Monday
So John Bonanza is back in my life. When he gate-crashed our Finnbox/Spice Girls plastic box personality development work session (a.k.a. us ogling MTV videos), I thought we'd simply have him thrown out of the building. But no, JB has left his monastery and — pure coincidence, he says — applied for a job with Tulip, our parent. He was astonished to find that the Armadillo Group was part of the empire. Why did he leave the contemplative life? Well, the chief guru at his wacka-wacka Californian retreat said that Bonanza was "trying too hard to find enlightenment." Upshot: big row, and Johnny Boy storms out, back into the world of commerce. And here's the truly awful part: Bonanza used his full powers of conniving and ingratiating on the innocent Tulip execs who interviewed him, convincing them to let him run WIMP (Worldwide Integrated Marketing Products), which includes — of course — us. We all report to John Bonanza!
Tuesday
Spend the day staring blankly at the bare, dark trees and red car brake lights on Memorial Drive. Feel like I'm living in a nightmare. Even the arrival of Sporty Spice in Tulip's lobby for a photo-shoot with some squeezable plastic boxes fails to stir anyone (although I do happen to pass through the lobby a few times while she's there, and she ends up autographing my appointments book — gift for Theo …).
Finally, when the Tulip brass leaves (4:30 p.m.), our little band of Armadillo renegades sneaks out to Starbucks for a council of war. Ken isn't with us, due to certain legal covenants, but I tell the group that he has given us his unofficial, contingent, nonattributable, and nonbinding blessing. My colleagues are all dithering. They hate Tulip, they hate their work, they hate Bonanza, they hate their shared offices, and they hate being seen as a "strategic nose cone" for some completely vague client deliverable that the rest of the organization allegedly does. On the other hand, they like being paid, they like going home by five, they like watching MTV, they like pontificating about strategies to easily impressed advertising wonks. Nobody has any idea what to do next. Quit en masse? No appetite among this gang for starting over from scratch. Demand better offices and a new boss? No one wants to be the messenger. I realize that I'm the senior guy here, in Ken's absence. I'll do it, I say. I'll give them an ultimatum.
Wednesday
Quarterly review session with Bonanza. He always was an idiot — now he's a mystical, prophet sort of idiot. Rayne, he says, leaning back in his chair, how do you feel about these projections? Does your instinct cry out at the chance of plan attainment? John, I want to say, my instinct cries out at the chance of landing a hard blow on your nose. But I bide my time. On Friday I see Tulip's new top dog for the Americas, Van Galen. I've asked everyone what his first name is, but he doesn't seem to have one. Like Madonna, I suppose.
Thursday
Heide Vertig asks if I want to meet Scary Spice. I plead meeting gridlock and content myself with peeking over the balcony. (The wife wasn't thrilled with my gift for Theo.) Am actually busy, scripting my pitch to Van Galen. Ken stops by to tell me what his Wall Street pals say about how things work at Tulip-Walter: "If you're not Dutch, you're not much." He raises his eyebrows meaningfully. I'm relying on you, Rayne, he says.
Friday
Best suit. Lucky tie. Long socks. I've always believed in Dress for Success, even if the rest of the world is now hopelessly casual. Review the new Spice Girls images along with the Finnbox team, but my heart's not in the work. Baby Spice in a big yellow tee-shirt, cuddling two blue PBT/PET blend boxes? Fine, fine.
Van Galen's office is most of the top floor. He has a golf course in it, or at least a three-hole crazy-putting contest. We have to play while we talk. I smack my ball through a 360 loop and leap into the unknown. Armadillo is intrinsically a specialist operation. We don't help you talk to CEOs. We're no good at campaigns. We love arguing about marginal cost allocations. We need our own space. Our own coffee. In fact, we …
Van Galen sinks a triple-rebound putt and holds up one hand. "I didn't build the WIMP and I don't believe in it. What you need, my friend, is a management buyout. Come back with enough financing so that I don't show a write-down, and you have my blessing. On one condition …" "And what's that?" I say, sweating over a two-footer (through a rotating windmill).
Van Galen laughs. "The idiot has to leave with you."
There's no need to ask who he means. We shake hands.
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