Monday
Morty Tomato of Bain wants me to come in on Wednesday! Spend morning on Bain's Web site getting a sense of the firm. Clearly, they're having serious growing pains (hence Tomato's call to moi), and yet their Web site paints a picture of utter self-confidence and intellectual sangfroid. Obviously, they recognize that someone who came through the roller-coaster that was Armadillo & Pounce can help them get back on track. (Speaking of A&P, it's amazing to me that they have not been in touch at all. I had expected all kinds of "Rayne, can you remember anything about such and such?" — but nada. Strange. Maybe they've gone four legs to the sky, ha-ha.) Nasdaq flat-lining as growth optimism arm-wrestles with geo-ethnic squirming, or at least that's my spin.
Tuesday
Forgot to mention my new indie gig. None other than the Postal Service! The potential of this dinosaur is as big as one of Theo's diplodocuses, although I'm starting some way down the org chart in the Lexington sub-branch. More an ops management assignment than strategic initiatives, although I've been trying to align the former with the latter — to little effect, frankly. Suspect I'm not cut out for public sector work. Was in there today asking why they have people sitting at the counter when they're "closed," since it just annoys the always-lengthy queue. Mr. Hinckley, the sub-manager, replies that the counter staff sit at the counter, open or closed, because they are counter staff, as if that was self-evident and reasonable. I suggest they go and sit in the back somewhere, and he just smiles like the village idiot he is. There's also a guy in a wheelchair who mans the little kiosk where they sell packets of stamps. Problems galore. There's no sign explaining what this kiosk can and can't help you with, and the poor guy is invisible in his wheelchair below the counter, so no one realizes that there's anyone inside and he just sits happily tearing up sheets of postage into useful bundles. I try to help him re-engineer himself, but he refers every suggestion to Mr. Hinckley — and you know where that's going.
Late call from Tomato's super-smooth assistant pushing tomorrow back to Thursday.
Wednesday
Hinckley and I have a slanging match in the middle of the main lobby. He accuses me of "meddling." My riposte is not as professional as I would have liked, but the cumulative impact of his shooting down my every suggestion to boost their efficiency makes me lose my cool. I call him a "miserable little anachronism." When the queue of twenty or so frustrated members of the public cheers, Commander Hinckley gather himself up to his full height of, oh, five-foot-five in his platform shoes, and fires me. I get a little theatrical and rip my Gant Chart document into confetti and fling it into the air. "Get out," says Hinckley, "and never come back." Not sure where I'll mail letters from now on. If this is the kind of thing indie consultants have to put up with, roll on, Bain, although we have another 24-hour delay as Tomato is stranded in Atlanta, apparently.
Thursday
Nothing much. Paint my deck with UV-resistant waterseal and ruin one of my white shirts. Theo and I build a large Lego post office along with delivery trucks, but he gets mad at me for engineering spectacular flame-out crashes into the building. Nasdaq up, then down, then sharply up, then gradual descent to end unchanged. What's the point?
Friday
Bain-day! Dress in my Sunday best, although suspect that they'll all be in casual Friday garb. Still, want to convey the appropriate amount of gravitas. Read WSJ cover to cover so that I'm well-informed about the world of commerce. Limit my coffee intake on wife's advice but then guiltily stop off at Starbucks on the way in to Boston and gulp down a triple-shot venti to steady the nerves. Try to repress slightly desperate feelings of being abandoned on a desert island and seeing faint plume of smoke on the distant horizon. Tomato is late, late, late. Heide Vertig isn't around either, so pace the lobby until they ask me to please sit down.
Finally Tomato shows up. Small talk about our rascally boys, slightly awkward given that Theo squished Tomato junior last year. We edge politely up to the point. Oh. I'm not being offered a partnership, not even a full-time job. How would I like to write reviews of strategy books for some Bain publication? For money? Well, no, actually. But think of the exposure. Feel like exposing myself to Mortimer Tomato but swallow hard and say yes and depart with stack of junk to plow through, including the latest by my old pal Donny Drucker (no relation): Rip Up Your Business Plan and Get Naked to Grow! Yeah, right.
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