Read Online Overload by Arthur Hailey - Free Book Online Page A

majority, which means we continue
    what someone called our 'moderate line."'
    "And make goddam sure," Ray Paulsen cautioned Nim, "you keep it moderate
    on those TV talk shows."
    Nim glared at Paulsen, but contained his anger, saying nothing.
    As the meeting broke up, the participants divided into smaller seg-
    ments-twos and threes-discussing their separate, special interests.
    "We all need a few defeats," Eric Humphrey told Nim cheerfully on the way
    out. "A certain humbling from time to time is good."
    Nim avoided comment. Before today's meeting be bad wondered if the old
    guard's laissez-faire viewpoint about public relations could be sustained
    after the events of last week. Now be had the answer. Nim wished, too,
    that the chairman had supported him. He knew that if the subject had been
    one on which Humphrey held strong views they would have prevailed,
    regardless of any vote.
    "Come in," the chairman said as they neared their adjoining offices down
    the hallwav from the conference room. "There's something I want you to
    handle."
    The chairman's office suite, while more spacious than others on the
    senior management floor, still conformed to a GSP&L policy of being
    relatively spartan. This was to impress on visitors that shareholders'
    and customers' money was spent on essentials, not frills. Nim, following
    custom, went to a lounge area containing several comfortable chairs. Eric
    Humphrey, after crossing to his desk to pick up a file, joined him.
    Though it was bright daylight outside and windows of the suite commanded
    a view across the city, all draperies were drawn, with artificial
    lighting on. The chairman always evaded questions about why he
    37
     

worked this way, though one theory held that, even after thirtN, years, he
    missed the view of his native Boston and would accept no substitutes.
    "I presume you've seen the latest report in here." Humphrey indicated the
    file which was labeled:
    PROPERTY PROTECTION DEPARTMENT
    Subject: Theft of Power
    "Yes, I have."
    "Obviously the situation's getting worse. I know in some ways it's a
    pinprick, but it makes me damned angry."
    "A twelve-million-dollar loss per year is a whopping pinprick," Nim
    observed.
    The report they were speaking of, by a department bead named Harry London,
    described ways in which stealing of electric power and gas had become
    epidemic. The method of theft was through tampering with meters-usually by
    individuals, though there were indications that some professional service
    firms were involved.
    Eric Humphrey mused, "The twelve million figure is an estimate. It could be
    less, or perhaps a whole lot more."
    "The estimate is conservative," Nim assured him. "Walter Talbot believed
    that too. If you recall, the chief pointed out there was a two percent gap
    last year between electric power we produced and the amount we were able to
    account for-billings to customers, company use, line losses, et cetera."
    It was the late chief engineer who had first sounded the alarm within GSP
    & L about theft of service. He, also, prepared a report-an early and
    thorough one which urged creation of a Property Protection Department. The
    advice was acted on. It was one more area, Nim thought, in which the
    chief's contribution would be missed.
    "Yes, I do recall," Humphrey said. "That's an enormous amount of
    unaccounted-for electricity."
    "And the percentage is four times higher than two years ago."
    The chairman drummed fingers on his chair arm. "Apparently the same is true
    with gas. And we can't just sit back and let it happen."
    "We've been lucky for a long time," Nim pointed out. "Power theft has been
    a worry in the East and Midwest far longer than it has been here. In New
    York last year Con Edison lost seventeen million dollars that way.
    Chicago-Commonwealth Edison-which sells less electricity than we do and no
    gas, set their loss at five to six million. It's the same in New Orleans,
    Florida, New Jersey . . ."
    Humphrey interrupted impatiently, "I