Robert and linda connive

Robert glumly sat across the desk from Linda

...going through the motions of “briefing” the CEO for the weekly Management Committee meeting.

Half listening to Robert, with her attention on her computer screen, she interrupted him. “The stock is down 14 cents.”

Mouth still open from his uncompleted sentence, Robert frowned.

“And tomorrow it’ll be up 15 cents and will keep trading in the $10 range just like it has been for two years.”

They shared a moment of silent contemplation.

“Until we fix it.”

Linda looked up from her screen and gazed out the window.

“There was a time when I thought I had all the money in the world…that I had finally gotten what I deserved. It seemed to come almost all at once when Petr Dusek and the board were using stock option awards instead of cash that they needed to fund our rapid growth; when the stock doubled to $120, I was ecstatic. And it just kept rising, rocketing to $200 -- I couldn’t believe it, it was like I’d won the lottery…but, you know, in almost no time, it just became normal; I was rich, that was that.”

She continued to gaze out the window, savouring the memory. Then her expression soured.

“I exercised most of the options; and, I should have sold the stock immediately, goddamn it, but I hung on to it…and then just like that – Microsoft comes out with their version - ok it was a little better than ours - and then the recession hit – and the stock takes a nose-dive.”

She was still staring out the window, shaking her head.

“By the time I’d unloaded all my stock, it was worth $20 – and it’s a good thing I did because now it’s $10. But, I still took a goddam bath.”

Her lips were pursed tightly together.

“Poor Linda,” said Robert. “So, your portfolio is now only worth, what?” --he did the math at lightspeed in his head--“$5 million? And your house must be worth at least that again. Do you think you can get by on that?”

She regarded him with impatience, not having a high tolerance for challenge or criticism.

“It’s human nature, Robert. Everything’s relative. When my net worth was $50 million dollars it’s like…I had limitless possibilities with my life. I could do whatever I wanted, have whatever I wanted. But, here I am, still coming in here, punching a clock.”

What the fuck did you ever do around here to earn fucking 50 million dollars? he thought. You’ve never made a decision that I didn’t hand you. And, with a 10-million-dollar net worth, you sure as shit don’t need to punch a clock here - or anywhere…

He tried not to show the disdain he felt as he responded in a forced display of empathy. “It sucks, I know. By the time I got here, just before the slaughter – with my signing options and all the other options I was granted over 4 years, my average strike price is over $200. We’ll never hit that. I can use the fucking things to line the bottom of my birdcage.”

“I already know all this, Robert. We’ve talked about it often enough.”

Sure Linda, we can talk about your poor destitute lot in life, but let’s not waste any time on mine.

“I brought up the stock price, Linda, to remind us of why we get up and drag ourselves in here every morning.” He looked at his watch. “No one else is going to be able to make it right. Just us.”

“Not to stray from the point, but there are a lot of people in this building with their work here represented in the company stock – with worthless options awards and a flaccid stock price.”

He gave her a sharp look. “I don’t give a shit about anyone else here. I give a shit about m--“--he caught himself, but the slip was obvious– “about us.”

Linda laughed out loud. “Don’t worry, Robert. I’m under no illusions about who you give a shit about.”

He stood up. “I want to make some progress in the MC today.”

Linda looked up at him. “Progress away. Knock yourself out.”

“I’m not going to waste any time. I’m going to put the new guy in his place. The clock’s ticking.”

He regarded her with a neutral expression. She was 25 or 30 pounds overweight, but she had dressed herself in a tailored double-breasted wool jacket and pencil skirt ensemble, probably Michael Kors or Armani, over a silk blouse accessorized by a simple but spectacular string of diamonds, which hung from under her collar – undoubtedly Tiffany. With her expensively and tastefully draped bulk, perfect coif, artfully and meticulously made up face, sloth and gluttony had evidently fought vanity to a draw.

The path she’d trodden to this office had been almost embarrassingly easy. When Petr Dusek bought the company in 2005, Linda had been a Director of something or other. Almost the entire executive team, the whole C suite had resigned or been turfed. Linda was an adequate administrator, better than average with numbers and could find her way around a spreadsheet; she ended up in the CEO’s office almost by default. He guessed that Petr considered her a known quantity at Pyrotech and could keep the ship running smoothly, while he tended to all his other businesses, at least, until he found a leader to take the job. And here she was still. He was puzzled that Petr hadn’t replaced her given the lacklustre performance of the company; the results must have been just okay enough, and Petr must have so much else on his plate, that he couldn’t be bothered to deal with it. Or, he was planning to sell Pyrotech and take his losses – in which case, there would be no chance for his – okay, and Linda’s – plans to be realized. If Pyrotech were sold, it would be dismantled, and the patents sold off. Fuck. They had until the planned Athena product launch date in the first week of September to make it happen – or lose everything.

With the exception of himself and Kelly Chan, both hired after Petr bought Pytrotech, the rest of the executive team, like Linda, had also all been promoted from within: Mary Jane Flanigan, to VP Human Resources, Dave Ellott, to VP Manufacturing, Eric Wilson, to VP Development and Mike Cummings to VP Sales. Petr Dusek was a big believer in performance-based compensation, so stock options were rained down on the team – Linda as CEO getting a huge allotment. Two years later, Petr did an Initial Public Offering at $150; the stock quickly ran up to over $200.

And Linda’s net worth at that time had been close to $50 million – just for showing up every day.

It was right around then that the previous CFO had cashed out and fucked off and Robert had been hired to replace him. His signing options and the truckload of options he had been awarded that first year had an average strike price higher than the then current stock price of $205.

Then it all took a swan dive into the toilet.

First, several competitors, some of the big players, introduced products that challenged Pyrotech’s category leadership for the first time. There were rumblings even then that Pyrotechnique had peaked. Soon after, the Great Recession kicked the shit out of Pyrotech and every other company on the face of the earth. The stock went into free fall and hit bottom at $5. It bounced back a bit but had remained at about $10 for the last three years.

Poor Linda’s spectacular wealth had shrivelled, and she now had to scrape along at a paltry $10 million or so. As Robert watched her, she made some comment she found amusing, and he offered her a slight smile. It would be so much easier to get done what had to be done if he was in that chair, but there was no way he could finesse that. He had to grit his teeth and work through Linda. He could almost tolerate her pedestrian intelligence and bovine manner except for one thing that grated on him: her wealth – even at its current reduced level – was the most spectacular example he’d ever known of someone being in the right place at the right time: but she believed she’d earned every penny.

And with $210 options and a $10 stock price his wealth was equal to the square root of jack shit.

He turned and left Linda’s spacious, tastefully appointed corner office.