of still lifes and heavy dark brown furniture that fit the heaviness of his CEO position. Otis had never taken the time toreally personalize this space where he spent so many of his days and nights.
He looked through some monthly sales reports. The Omaha/ Lincoln district was down again—more than 10 percent over February. Don Caney, the district manager, wasn’t making it. Time maybe coming soon to move him back to the home office in the underwriting department, where he started and belonged. There are salesmen and there is everybody else. Caney was an everybody else. Chicago/Peoria was up. Good, good. So was Wichita/Oklahoma City. He checked the insurance categories companywide. A little burst of activity in boat insurance. There had better be. There was always an increase in boat insurance sales in the spring as people got ready for summer.
Then he glanced at some new data from one of the insurance industry’s research institutes. Mandatory air bags for all seats in all cars and vehicles were coming, and the prospect was to save three thousand lives and $21.4 million a year for the insurance industry. Hip, hip, hooray.
There was another
Our Future
report to peruse. The crashingcomputer task force had come from such a report. This one had to do with KCF&C entering the banking business if and when the U.S. Congress and others permitted insurance companies to do so. Some believed there was a great future out there for the insurance company that turned itself into a full-service one-stop financial center. Maybe so, maybe someday.
Otis’s secretary, a sharp and unassuming woman of forty-five from western Kansas named Melissa, inquired on the intercom about Pete Wetmore. She said Mr. Wetmore’s secretary had not seen him since he left to attend the conference room meeting with Otis two hours ago. Pete had said to tell her that an emergency had come up and that he’d decided to leave for the day. Nothing to worry about.
Otis picked up his phone and called Bob Gidney at the Ashland Clinic. Otis figured Bob thought Otis was calling to set up another appointment with Russ Tonganoxie. No, said Otis, he had a question.
“Is there some kind of mental disorder that causes people to suddenly start saying ‘fucking’ all the time?”
“Not just that word but all kinds of foul things—whatever comes into the mind comes out the mouth,” Bob said. “It’s called Tourette’s syndrome, named for a French physician in the late 1880s.”
“Is it very serious?”
“Not necessarily—usually only very embarrassing. Have you come down with it?”
“No. But I think a colleague of mine may have.”
“Who?”
“That’s none of your ‘fucking’ business.”
Otis hung up and had a brief second thought or two about whether he should have said something specific to Bob about Pete. Not just about “fucking” but about his trumpet frustration, his troubled thoughts, his walking away from his office and job—his losing it right there in front of Otis.
But Pete said he had already talked to the people at Ashland. Forget it.
Otis saw from his watch that it was almost five o’clock. He picked up a file folder from an executive placement firm in Chicago—headhunters, they were called—that he had contacted secretly to begin looking for a new number two. He had concluded for sure a few months ago that Pete Wetmore definitely was not going to make it. The board had pushed Otis to have a natural and agreed-to succession in place before he was contemplating retirement. So, assuming he stuck with it until he was sixty-five, he still had some time to get things lined up.The file had the photos and bios and dossiers on two men— both white baby boomers in their mid-forties, both now working for giant insurance companies in second- or third-level positions. One was a New Yorker with an MBA from Wharton, the other a Californian who had started in the business as a company lawyer. Both were married with young children, both took
He looked through some monthly sales reports. The Omaha/ Lincoln district was down again—more than 10 percent over February. Don Caney, the district manager, wasn’t making it. Time maybe coming soon to move him back to the home office in the underwriting department, where he started and belonged. There are salesmen and there is everybody else. Caney was an everybody else. Chicago/Peoria was up. Good, good. So was Wichita/Oklahoma City. He checked the insurance categories companywide. A little burst of activity in boat insurance. There had better be. There was always an increase in boat insurance sales in the spring as people got ready for summer.
Then he glanced at some new data from one of the insurance industry’s research institutes. Mandatory air bags for all seats in all cars and vehicles were coming, and the prospect was to save three thousand lives and $21.4 million a year for the insurance industry. Hip, hip, hooray.
There was another
Our Future
report to peruse. The crashingcomputer task force had come from such a report. This one had to do with KCF&C entering the banking business if and when the U.S. Congress and others permitted insurance companies to do so. Some believed there was a great future out there for the insurance company that turned itself into a full-service one-stop financial center. Maybe so, maybe someday.
Otis’s secretary, a sharp and unassuming woman of forty-five from western Kansas named Melissa, inquired on the intercom about Pete Wetmore. She said Mr. Wetmore’s secretary had not seen him since he left to attend the conference room meeting with Otis two hours ago. Pete had said to tell her that an emergency had come up and that he’d decided to leave for the day. Nothing to worry about.
Otis picked up his phone and called Bob Gidney at the Ashland Clinic. Otis figured Bob thought Otis was calling to set up another appointment with Russ Tonganoxie. No, said Otis, he had a question.
“Is there some kind of mental disorder that causes people to suddenly start saying ‘fucking’ all the time?”
“Not just that word but all kinds of foul things—whatever comes into the mind comes out the mouth,” Bob said. “It’s called Tourette’s syndrome, named for a French physician in the late 1880s.”
“Is it very serious?”
“Not necessarily—usually only very embarrassing. Have you come down with it?”
“No. But I think a colleague of mine may have.”
“Who?”
“That’s none of your ‘fucking’ business.”
Otis hung up and had a brief second thought or two about whether he should have said something specific to Bob about Pete. Not just about “fucking” but about his trumpet frustration, his troubled thoughts, his walking away from his office and job—his losing it right there in front of Otis.
But Pete said he had already talked to the people at Ashland. Forget it.
Otis saw from his watch that it was almost five o’clock. He picked up a file folder from an executive placement firm in Chicago—headhunters, they were called—that he had contacted secretly to begin looking for a new number two. He had concluded for sure a few months ago that Pete Wetmore definitely was not going to make it. The board had pushed Otis to have a natural and agreed-to succession in place before he was contemplating retirement. So, assuming he stuck with it until he was sixty-five, he still had some time to get things lined up.The file had the photos and bios and dossiers on two men— both white baby boomers in their mid-forties, both now working for giant insurance companies in second- or third-level positions. One was a New Yorker with an MBA from Wharton, the other a Californian who had started in the business as a company lawyer. Both were married with young children, both took
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