VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [83]
“You are worried, aren’t you,” said Amy.
“Yes. The project managers tell me we are getting some serious push-back from clients. Yet just last month Viktor raised the billing rates again. That’s what he does almost every few years to boost profits; he bumps the hourly rates by ten bucks or so. And if clients complain, which they do, he just patches things over. So that’s why I’m dropping LSS; I want to focus on the things that really matter.”
Amy then thanked her for explaining and hung up.
“Wow,” she murmured after a few minutes of sitting there feeling overwhelmed and slightly numb.
Amy decided she would talk to Wayne Reese to get his reading on what was going on in Rockville. She did not mention the conundrum of the hourly billing conflict with efficiency, because she was still mulling that over. But she did mention the Lean Greenies and Sarah’s withdrawal from the program.
“Look,” said Wayne, “I know they’re a little bit off track up there. But for right now, I feel it’s better to let them take the ball and run with it. Did they pick the best targets to shoot for? No, probably not. Then again, hey, what’s wrong with cutting energy costs or boosting recycling? If that’s what brings them into the Lean culture, that’s fine. If we try to force them into some narrow little channel, they’re not going to be as engaged as they would be working on something that turns them on, something they really want to work on.”
“Okay, I can see that,” said Amy. “What’s it doing to improve the business?”
“It’s giving them experience in LSS tools and methods! It’s indoctrinating them into the Lean culture! So why not let them have some fun! And once they have enough certified Green Belts and Black Belts up there in Rockville, then we can steer them into some of the customer satisfaction issues, and so on. Besides, if the Rockville program achieves what they’ve set out to accomplish, they’re going to be saving something on the order of a quarter of a million dollars a year – which is not to be sneezed at, given that it’s a relatively small operation.”
“All right,” said Amy, not relishing a confrontation with him. “We can let it ride for now. Oakton in my opinion is more important. How is everything coming along out there?”
“Fine! It’s going great,” said Wayne. “We’ve almost rebalanced the production line, and this time I think we’ll start to see some real improvements in the metrics. I just know we will.”
• • •
For the first week or so that Murphy Maguire worked at Formulation & Design in Rockville, he kept to himself, feeling as he did like a new dog in a world of cats. Just figuring out what the heck he was supposed to be doing was enough of a challenge.
Even so, Murphy could not help but notice that there was a quiet tension hiding in the placid ambience of the F&D offices. And sometimes not so quiet: all of a sudden, a door would slam; there were outbursts of temper, exchanges of angry words in the hallways. Frowning faces would pass by Murphy’s cubicle and give him just the briefest of cold glances. The iPod was both allowed here and widely used, as if to screen out everyone else and stay isolated in a private auditory sphere.
One afternoon, from out of the general silence came shouting:
“Where is it? I need it now!”
“I’ll find it for you! But get off my back!”
Then silence again. Murphy stood up in his cubicle and searched over the tops of the dividers, just to see who was yelling. Though he never did detect the source, he made eye contact with a woman in a neighboring cubicle.
“Happens all the time,” the woman said to him. “My advice? Get an iPod.”
At first Murphy attributed the tension to the relative rudeness of northern, urban culture. But soon that explanation began to seem inadequate. He started taking more notice of things he overheard.
“Nothing ever gets finished around here until it becomes a crisis,” said someone in a small throng by the elevator.
“I know,” said another. “It’s all crisis management.”
Later, from somewhere near Murphy’s cubicle:
“I am