Chapter 45 Chapter Forty-Five

The presentation of the report to Goddard was repeatedly delayed.It was supposed to start at 8:30, but at 8:20 I received an instant email from Florence, informing me that Jock's senior management meeting hadn't finished yet, and let's postpone the presentation until 9:00.Then I received another message from Florence: There is no sign of the meeting ending yet, let's postpone it until half past nine. I'm guessing those executives are fighting to keep their divisions safe from layoffs that would erode their power.In general, they may all be in favor of layoffs, but not their own subordinates.Trion is like any other company: the more people you have on the organizational chart, the more power you have.No one wants to lose troops.

I was so hungry I wolfed down a protein bar.I was tired too, but I was too excited to do anything but work on my PowerPoint presentation and make it more fancy.I added animated transitions between slides; for added comedy, I added a stick figure scratching his head with a question mark dangling above his head.I kept cutting down on words: I remember a "rule of seven"—no more than seven words per line, no more than seven lines or seven bullet points per page.Or "Rule of Five"?You have heard of it too.I guess Jock may not be too patient now, so I keep shortening the text. The more I waited, the more nervous I became, and my PPT slides were changed to become more and more concise, but the special effects of the slides became cooler and cooler.I also learned to make the bars in the histogram lower or higher in front of people's eyes.Goddard is sure to be taken aback.

At 11:30, I finally got a message from Florence telling me to go to the Director's Showcase, saying that the meeting had just ended. When I got there, people were leaving.Some of them I knew—Jim Colvin, director of operations, Tom Lundgren, James Sparling, head of human resources, and some imposing-looking women.Everyone is not very happy.Goddard was surrounded by a buzzing crowd—he was the shortest among them—and he seemed dwarfed by the crowd.He also looked terrible - red circles, bloodshot eyes, bigger than usual eye bags.Camilleti stood beside him, and they seemed to be arguing.I only heard fragments.

"...companies also need metabolism," Camilleti was saying. "...all kinds of resistance, demoralization." Goddard muttered. "The best way to deal with resistance is the policy of iron and blood," Camilleti replied. "I usually like the old way of persuasion," Goddard said wearily.The others gathered in a circle to watch the two argue. “As Al Capone said, nice words and a gun are much more effective than pure nice words,” Camilleti said with a smile. "I guess the next thing you're going to tell me is that you can't make an omelette without breaking an egg."

"You're always one step ahead of me." Camilleti patted Goddard on the back and walked away. At this point I'm busy hooking up my laptop to the projector embedded in the conference table.I hit the electric button to lower the shade. Now it's just Goddard and I in this dimly lit room. "What are we going to do now? Go to a show?" "Sorry, only slide presentations," I replied. "I'm not sure turning off the lights is a good idea, I'm bound to fall asleep before long," Goddard said. My personal failure." "No," I said, and then felt guilty—why should I comfort the CEO? "Anyway," I added, "I'll keep it short."

The demo opened with an animated image of a Tryon Maestro product, with parts of the image flying in from off-screen and coming together perfectly for a cool effect.Next is the little man scratching his head with a question mark floating on his head. I said, "The only thing more dangerous than being in today's consumer electronics market is not being in it at all." Now the screen was showing a fast-paced F1-style car. "Because if you're not the one at the wheel of the car, you're going to be the dead." The next slide read: "Tryon Consumer Electronics - The Good, the Bad, the Bad .”

"Adam." I turned around, "Sir?" "What the hell is this?" A layer of cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck. "That's just the intro," I replied, which was obviously too much of an introduction, "and now we're getting to the point." "Did you tell Florence you were going to do—what's this shit called? P—PPT?" "No……" He stood up, walked to the light switch, and turned on the light. "If you did, she'd tell you—I hate that crap." My face was hot: "I'm sorry, no one mentioned it."

"My God, Adam, you're a bright, creative, thoughtful young man. Do you think I'd like you to waste your time deciding whether to use Arial 18 or TimesRoman 24? God. Why not Just tell me what you think? I'm not a kid anymore and I don't need to be fed the damn malted milk." "I'm so sorry." I said again. "No, I'm the one to say I'm sorry. I shouldn't have lost my temper with you. Low blood sugar, probably. It's lunch time and I'm starving." "I can go down and get some sandwiches," I said. "I have a better idea," Goddard replied.

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