Trying for New

On the plane and all buckled in; at least most of us were.  Judith(age 7) to the right, Kira(5) to the left and Eddie(1) on my lap – he was the one not buckled in; good luck kid. Holding him meant I wouldn’t have a free hand to hold a book and it would be about six hours before getting to Ireland. Time enough to mentally review what had taken us to this point and what that feeling of having forgotten something was all about.

It had all started with that phone call from my former assistant, Jim H.. “Hey Ed, ISI has decided to open a facility in Ireland, know anyone who could set that up?”  “I’ve never been to Ireland, let’s talk.”

It had been a little over ten years since I had worked for for  ISI and my departure was not under the best of circumstances. In point of fact, I had given them six months notice and then did exactly that right on schedule.

Who gives six months notice? Bit of an interesting story there; at least I think so, let’s see if you’ll agree. As I said, it all started a decade or so ago and began with a rather routine, and altogether boring meeting of  the Management Committee.

 The purpose of that particular meeting was to review a report from a Quality Control expert concerning a recent study. There were seven members on this Committee; their average education was a Master’s degree (I brought the average down) so they should have been able to follow the proceedings, but what was actually happening was an argument between that expert and myself while everyone else more or less napped with their eyes open.

My position was that the expert was comparing apples and oranges since while he may have understood statistics, he clearly did not understand the products.

And then Dr. Eugene Garfield, the Founder and President of the company, came in. That woke everyone up and motivated an abundance of opinions, mostly contrary to my own.

I was getting pissed off  and, maybe, just a little defensive.

And then Gene says: “Well, Ed, don’t you see what everyone is trying to say……”  I interrupted: “Gene you came into this meeting 45 minutes late; why don’t you just hold off on your opinion until you get an idea about what’s going on.”

You could have heard a pin drop from way over in a far corner of the room. Garfield’s favorite subordinates were the ones who always agreed with him; he especially did not like to be corrected in public. Meeting over.

A few weeks went past and then Peter, Gene’s step-son, dropped by my office. “Gene’s thinking of reorganizing things and having fewer people reporting directly to him. How would you feel about reporting to Phil S. (the IT VP)?”

 Phil was my least favorite person in the company.

“Well”, I said; “it’s Gene’s company and he can do as he wishes, but the day that becomes effective is my last day.” Peter left and all was quiet for a month or two. And then he was back.

The name that was floated this time was Gabriella, the Director of the Chemistry product line. Not a very logical candidate, but at least not an enemy of mine. (And by “enemy”,  is meant in the sense of office politics; you might die economically but not literally, usually.)

So I said, “fine, let’s do that and I will leave in six months and in the meanwhile I'll hire and train a replacement.” We were all in agreement.

For my replacement, I hired someone with a Masters in Library Science, just as I knew Garfield would want, but who I also knew wouldn’t be able to do the job. To make up for that bit of revenge, I insisted they hire back my former assistant. He had left to try opening his own business. Sadly, that was a gas station at the start of our first major gas crisis and now he really needed a job. He would also be able to get the job done.

And off I went for other adventures. At the time Jim called me about Ireland, I was six months away from becoming vested in my then current employer’s pension plan. But I didn’t plan on living that long (family medical history) on the one hand and on the other was my wife, Karen,  who had become a full blown drug addict and was in yet another rehab.

I had no particular reason to believe that the results this time would be any different than in the past. I was sure she would not want to go to Ireland. Or, at the least, if she did, she wouldn’t have any contacts there.

So, there I was, meeting with Garfield to negotiate a contract. My main requirement was that I would be completely autonomous  with respect to anything involving Ireland. (That clause would later become very important!)

Whoops, there goes the seat belt sign; landing soon; would have been nice to get some sleep; also have to adjust my watch, not to mention myself, ahead five hours; whatever - let’s go see what is going to happen. Whatever it is, it will be something new.

Oh, I remembered what I had forgotten! I had told the IDA (Irish Development Authority) that I wouldn’t need a driver so I would be renting a car at the airport and there was something about the steering wheel……..