research project for a Formulation and Design client, the analyst’s time is billed at an hourly rate.”
“Right,” said Amy.
“The more billable time the analyst has at the end of the year,” said Sarah, “the bigger the bonus the analyst makes.”
“So greed rears its ugly head,” said Kurt.
“Now, wait,” said Sarah. “You have to realize that the analysts all work long hours. Twelve hours a day is the norm, and fourteen and sixteen-hour days are not unheard of. At times these people are working six and seven days a week – for year after year. Believe me, I know what it’s like; I used to be an analyst before I – foolishly – thought that moving into management would give me more personal time. My point is that if we don’t incentivize the analysts in some fashion relative to the income they’re generating, they won’t stick around. That’s why Viktor coddled them, and fed their egos, and paid them so well.”
“They do make very good money,” Amy commented. “More than what I make, some of them.”
“Like what kind of bucks are we talking about?” asked Garth.
“An entry level analyst makes a hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year, plus benefits and bonuses,” said Sarah. “And a senior analyst like Joe Tassoni can earn pretty close to half a million a year.”
“Wow,” someone muttered.
“But Sarah has a good point,” said Amy. “They are bringing in big income for the company, and most of them are at the top of their professions – the best in the world in their fields.”
“And it’s not just pure greed that keeps them at F&D,” Sarah argued. “It’s the money and the ability to pursue research that is often of deep professional interest to them.”
“All right, fine,” said Wayne, “but for that kind of compensation, is it too much to ask that they not choke the production end of the business? That they give more attention and time to the design reviews?”
“Some of the reviews are cut and dried,” said Sarah, “but many are not. They take time. And all the while, there is pressure from the project managers at Rockville to give priority to F&D client work. Remember, the analysts are central to everything we do in Rockville. They would be busy even if they did not have to do the design reviews – which are just a huge chore for them. A lot of