Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 09:17:38 -0500 (EST)
From: "Publishing@TomCup.com" <publishing@tomcup.com>
Subject: Airport Voyeur Part 2 by Adam Bricker Chapter 5 - A/Y, AF

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Airport Voyeur
Part II
Chapter 5
Turning the Promotion Around
By Adam P. Bricker
AdamBrick@tomcup.com


"Brian, I'll talk with Margarite.  She knows my schedule better than I do.
If she said I'm available, that's probably the case.  Tell me about this
law suit."

"I never thought I'd have to deal with this.  I've always been racially
balanced for years and very strong in my affirmative action hiring women.
Last week I had a problem with a branch manager and fired the employee."

"Well, what is the reason for the suit then?" I asked.

"They claim I made sexual advances to this branch manager."

"Brian, I didn't know you had any female branch managers," I said.

"I don't this was a guy!  They're claiming I assaulted a guy!  They must
think I'm gay!  Adam, I'm married and have three boys.  What do they think
of me?  How am I going to handle this?  I need you to come help me prepare
a defense." He was very excited.  As he'd been talking his blood pressure
seemed to be rising.

"Brian, if Margarite said I can be there, I will.  We'll figure this out.
When did you get the papers?  Today?"

"Yes, they say I'm putting the moves on another guy!  What am I going to
do?"

"Brian, go get a drink.  Settle down and I'll be there ASAP.  I'm in
Colorado for the next four days with a client.  I'll have Margarite get
tickets and we'll take care of this when I get there."

I finished the rest of the call and dropped the receiver in the cradle.
How was I going to help a guy defend himself against a sexual harassment
suit with what I'd been doing for the last two weeks?

			*** *** *** *** *** ***

Brian looked miserable and obviously had not been getting sleep since I
talked to him five days ago.  This was not a legal case I was going to get
into, for obvious reasons, but Brian was a friend.  I wasn't a lawyer and
he could handle that part of the situation but I knew Brian and had worked
with him and his company for years.

Over the last eleven years we'd gone from a good client-consultant
relationship to really great friends.  At this point I didn't care if this
visit was billable or not, I wanted to be there for him.

"So tell me about the situation," I said.  We were sitting in his office
with a carafe of coffee and two mugs.  On the credenza was a tray of Danish
pastries.  The office was mostly rosewood furniture with black marble tops.
The chairs were Henry Miller probably $1,400 each, the original paintings
on the wall were from a local artist in northern Ohio, Ben Richmond; they
reminded me of Andrew Wyeth in his early days but with a little more
strength.  The carpet was not generic `commercial grade' junk but good
burgundy plush with an oriental on top of it in the center of the room.

Brian had on a forest green shirt with French cuffs.  I've never seen a
shirt that color with French cuffs, but then knowing Brian, this could be a
custom tailored shirt.  He was sporting a strong yellow and brown patterned
tie, and brown slacks with front pleats.  The brown wing-tips completed the
ensemble and to all of us he was Mr. GQ.

"Two weeks ago, I was completing quarterly branch reviews and had gone to
Appleton to meet with Julian regarding the store's performance out there.
I arrived on Wednesday evening and had dinner with Julian.  The store's
performance has not been good and we needed to make some changes.  On
Thursday we spent the day reviewing the financial situation and the
marketing.  We called in managers from various departments.  I talked to
employees that had worked there for years and I really felt that Julian was
not doing the job we needed in that location.  Thursday night we had dinner
at my hotel and I tried to explain to him the situation as I saw it.  I
wanted to bring in another manager and transfer him to a larger location as
assistant manager.  I spent a lot of time trying to show him the reasons
and letting him know that I valued him as an employee.  He's been with me
for almost five years now.  He's younger than most of my managers but had
done a good job in the last position and I felt he could handle the
promotion."

I took another sip of coffee and continued to watch Brian.  He continued,
"Julian didn't see the problem as I did and wasn't very receptive to the
idea of a transfer.  We had been discussing it for a couple hours and had a
few drinks.  I thought it was time to finish drinking and suggested we
continue the conversation upstairs in my suite.  I wasn't making advances,
just wanted to leave the restaurant and the booze.  When we got upstairs
Julian really changed.  He'd had quite a few drinks and wasn't walking very
well.  I had to help him into the suite and guided him to the couch.  He
pulled me down on him and hugged me.  I tried to get up and get him to
release me, but he started bawlling and saying I didn't love him anymore."

Things were beginning to come into focus.  I could see what had brought
this on and now we had something concrete to work on.  It wasn't going to
be a slam dunk but I think it would be manageable.

Brian continued, "I finally got him sitting up, and I sat over in the
chair.  I started talking to him to find out what he meant and he told me
that he had always thought that I gave him this assignment because I loved
him and now I was taking it away because I had someone else to give it to.
I tried to explain to him that this assignment was not because I loved him
but because he was a good employee.  He had had too much to drink and
wasn't making sense.  In fact he was starting to nod off to sleep even as
we talked.  I didn't want him driving in that condition so I got him up and
walked him back to the sleeping room and put him in the other double bed.
I didn't even undress him.  Then I got ready for bed and slept in the other
bed.  When he woke up in the morning he was pleading with me not to replace
him that he could do the job I wanted, but I had to give him time.  I told
him we'd been through this last night and in previous memos and I just had
to make the change.  I told him the transfer was still available, but he
was angry with me about that and stormed out."

			*** *** *** *** *** ***

I think we were beginning to get a picture here.  Brian had been managing
with his head and the financial statements, Julian as a young kid had been
managing with his heart or worse yet with his balls.  I had to defuse this
situation.  But it was also possible that Brian had given an impression
that he cared more for Julian than he planned.

"Brian tell me about Julian's early days with your company.  Where did he
come from and how did he do.  He must have been pretty impressive if you
moved him to manager so quickly and at his age."  I had the feeling we
would hear more about the problem if I came from another angle.  Usually
there is more than one side to each argument.

"Let's see, five years ago, Anthony came to me with a young kid that he
thought would be good in our company. We interviewed him and I was very
impressed with his enthusiasm and drive.  We placed him here in the main
location and as an employee he was unbelievable.  He out performed
everyone.  Managers were just aghast at his performance, work ethic and
drive.  He was promoted to department manager in six months or so.  His
attitude was almost contagious.  Employees working for him improved almost
over night.  He was constantly asking questions, he worked evenings on
projects and came in the next morning with drawing and plans.  I eventually
moved him from one department to another until he had served as manager in
every department here.  Then we made him assistant manager for this
location. He did that for about two and a half years and then this position
in Appleton came open.  It was a branch with poor performance and I wanted
his enthusiasm to create the fire there that it had done here.  At first it
was pretty good, but over the last nine months it's really been slipping.
I just don't know what happened.  I've sent him emails with specific
issues, called him on the phone and other managers have gone up to try and
lend their support.  Nothing seemed to be working so I finally flew up to
get to the bottom of the problem and now I get this."

"Tell me about the direction you gave him in his early time with the
company, the way that you shared your vision of the company with him.  Also
what is his family like?  Is he married? Children? Parents?  What is the
background for him?"

"Anthony had met him though one of his kids.  His kid and Julian were
friends from school.  I don't know his family.  He's not married and
doesn't have any kids that I'm aware of.  He lives by himself and that was
one of the nice things about transferring him up there.  It was easy to
make the move and quickly."

Brian sat back and took a deep, deep breath.  He stretched and showed a
very strong chest and I knew from the last eleven years that he had trouble
finding time to exercise but every night after the kids were in bed he went
out on the patio and used the jump rope.  It may not be the normal exercise
for everyone but it fit his schedule and seemed to really have the desired
impact on him.

He continued, "Your question of the vision of the company is interesting
because he is probably the one that I thought had caught the vision the
best of every employee I've ever had.  You told me that if I found
employees who performed and were aligned with my vision I should reward and
recognize them.  I guess that was what I thought I was doing with Julian.
He would come up after the management meetings and ask questions.  We
talked quite a bit.  Sometimes he and I would close the place down.  Like
many other managers I would have all of them over to the house for picnics
and drinks.  He seemed to be the one that showed up first and helped set up
and the one that stayed latest and cleaned up when everyone else had gone.
Some nights I just had him stay in the downstairs guest bedroom when it was
really late.  We'd have a family breakfast and he'd be off the next morning
before lunch.  He always got along with Toni and the kids.  Toni thought of
him as an older child or younger brother.  He fit into what was happening
in our family very comfortably.  Did I cross the line somewhere that I'm
not aware of?" he asked.

"No, I don't think you've crossed the line, but I think you've been naïve.
You opened you heart, your company and your life to a kid that you didn't
know much about.  What you saw was what he wanted you to see.  It may have
been on purpose or may have been just what he thought you wanted to see.
He responded to the attention that you were giving but not seeing exactly
what you were meaning.  I think what happened is you met a love starved kid
and he mistook your attention for love.  He did everything to win your
approval and you responded by giving him more attention every time he did
another job well.  Eventually you gave him what you thought was the
ultimate reward you promoted him to a branch manager.  Did a great job
there, huh?"

I was leading him to see something that he hadn't planned, but he had
created.

"By promoting him to branch manager you pushed him away.  Neither of you
saw that at first.  He went there thinking he would still get the same
attention from you that he had here.  You thought he was strong and
capable.  He is, but his motivation was your approval, not the financial
rewards you probably thought he wanted.  There may be only a few people
that don't respond to financial incentives but they are there.  It sounds
like Julian is one of them.  The longer he was gone and you didn't come and
personally inspect his great job, the less he did.  As this performance
slipped you started criticizing him.  That wasn't what you were trying to
do, but that's what he saw. You sent emails and memos.  You sent other
people, and called him into management meeting to discuss what was wrong,
but you didn't go there and tell him he was good and that you liked what he
had been doing.  Your performance criteria didn't mean as much to him as
you thought; your presence and attention were what he wanted and you
withheld that until two weeks ago.  Then when you asked him to come up to
your room, he thought finally you had given in to what he really wanted all
along."

"Where could he get all that?  What you just described is so far out there
I can't imagine that anyone would ever believe that.  He was a good
employee but I never led him on or told him that he meant anything
personally to me.  If that's what he was thinking he's really not playing
with a full deck."  Brian was embarrassed and I think concerned that I
might actually be right.  I don't think what I described was that far out
there and I think naively Brian may have played into it.

In this case you have to remember a number of things.  Julian was only
about eighteen when he joined the company, a very impressionable age.  If
my guess is right his home life was not filled with love.  Brian was Mr. GQ
and really buff.  He had a fatherly manner with many of his employees and
really watched out for their welfare.  I could see this kid just eating the
attention up and doing anything to get more.  Being taken into the family
when he helped with parties and working nights to impress Brian would not
be surprising.  I'll even go as far as to surmise that the relationship
with his father was not that good.  Time will tell if I am right in this
entire theory.

"What are we going to do about this?  Whether you're right or not I still
have this fucking law suit to beat.  I need help with this.  I have talked
to the lawyer and I set up a meeting with him for tomorrow, so that you
could talk to him.  What else do we need to do?  I can't have this happen,
Toni is already frantic and the other managers have seemed to look at me
sideways before and after meetings for the last week.  I wish you could
have gotten here sooner."

"Brian, it's going to be fine.  Let's take this in stages.  I want the
files on Julian and those for the performance of that branch.  I want you
to write a letter offering him the assistant manager's job.  It's after the
fact but I want it documented that you offered this to him.  Then I want to
know when I can meet with him."

He was writing notes as I spoke.

"Certainly, Adam.  I've got the two files right here."  He handed them
over.  "As you can see, I'm still using the Performance Scoreboards that
you designed five years ago.  I think they'ire part of the culture around
here now, everyone thinks about those points on the scoreboard.  Julian was
one of the best managers at putting together performance points for those
scoreboards.  I'll write the letter this morning.  Clara can have it
printed and we can deliver it by certified courier this afternoon.  What do
you think you can do by seeing Julian?  He's already hired a lawyer and
sued me, what good will talking do at this point?" he asked.

"Would you prefer to settle or go to court?" I asked directly.

"Well I'm not going to take this from Julian, I want my name cleared.  Why
would I want to settle?  I want vindication!  I want my name cleared!  I
want that punk to see that he's playing with the wrong guy!"

"Brian, Brian, settle down.  Fighting this is going to be expensive, could
be long and could have more publicity that you really want.  I'm not sure
what settling will cost, and I'm not sure that it can be done.  I want to
talk to this kid.  If I can find out his perspective, find out what he
really wants, maybe we can settle in a way that everyone is happy.
Postpone the lawyer, and give me a phone number and time to see this kid.
How do you feel about the possibility of Julian being gay?"

"Fuck I don't care if he's purple with little polka dots, but suing me for
making a pass at him is where I draw the line.  I'm sure I've got a number
of gay people who work here, I don't care."

"Would you take Julian back if I can work this out?"  Now I was really
pushing the envelope.  Coming back after a harassment suit was hard on the
employee and the employees that had to work around them.  But it would also
be the best situation to defuse the case and bring back what I think was a
good employee.

"I'll have to think about that," he said

			*** *** *** *** *** *** That night I called Urban
Peak and through Phil Hart got some more information about adoption and
then he put Marcus on the phone.

"Well my little prince how has the last day and a half been?  Tell me
everything." I said.

"Phil assigned me to a room with three other guys.  They're older but he
said that eventually there will be other kids in the program my age and I
can move in with them at that point.  But the older guys are cool.  Two of
them have jobs and one goes to school, so they're not home during the day.
Phil said that I would start school this week, but he's been too busy to
take me over to school and register me.  I gotta couple drawers in a
dresser for my clothes and we got a radio with a tape player in our room."

"You sound like you're happy there.  I'm glad.  I wish I could be there but
we've both got our own things to do.  I'm going to try and call each night
if I can.  But don't get upset or panicked if I miss a night, it doesn't
mean that I'm ignoring you or leaving.  Some times I'm on a plane or with a
client in the evening and won't be able to call you every night."  I'm glad
that he was doing well, but I wanted to be as realistic as we could about
the frequency we could actually count on.

We talked for another 10 minutes.  I told him about my trip and what I was
doing for Brian.  Marcus couldn't believe that this sort of thing would
even happen.  I missed him deep in my soul.  Talking on the phone was the
best I could do at the moment.  Knowing Marcus was on the other end was all
that I really needed.  I didn't care if he or I said anything, so long as I
could hear him breathe and know that he was there listening to me.  I was
originally going to do something nice for this kid, now this kid was what
was nice in my life.  I felt caught, but very happy.  I just had to figure
out how to make things work for the two of us.

Eventually we hung up.  It was expensive to sit on a telephone call and not
talk.  It seemed frivolous but it had been long enough.  I pulled out my
computer and plugged into the high-speed internet connection and got on
Monster.com.  I started searching for jobs in Denver.  If I was going to
adopt Marcus I needed a job and I had to be living in Denver.  On the plane
tomorrow I would start filling in the adoption forms.

			*** *** *** *** *** *** I sat in the diner.  I had
selected a booth far in the back.  I knew it would keep the other customers
away from us at this hour and probably the other waiters too.  The
restaurant was done in 1950's art-deco.  45rpm records were displayed on
the walls, posters of movies from that day ^Ö "Jail House Rock (1957)"
"Lawrence of Arabia (1962)" "Roman Holiday (1953)".  There was a lot of
chrome, red Formica table tops, and a boomerang abstract pattern from back
then.  There were juke boxes in each booth and the nickel really still
worked in them for a music selection.

I'd been waiting for about half an hour.  Julian wasn't really late, I just
wanted to be early, get the feel of the place and be comfortable and
settled before he arrived.  I'd reviewed the files twice since I'd arrived
in Appleton.  The more I read the files the more I came to believe that
what I had told Brian in our meeting yesterday was actually true.  I don't
claim to be psychic or anything.  It just seemed to be the most logical
answer.  I hoped that I could work out a solution that would get Brian out
of this.

The waitress, with the checkered skirt and the little pink handkerchief
pinned to her lapel, came back over with another refill for my coffee.  I
let her top it off.  As she walked away I saw Julian open the outside door.
The picture in his file was a couple years old but he looked the same age
still.  He had a leather bomber jacket on.  His hair was short without
being crew.  It hung as bangs into his forehead and was neatly cut on the
sides.  He had a nice smooth face, clear skin with a couple pimples, one on
his chin and one on his right cheek next to his nose.  Not unusual at this
age, still dealing with the residual issues of becoming a man, which was
happening pretty obviously.  He was five foot ten inches, probably 175
pounds and brown hair, parted on the right side.  The eyes were dark hazel
or gray, and the lips were a very luscious pink.

He stood at the entry area and looked around for someone that he was
supposed to meet.  You've seen the look, scanning the crowd.  He spotted me
as I waved at him and he came back to the booth I had commandeered for the
day.  He stood there looking at me.

"Would you like to sit down?" I asked.  I'd called this meeting and figured
it was my responsibility to get things started.

"My lawyer said I shouldn't talk to you, but it was up to me.  I'm not sure
what you want to talk about but you're not going to change my mind about
the law suit."

"Sit down, and let's see if I can understand what this is all about.  If
you don't do this with me here, you're going to have to do it with Brian
Butcher's lawyer before any trial.  I'm trying to find out if I can help
everyone settle this problem. Sit down, I don't bite and I might actually
help."

"Okay, but just to find out what you want," he said hesitantly, as he slid
into the bench seat on the other side of the booth.  The kid was cute.  I
could see Brian appreciating his looks and poise without really being gay,
this kid had an attitude about him that made you want to take care of him.
He was the adult version of the lost and wet puppy you find sitting on your
front stoop.

"I've had a couple cups of coffee before you arrived but I was thinking of
ordering lunch will you join me?  The tab is on me," I said.  I'd like to
keep this casual and not have him feeling like I was grilling him.

"Okay, they have pretty good chili and hamburgers," he said.

"You eat here often then?" I asked.

"Well when you're single in town, you get tired of cooking for yourself,
and some restaurants are more conducive to eating by yourself than others.
This one's not bad and the food is good."

I signaled for the waitress and she came over.

"What would you like?" she asked.

"Tammy I'll have the Bustin' Burger, fries and a chocolate shake," said
Julian without opening the menu.

"I'll have the same," I said, "make mine well done though."

She left and we looked at each other.  The negotiation was still in full
force.  I wanted to know how he was going to react and he didn't want to
give any ground.  His lawyer had put the fear of the devil, or me into him.
This was going to take some finesse.

"Julian, let me establish a little background first.  I'll tell you a
little about myself and my relationship with the company, then I'd like you
to tell me about getting hired and your first couple positions with the
company.  I don't want to focus on the law suit yet.  I just want to get to
know you and I'd like you to get to know me. Okay?"

"Yeah, sure, go ahead, it's your quarter."

"I started working with Brian about eleven years ago.  Generally I was an
accountant and financial consultant.  I've worked in this industry for
about fifteen years.  In the last ten years I've worked with companies not
only about their financial situation but also about performance standards
like productivity, marketing, asset management, sales training and customer
satisfaction.  Brian tells me that you were one of the most impressive
managers in implementing the performance scoreboards that I designed for
him about seven years ago.  What did you like about those?"

"Well, they were pretty obvious measures of how people were doing.  I just
found that others would get things done better if I established specific
job functions and found ways to measure them.  Sometimes I even made it a
game and they seemed to enjoy it even more."  There was a spark of
excitement when he got going on the subject, but then about three quarters
of the way through he seemed to catch himself and he toned down the
enthusiasm.  I think this might work, if I can get him going.

"How did you find the job with Brian?  Was it advertised in the paper or
was it a bulletin board or on the Internet?"

"Josh was a friend of mine and his dad, Anthony, worked for Brian.  One day
I mentioned that I was looking for a job and Anthony, said he might have a
job at his company.  When I came in to interview he introduced me to
Brian."

"Tell me about the first interview."

"Gosh, I don't know.  Brian asked about what I had taken in school, what
else I had done, which wasn't much and he gave me a tour of the company."

"What job were you applying for?" I asked.

"At that time I would have taken anything.  I had just graduated from high
school and I just needed a job.  They offered me a job in packaging and it
paid more than McDonalds."

"What was your impression of Brian in the interview?" I asked.

"He was a pretty cool boss.  Everyone obviously liked him.  When we toured
the place he knew everyone by name and seemed to even know their families.
He seemed to really take an interest in whoever he was talking to.  He
introduced me to a lot of people there and really made me feel like I was
important.  He had a way of putting his arm around your shoulder and
presenting you to people that made you feel like you were his favorite
friend."

There was a point that I needed to talk to Brian about.

"Who did you report to when you started?" I continued my questions.

"Jerry Crandall was the department manager, but Brian came to many of the
department meetings.  He was always easy to talk to.  If I didn't know what
he was talking about during a department meeting, I'd just ask him after
the session.  He always had time for questions."

"What sort of questions were you asking, or what did you need from him?"

"Gosh, he just answered anything that came up.  He talked about the changes
in the business, the new processes, the productivity and other stuff.  He
is real smart," Julian said.

Burgers and milkshakes arrived and we stopped for a few minutes to begin
the attack on the entrées.  The burgers were good and the milkshakes were
the real thing.  Julian had a smear of ketchup from the hamburger on his
chin that I wanted to reach over and clean off but I knew this was not the
situation to do that.  With my mouth still full, I motioned to him and
brushed my chin to indicate that he needed to clean his chin.  He reached
down and brought up his napkin and wiped from right to left, making a
bigger smudge than he had before.  I smiled and shook my head, letting him
know that he had to do it again.  He pushed the napkin into his water glass
and got it wet and did it again.  That took care of it.

With a few bites of burger to finally absorb the sloshing coffee that was
at the pit of my stomach, I set the sandwich down and started my next
series of questions.  "Brian tells me that you got promoted quickly.  What
do you think helped you achieve such quick advancement?"

"I enjoyed meeting the production and productivity expectations they
established at each level.  I used to go home at night and sit at my dining
room table and work out how I could meet the quota before anyone else.
When I did that they liked what I was doing and I got promoted.  Sometimes
I came in with new ideas about how to organize the production line and
other times I just tried to figure out how we could change what we did so
that we got more pieces per hour.  Jerry really liked what I did and
brought Brian down to see it.  That first time Brian had us come up to his
conference room and do a presentation for all the managers.  I'd never done
that before and was really scared, but Brian introduced us and put his arm
around my shoulder and told everyone what I had done and how proud he was
of our department.  I figured if he was supporting us I couldn't make too
big a mess of explaining what we had done.  I don't think I'll ever forget
that first meeting in the conference room.  The maroon carpet, the big long
table, the fancy chairs, the paneled walls, all that stuff was so neat."

"Julian, tell me about your family.  What do your parents do, do you have
any brothers or sisters?  How old are they?" I asked.  I had a feeling I
knew the answers.  The last couple weeks had been teaching me many things
and I think I knew what he was going to unfold to me as he answered this
question.

"My father is an engineer for Mead and my mother is a legal secretary.  I
have a brother and sister, both younger than me.  Joel is 16 and Robyn is
13.  They're still in high school.  I got my own apartment when I graduated
from high school."  He didn't explain this with a lot of warmth and
emotion.  In fact, he was rather curt about the subject.  His eyes didn't
look at me while he explained this.

"Julian, how do you get along with your brother?" I asked.

"Oh Joel's an okay kid.  He's kinda geaky but not bad.  Dad takes him to
all these science fairs and science Olympiads.  They really get into the
science stuff.  I was never good at that.  That's why I really enjoyed
working for Brian.  It's what I was good at."

"Tell me about your sister," I asked him to continue.

"Robyn is a cheer leader for the freshman team and she competed for junior
miss last year.  She's real busy and mom spends most of her time before and
after work getting her to practice and training."

"You didn't like coming out here to Appleton did you?" I asked.  I think I
was really piecing this together.

"Yeah, I really did.  It was a promotion and Brian was really counting on
me to turn it around.  It was just not what I thought I would find here.
There weren't performance expectations that I could beat, like before.  And
Brian didn't like the job I was doing; all he's ever done since I came out
here is send me memos about how bad I'm doing."

"Julian, if we stopped this conversation now, I'd crucify you in court and
Brian would win.  But that wasn't why I came out here to talk to you.  I
wanted to find out if we could work out a way to keep you as an employee.
You're one of the best employees that Brian has and I want this to work for
both of you.  You didn't really want to sue Brian did you?"  I needed to
get some agreement and see if I could move this negotiation in my
direction.

"No but he . . . He said I was doing a bad job and he was taking the branch
away.  He didn't care what I was doing anymore.  All he was doing was
criticizing me.  I couldn't do anything right anymore, then he came out
here with his performance scoreboards and financial reports and just yelled
at me.  I guess I kinda got druink and said some things I shouldn't, but he
just didn't understand what I'd been trying to do or keeping inside.  I've
worked my tail off for that guy and then he was going to fire me."

I could sense the anger and frustration but underneath it I could also feel
the affection and love he had for Brian.  I think I was right.  It was time
to try the whole story on Julian.

"Julian, I'm going to tell you how I see this entire situation.  I want you
to be patient with what I'm telling you and listen for what I'm saying.  I
really want this to end up good for you, I'm not looking to go to court and
I want you and Brian to be able to get together again as friends.  Would
that be a solution that you'd like to see also?"  In sales training they
tell you to get the prospect to continue saying yes and eventually they
will have said yes so many times that they will think buying your product
was their idea.  I was trying to work on the same premise.

"I never wanted to hurt Brian but he was firing me and it wasn't my fault
the branch wasn't performing.  He never came out here and saw it for
himself.  I tried to tell him what was going on and he just kept sending me
memos."  His voice had a little crack to it as he was telling me and I
think there was some understanding that he wasn't totally justified in what
he had done, but he didn't know how to say it.

"From what you've told me, from what Brian has told me, from looking at the
performance scoreboards and financial statements, I have an impression that
I want to tell you in my words.  Then I want to tell you what I think we
can do that will work for everyone.  First, you joined Brian's company with
no other experience and found an ability that you didn't know you had, and
everyone was pretty excited at how good you were, right?"  He nodded his
head.

"You received recognition for these improvements and it really felt good,
right?  You didn't get this type of recognition from your father, the
scientist.  Your mother was really busy with your sister's competition and
cheer leading, and between the two of them you didn't get much attention.
Getting this recognition at work was something you'd always wanted and it
came almost easy when you applied yourself.  That wasn't bad, but for you
it was new.  You've never had that at school or at home.  I think it was
feeling so good that you kept trying to do more to make sure that it kept
happening.  That's not bad either, but sometimes you reach a point where
you have maxed out what can be done and what you are capable of."

Julian was playing with the straw in his milkshake while he listened to me,
but he was listening.

"I think Brian was pretty proud of you for what you had done in five years
with the company.  He was trying to take care of a problem out here and
give you a promotion. What he didn't see was the support system that you
had back at the main branch was very strong and here you had no one.  You
used to talk things over with Brian and other managers.  You need the
support of other people.  Here you were thrown out on your own.  Emails,
phone calls and memos were not very supportive.  You weren't doing a bad
job here, you just didn't have the support people to bounce ideas off of
and you began to really feel alone.  The more alone you felt the worse you
felt about the memos and emails talking about the branch performance.
Those weren't meant to be personal but I think they became that for you.
Your talent is not in being a lone wolf.  You are not the guy that leads
the charge over the hill, but you are the guy that sees the enemy on the
side of the hill and you set up the artillery to take them out.  You are a
very important part of a company; you just got put in the wrong place."

He had raised his head and was watching me by this point.  Maybe I had
expressed some things he had felt but not known were even happening to him.

"Here's what I would like to propose, it may surprise you."

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