“Tales of a Scorched Coffee Pot” — Chapter 94

In the end, it probably didn’t matter a whole hell of a lot regardless. These interviews were just formalities. Unless knocking it out of the park with wave after wave of mind-blowing revelations, then they have surely just about made up their mind already anyway.

So there are basically two approaches with this. He can either waltz in there having studied and memorized all the standard talking points, though even if doing so to perfection, he would peg his odds of succeeding at about zero. For some reason he has a tremendously difficult time of doing things the “standard” way when he doesn’t actually agree with them. Then again, this is probably common sense, and the way the business world should work, if not the world as a whole. Although some people are admittedly quite gifted at pulling it off.

The second approach, meanwhile, is that he can attack that interview with the things he knows — or at least believes to be — important. The problem with this is that it’s bound to come off a little weird, if he’s talking up points that they don’t expect to hear. And which will probably fail to connect regardless. Still, he considers this the only true angle worth pursuing, one that he wholeheartedly endorses. It also has the added benefit that, in the extreme likelihood that they don’t promote him to president, at least he has aired out these concepts — this could theoretically still set some wheels in motion, and find a home for them anyway.

As the last internal applicant, and with the owners apparently interviewing the candidates in application order, Edgar is therefore the final in-house person to get the call to Bellwether. Up on the second floor offices, which he hasn’t seen since his Accounts Payable days over a year ago, he continues ahead to the conference room in the corner where Rob and Janis, the other Locke daughter, and Carol the Friendly HR rep are already waiting, in four consecutive chairs along the far side. They instruct him to grab a seat across from them, which has already cast this as less than a chummy encounter, something reminiscent of a legal proceeding or maybe even a parole hearing. Right off the bat, Rob asks Edgar why he applied for this job.

“Well, you know, I do believe I would be a good fit for this position,” he says, with a slight chuckle, “although I have to admit, a big part of it is that I was somewhat worried what might happen if I didn’t apply.”

Rob makes a dubious face and questions. “Worried…how? Worried about the company or worried about who we might hire?”

“A little bit of both, I guess,” he replies, though actually not seeing any scenario where these points wouldn’t be connected. All four of them either nod or write something down, or both, offering little otherwise.

He’s not off to a great start, then, as the proceedings already feel a little awkward. Fortunately he is able to right the ship with some slightly more conventional observations. When questioned as to what kind of vision he has for Healthy Shopper Market, he says that, yes, they need to start bringing additional stores aboard if they hope to compete. But that before this happens, things have got to get a lot more organized internally. Pretty standard stuff, in other words. The same applies when asked about immediate improvements he would recommend.

“I think we need to take a good look at sales versus square footage. A lot of our allocations seem…a little bit random. Like, okay, if you think about Palmyra, they’ve got a gigantic beer section — I mean, it’s as big as the produce department. But then if you check out the sales, they don’t really justify it. I think we need to see, okay, how much space is this department taking up, and how much are they doing as a percentage of the sales? You know, but then on the flipside, I think the produce is probably a little under represented there. It seems like a store doing that kind of volume should probably have a more exciting produce section.”

All of this is fairly boilerplate, though, not really containing any tremendous revelations, even though it seems nobody has yet considered these specific points. It’s when he dives a little deeper, however, that his comments prove a bit more eyebrow-raising, unsure glance inducing. Yet this was all but expected, and these suggestions — left field and weird or not, they are also on target, as far as he’s concerned — are what he thinks of as his best angle, assuming his qualifications alone are not, for differentiating himself from the pack.

“One other thing I was thinking about, although this is somewhat minor, is that we can probably do away with our Monday morning meetings.”

“Do away with the Monday morning meetings?” Rob questions.

“Well, yeah, I mean, for the most part, anyway. Those are pretty much a complete waste of time.”

Edgar understands the rationale here, although about 90% of the justification for them seems to be purely tradition. Everyone has spent their entire career attending similar 10am meetings every Monday, so therefore they must be important. The content is even predictably identical. And yet, these are generally beyond stupid. All they do is gather the merchandisers, store managers, and other assorted bigwigs, where everyone sits around reciting their own particular numbers from a printed out page that was handed to everyone. Maybe a discussion about the customer count or the weather or the average ring…which was again already included at the bottom of the page. More than one place Edgar has worked for, and he can’t be alone in this regard, would go as far as to email everyone the weekly sales report, then print copies out for everyone anyway, which were shoved into their respective mailboxes. Occasional highly micro-managerial types would often go one step further, even, and stroll around asking everyone if they had seen that these reports were in their mailboxes.

You could make a case maybe that the whole point of the meeting was getting together and discussing these numbers, but something meaningful on this front is rarely said. It’s mostly just this, a recitation of the numbers. So what Edgar proposes here is something he’s been mulling over for awhile, which seemed to have found its most natural introduction place during this interview.

“I was thinking that instead of those meetings, everyone could go to one of the stores and have someone spend an hour showing us how they do their job. You know, their daily routines, and how they do things. One week we could see how someone stocks produce, and then the next week watch the meat cutter cut some porterhouses, or, you know, whatever. We could get a little tutorial on how to use various pieces of equipment. I think this would be way more beneficial. Because you wouldn’t just be learning a lot, but you’d also maybe see what some of the challenges were, and how certain things are connected…I don’t know, I just think it’s a really good idea…”

There are shrugs and nods and exchanged favorable glances to this, although Edgar can’t tell if they’re just humoring him, or consider this a genuinely good idea. Whatever the case, it’s one thing to have a couple of interesting observations, but another to implement them. Which brings them to the next expected portion of this chat, which is asking him why he thinks he’s qualified to run Healthy Shopper Market. This is the moment where he will venture the farthest out on a thin but quite sturdy limb, at least as far as he is concerned. The only question is whether they will follow him out to the end of it.

“Well, you know, I think there are a few things that I’m really good at, like numbers, and staying organized, and paying attention to detail. And I’ve pretty much performed every role in the store to some extent. I also have this mindset of, the way I look at things is, I almost consider them a game, you know, where I challenge myself to see: how good can I possibly get at this job? And I feel like that does help me get better. But…I have to say, I really think the most important thing is…I know what I don’t know.”

“You know what you don’t know?” Rob questions, as the primary vocal point for this group — though the others look equally uncertain.

“Yeah.”

“Umm…can you elaborate on that? I mean, why would that be…”

“Well, okay, I feel like I’m just in a place where, I see how everything is connected, and who does what. I would know what areas where maybe I’m lacking, and wouldn’t have a problem, like, surrounding myself with people who are better at them. I don’t know, I just think this is a huge problem. Because I couldn’t tell you how many bosses I’ve had — I’m not just saying here, this is everywhere,” he qualifies, flapping his hands to some extent, though aware that the motion is temporarily distracting them, “it’s like, they don’t know who does what, and they have no idea what they don’t know…I think this is really important, but nobody ever talks about it. It’s just a huge problem in general.”

The concept is here, fully realized in his head, but he’s tripping on his words to some extent. Though even in realizing this as it’s happening, he also recognizes that it probably doesn’t change a lot. It isn’t that this monologue has fallen onto deaf ears necessarily, but rather that the two sides are like mirrors facing one another, with repeating images that fade into infinity. Because on one hand you surely have Rob and the Locke sisters and maybe even Friendly HR thinking, how important or widespread could this problem possibly be? I’ve never heard of it. And yet if anyone would actually utter such a thing, Edgar would have to bite his tongue not to reply, but see, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. That’s why it’s such a huge problem. And this is at a company that has three stores.

He would also like to add, though not nearly deranged enough to do so, and you’re in upper management, so you’re even more distantly removed. That’s the most polite way to phrase it, anyhow. It would be more accurate to bluntly explain, you know, no offense, but the thought that you have any idea about how things work at the store level is really kind of laughable. This is just the nature of their insulation. Additionally enhanced, sure, by the fact that Rob has never really worked in retail.

So this is how these plagues persist. With all due respect, upper management doesn’t know what it doesn’t know, either. Which in turn makes them ill informed to accurately weigh the candidates for president, which has them relying on the same old fail safes, on whether someone talks a good game and makes serious facial expressions and seems “managerial.”

But pertaining directly to Edgar’s point about the store level chieftains, what you might term middle management, this is far more influential and detrimental. You take someone like Corey Brown, and that’s a figure who willfully erected blinders to block out any elements whatsoever that would make him feel like he didn’t know everything. In his case, it was intentional. But most management figures are not nearly this extreme. It’s just a function of their job, that as they’ve risen through the ranks, they’ve lost touch with how things actually work. Many have had others doing everything for them for so long that they couldn’t jump in with most processes if they had to. Granted, this isn’t so much of a problem in and of itself, because they shouldn’t ever need to perform these roles. Someone like a president should theoretically be dedicating himself only to next level stuff. The real issue lies with understanding who is doing what below them, and how these are connected, and appraising employees accordingly. This is why so many a review process, or even an information gathering session where they’re asking you for the progress you’re making, typically only involves your bosses reacting slowly, cautiously, asking few specifics. Relying on what sounds good, who is projecting the most conventional looking confidence, and intensely studying you as if believing themselves world champion poker players.

So what’s the solution? They don’t ask, but if someone did, Edgar admittedly wouldn’t know the 100% perfect answer, either. He wonders at times if you took a committee approach, though, if this wouldn’t work. In fact, if you took their specific crew over at their Central office right now, he thinks that this might not only work, but work better than anything else on the table. If Rob told everyone, look, just keep doing what you’re doing. Vince can send me the numbers every week, or, ah, ahem…whatever it is that he does. Anything really important you all can get together and reach a consensus on, which I would probably have to approve anyway.

But assuming they are dedicated to the single figurehead concept, you would need someone who was able to maintain that connection, understanding who does what, and knowing what he or she does not know. If an internal candidate, this might even involve hanging on to the most crucial of their current tasks, if it means keeping one foot planted in that world. Does he believe himself to be this person? Well, yes, he doesn’t see why not, if conceding there are a few others who could realistically answer the same way, and be justified in doing so. And surely countless more out there in the open range of the outside world, too. Whether the interviewees themselves understand the gaps in their knowledge well enough to even determine this, though, is another question entirely.

When they ask him if he is a team player, though, and if it would be a problem to manage people he used to work beside, he says he doesn’t picture this being an issue. The example he points to is the current team they have of sorts between him and the two receivers, Sharon and Sarah, that while Edgar is generally deferred to and rightly considered to head up that operation, it isn’t as though he is really “in charge” of them. They are in contact constantly and the atmosphere is a collaborative one, as they work together figuring things out. And if this isn’t a metaphor for how he envisions the entire company should function, then nothing else is.

Things wrap up with some lighter, rapidfire questions that the Locke sisters are throwing his way. The last book he read, what he does with his free time — all of which, Edgar is impressed to observe, they are furiously scribbling down. Many more along similar lines, concluding with one final challenge, that he describe himself with a single word.

“Industrious,” Edgar says.

“Ooh! I don’t think we had any others that started with an i, did we?” Janis marvels, turning to her older sister.

“No, I don’t believe so!”

“Industrious…hmm!” Rob says, nodding approvingly. And they scribble this down as well.

So whatever. He thinks this went reasonably well, as well as it possibly could for someone who has never done that job before. But he doesn’t believe they ever really considered him a viable candidate. This is just the impression he was receiving up there in the conference room. Then again, an alternate way of examining this is to consider that if Corey Brown were still here, then Rob would have surely slid him right on into the president’s role, without ever posting the thing. For that matter, this could still happen with Vince. If those two are thought of as fit for that job, then Edgar can absolutely handle it as well. Absolutely. But so could Billy, Brian, Craig, Dale and Destiny, too, this being the case. So it really is still up in the air. Although Edgar clings to his original impression, that none of them are flashy enough picks for Rob, that they would amount to conceding he is not a big deal.