Meeting of the Board | Page 2

Alan Nourse
desk. Oh, well. It could have

been worse. They might have fired him like poor Cartwright last month.
He'd just have to listen to that morning buzzer.
The reports were on his desk. He picked them up warily. Maybe they
wouldn't be so bad. He'd had more freedom this last month than before,
maybe there'd been a policy change. Maybe Torkleson was gaining
confidence in him. Maybe--
The reports were worse than he had ever dreamed.
"Towne!"
Walter jumped a foot. Bailey was putting down the visiphone receiver.
His grin spread unpleasantly from ear to ear. "What have you been
doing lately? Sabotaging the production line?"
"What's the trouble now?"
Bailey jerked a thumb significantly at the ceiling. "The boss wants to
see you. And you'd better have the right answers, too. The boss seems
to have a lot of questions."
Walter rose slowly from his seat. This was it, then. Torkleson had
already seen the reports. He started for the door, his knees shaking.
It hadn't always been like this, he reflected miserably. Time was when
things had been very different. It had meant something to be vice
president of a huge industrial firm like Robling Titanium. A man could
have had a fine house of his own, and a 'copter-car, and belong to the
Country Club; maybe even have a cottage on a lake somewhere.
Walter could almost remember those days with Robling, before the
switchover, before that black day when the exchange of ten little shares
of stock had thrown the Robling Titanium Corporation into the hands
of strange and unnatural owners.
* * * * *
The door was of heavy stained oak, with bold letters edged in gold:

TITANIUM WORKERS OF AMERICA Amalgamated Locals Daniel
P. Torkleson, Secretary
The secretary flipped down the desk switch and eyed Walter with pity.
"Mr. Torkleson will see you."
Walter pushed through the door into the long, handsome office. For an
instant he felt a pang of nostalgia--the floor-to-ceiling windows looking
out across the long buildings of the Robling plant, the pine paneling,
the broad expanse of desk--
"Well? Don't just stand there. Shut the door and come over here." The
man behind the desk hoisted his three hundred well-dressed pounds and
glared at Walter from under flagrant eyebrows. Torkleson's whole body
quivered as he slammed a sheaf of papers down on the desk. "Just what
do you think you're doing with this company, Towne?"
Walter swallowed. "I'm production manager of the corporation."
"And just what does the production manager do all day?"
Walter reddened. "He organizes the work of the plant, establishes
production lines, works with Promotion and Sales, integrates Research
and Development, operates the planning machines."
"And you think you do a pretty good job of it, eh? Even asked for a
raise last year!" Torkleson's voice was dangerous.
Walter spread his hands. "I do my best. I've been doing it for thirty
years. I should know what I'm doing."
"Then how do you explain these reports?" Torkleson threw the heap of
papers into Walter's arms, and paced up and down behind the desk.
"Look at them! Sales at rock bottom. Receipts impossible. Big orders
canceled. The worst reports in seven years, and you say you know your
job!"
"I've been doing everything I could," Walter snapped. "Of course the

reports are bad, they couldn't help but be. We haven't met a production
schedule in over two years. No plant can keep up production the way
the men are working."
Torkleson's face darkened. He leaned forward slowly. "So it's the men
now, is it? Go ahead. Tell me what's wrong with the men."
"Nothing's wrong with the men--if they'd only work. But they come in
when they please, and leave when they please, and spend half their time
changing and the other half on Koffee-Kup. No company could survive
this. But that's only half of it--" Walter searched through the reports
frantically. "This International Jet Transport account--they dropped us
because we haven't had a new engine in six years. Why? Because
Research and Development hasn't had any money for six years. What
can two starved engineers and a second rate chemist drag out of an attic
laboratory for competition in the titanium market?" Walter took a deep
breath. "I've warned you time and again. Robling had built up accounts
over the years with fine products and new models. But since the
switchover seven years ago, you and your board have forced me to play
the cheap products for the quick profit in order to give your men their
dividends. Now the bottom's dropped out. We couldn't turn a quick
profit on the big, important accounts, so we had to cancel them. If you
had let me manage the company the way it should have been run--"
Torkleson had been slowly
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