VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [87]
If it was not the best pizza that Murphy had ever tasted, then it was in the top three – and he was extremely complimentary.
“Thank you. Grazie, as we Eye-talians say,” Joe said, poking fun. “It is good to have someone join me for dinner. I feel I all but live in this office, so I try to make it a little bit like home.”
“What’s keeping you late tonight?”
“Yesterday, Viktor – you know Viktor, of course – comes to me and he tells me that in a certain project we have over sixteen hundred hours billed, for which we cannot be paid until I finish the analysis and write the conclusions. So Viktor is whining and crying and pleading, and here I am.”
“That wouldn’t happen to be the Cobblestone project, would it?” asked Murphy.
“Cobblestone? No, not at all. Cobblestone is another one. I cannot get to that until next week.”
“How many overdue projects are there here?”
“A few. Listen, I do my best. All the analysts do. Well, I should say most of them do. One or two are … cosi-cosi. They are so-so in their work ethic. But listen. This project keeping me here tonight, I have been trying for six weeks to wrap it up and get it out of here.”
“How come you can’t?” asked Murphy.
“It’s always one thing and then another,” said Joe. “I get data back from testing and some of it isn’t clear. So I need other tests. Or I get the data and it looks accurate, but I need it in a different format. So that’s another couple of days until someone reformats it. Or I get this and that and the other thing, but one other piece is missing, so I have to put everything away until the missing piece arrives, who knows when. By then I can’t remember all of the details, so I have to read it all again to refresh my memory. But the worst thing is when there are two or three or four analysts involved in a project – and I am waiting for this one, then the other one is waiting for me, and it goes on forever. By the way …”
He reached beneath the table and brought up a stainless steel carafe, unscrewed the top, and poured into his coffee cup.
“Would you like some?” Joe offered.
“Is it decaf?”
“Decaf? It’s Chianti,” he said. “Chianti classico. From my uncle’s vineyards.”
“I’d better not,” said Murphy.
“You can’t have a decent dinner without a little wine!” Joe protested. “Hey, it’s after hours anyway.”
“I’d still better not,” said Murphy.
“If Viktor is going to keep me a prisoner, working late, then I refuse not to live like a human being,” said Joe.
“Well, just a wee little bit,” said Murphy, showing no more than an inch with his fingers.
It was then, as Joe poured, that Murphy just happened to notice right in front of him a tall stack of papers and reports, and they were sitting in an in-box on the table, and the box was labeled with a name: Oakton.
“Excuse me,” said Murphy, “but this big pile here, sitting in the Oakton box … why is it labeled like that?”
“Those? Those are the background materials for all the run-of-the-mill production orders that I have to clear.”
“You have to clear?”
“Yes. A number of years ago, maybe you recall, Hi-T was sued for hundreds of millions of dollars – and lost – because of a material we made that was used in infants’ car seats. Some infants were able to chew on this material, ingested it, were poisoned, and a few of them died. So ever since, for liability reasons, all production orders going to Oakton have to be reviewed by an analyst – for safety, quality, and other things. That’s my share in that box. I get to them whenever I can. They’re low priority.”
“Low priority? Says who?” asked Murphy.
“Says Viktor, my boss. He sets the priorities. The billable work for F&D clients, that work comes first. The Oakton clearances, mostly the review is just a formality, so it is less important,