“It’s hard to forget someone who gave you so much to remember.” —Unknown
There was a huge advertisement in the local newspaper, The Daily Gleaner, in January 1981 for all kinds of data processing positions. However, the applications for any advertised position was supposed to be sent to a post box number which I found strange. In any case, I mentioned to Lynda about the opportunities and said I could be qualified to apply for at least four advertised positions. She said we are committed to two years with Gord and we should stick to it.
The kids were getting used to walking to their new school which was located only a couple of blocks from our home. Lynda started volunteering again to be with the kids. They were making new friends again. We felt bad for dragging them away from their friends but we also felt that they got to learn how to adapt to the changes in their lives.
Lynda was keeping herself busy with decorating and redecorating each room in the house and adding some more furniture to the living room. Concurrently, she was actively participating in her sorority activities. She used to go out and have coffee with her sorority sisters regularly. She used to bake cakes and cookies for their monthly meetings and she never stopped talking about their social activities. It made me feel good as we used to complain about Fredericton’s weather and the mentality of the local people constantly before she got hooked with her sorority sisters. She knew that she would continue to be a part of the sorority no matter where we lived and it was indeed a gift from Fredericton.
As far as my work was concerned, I kept myself busy with the refining of the future model for the Consumer Sales Tax system which required several modifications in the interest of clarity and lucidity. I made a presentation to Gord and senior folks in the department about the future model and they all seemed to be happy with the way it was set up.
All of a sudden in the first week of February 1981, we were notified to attend a big meeting in the new building where they had a huge conference room. This notification only included anybody at the level of system analysts and above as the other folks like programmers, key punch operators, computer operators and other support personnel were exempted. There was widespread of speculation about the meeting. It seemed like everyone was coming up with their own theories based on certain assumptions Everybody appeared to be assuming on certain assumptions. I tried to stay away but some of the folks thought I had a direct link to Gord and they started getting into a loop of hunches, contemplations, and deliberations. I felt sorry for them but perhaps the main reason for all kinds of hypotheses was the fact that that notification was signed by the Deputy Minister, Supply and Services, who was Gord’s boss. I wanted to be prudent by not asking Gord directly about the meeting and putting him in a difficult position and Lynda agreed with my conclusion.
Finally, we all gathered in a huge conference room in the new building with a nice stage and microphone setup. Gord with his boss along with 5 other folks – 3 men, and 2 women – were sitting on the stage and everybody in the conference room was conjecturing persistently about them. Sitting in the third row and watching other folks, I appreciated the fact that one of the factors that can make a wait feel endless is awareness of time. A minute can feel like a very long wait which it did. I knew that the Deputy Minister had ultimate power to do anything he wanted as he reported to then Minister of Supply and Services, Harold Fanjoy who reported directing to the Premier, Richard Hatfield. I realized that whatever the topic of the meeting was, it had to be extraordinarily important.
Finally, the Deputy Minister stood up and walked to the microphone and everybody in the conference room stopped talking. If I remember correctly, the essence of what he said at the meeting was as follows:
- I am here to tell you that I am not happy with the overall performance of the IT department under Gord Scott’s leadership. I acknowledge the fact that there were some successes here and there since he took over the department. I also recognize that this department was a total mess when he accepted the job with us. Nonetheless, it’s not acceptable to me as I cannot justify the expenditure associated with the department when I compare the overall performance of the department;
- Based on Gord’s recommendations, I met with the senior partners of a company called Touché Ross who had a track record of helping other provincial IT departments. They convinced me that there’s not a shortage of qualified IT personnel in our department. They thought that most of these folks are in the wrong jobs – a mismatch of talents – which isn’t uncommon in IT departments;
- He said I signed a contract with the company and these five folks from Touché Ross are assigned to help us and their recommendation are that:
- To fire everybody in this conference room. In other words starting from this moment you all have no jobs with the department. Yet, you will continue to do your job as usual and get paid accordingly;
- These folks have already prepared a list of jobs with adequate explanations which are required to be fulfilled to boost the performance of the department;
- They have also added a new section to our organization which they thought was missing in order to bridge the gap and we will be looking for the right person to head up this section;
- You as an individual need to review those jobs and determine which particular job you think you are better qualified for and feel free to apply for that job, explaining why you think you have something to offer for that job;
- Everybody will be interviewed by these five folks and they will determine whether or not you ‘are qualified for that job; and
- As a result of these efforts, some of you may be qualified for an altogether different job or promotion with increase in your salaries. At the same time there is a possibility that some of you may end up getting no job offer whatsoever or a different job with different scale of pay with different responsibilities.
- As soon as he finished explaining, he said Gord will further explain and answer your questions as I have another meeting to go to. However, before I go, I need to say that if anybody has any problems with anything I said here, he or she can go and see the Premier as I had briefed him before I came to this meeting and he supported the approach which was presented to you. He said good luck.
Gord stood up and approached the mike with a smile and said it will take another few minutes to go over some more points:
- We have formed a committee with the five Touché Ross folks and all my directors and I am heading this committee with the responsibility to report to my boss the progress of this initiative on a weekly basis;
- Furthermore what you need to know is that we cannot afford to disturb your current work regardless of the overwhelming merits of this new initiative. In other words, please keep doing whatever you are supposed to do;
- Please keep it in mind that the faster you can review the listed available jobs and apply for any suitable job or jobs attaching your updated professional resume the faster you will be interviewed; and
- We will make sure that as soon as you are interviewed for a particular job, you will be notified within a day or two with the intention to minimize the stress.
Before he handed over the mike, Gord said here’s Gill Marco who’s leading the team and he would like to further explain the process and his role.
Gill took over the mike and said good morning to everybody and started introducing his team members one by one. He said he had been with Touché Ross for a long time and he had done these kinds of projects in the provincial governments. He spoke about his background in IT and he said they are “Match Makers”. All they do, he said, was try to find the candidates with right skills as close as possible to fulfill each job requirements. Finally, he said a list of jobs will be made available to you before you leave this conference room.
As soon as Gill finished explaining, Gord got up and asked if we had any questions. It took another 45 minutes to answer the questions and go through and rehash the process again and again.
When I went home, I was totally submerged and buzzing with the information that I wanted to share with Lynda. As soon as she saw me, she realized that there’s something serious and she told me right away that she would find somebody to babysit the kids. While I was getting changed, she made a couple of calls and found a young girl who had babysat our kids before to come for a couple of hours. As soon as she arrived, Lynda told her that she had cooked spaghetti which was ready to be served and she wanted the three of them to have a nice supper while we were gone. She had asked the young girl to bring her homework, if she had any, and do it here before they started watching the TV.
We went to Jim’s Place, a pizza place. Jim worked in the Tax Department daytime and helped his wife in the evenings to run a successful business in the downtown of Fredericton. As soon as he saw us, he came to see us and asked one of his waitresses to find a quiet place for us. He said to me that he heard what happened in my department and I said to him that’s why we are here to rehash everything. Once we ordered our drinks, I tried to relax. Lynda was smart enough to know not to rush me as I was still trying to figure it out in my mind how to share the information with her. She knew that when I was ready I would start talking.
My problem was I didn’t know where to start. I asked Lynda if she remembered a couple of weeks back when I spoke to her about an advertisement in the newspaper about the data processing positions publicized by an unknown company with the reference of a post box number. She said I remembered that and also remembered that you weren’t supposed to apply for any of those positions. I said I didn’t apply for any position but I had a feeling that you need only one advertisement like that by my department to find out how many people are not happy with their current jobs and looking for a change. She said what’s your point? The point is that partly based on that assumption and partly based on the fact that the overall performance of the department is not coming even close to meeting the expected level of performance. Consequently, they have decided to fire everybody in the department this morning.
Lynda said are you telling me that you have been fired from your job? I said yes but it’s hard to explain and it took me 30 minutes to go over everything that happened that morning. Lynda finally grasped the entire concept and asked me if she should start packing? I said we have to give it a try and have some patience. The next question she had was were you planning to discuss this with Gord? I said absolutely not. I have to give him enough time to find his way to tell me the reasoning behind this melodramatic disclosure. What I want to do is to go back to working the way I was supposed to until somebody tells me otherwise. In the meanwhile, I need to determine which job or jobs I should consider targeting. Then I should update my resume accordingly.
Next day when I went to work, everybody was whispering. I tried to mind my own business but Peter just bumped into me intentionally in the coffee room and questioned me with intensity – What did you think about yesterday’s meeting? In order to minimize the prominence of his tone, I started walking towards my desk with my coffee cup in my hand. Once I sat down in my chair, I realized the fact that I had to be very careful with my response to his question as he was fully aware of my relationship with Gord. In my mind basically he was looking for some kind of angle to gossip which appeared to be emotionally rewarding for people like him. I said while I appreciated the totally justifiable reason for an organizational change, I thought the proposed approach was a little bit unconventional. He said he agreed with me and before he said anything else my phone rang and I thought thanks God for that. When I answered the phone, I said just a second and turned around to let Peter know that I would be on the phone for a little while. He left.
The person on the phone was Gill Marco from Touché Ross which was indeed a surprise to me. Gill said I wanted to say that we met yesterday in the meeting but that’s not true. I was introduced to you folks yesterday and hope I didn’t catch you in the middle of something. I said what can I do for you, Gill? He said he was wondering if you would have time to have lunch with me today as I needed to discuss a couple of things with you.
I met with Gill for lunch in a nice restaurant away from the downtown crowd as he didn’t want other people to know about our meeting. After the formalities, I asked Gill what I did to deserve this privilege. He said I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things related to our process. He had been meeting with Gord confidentially for a couple weeks to understand the overall chemistry of the organization plus he said he was interested in learning about my accomplishments in Information Technology (IT). I summarized my experience in Chicago and at Playtex before I came to work for Gord. I said there was nothing extraordinary to report except I had the pleasure of working for Gord for four plus years. He said it’s nice to be humble but Gord told me that you ran a very complicated around the clock computer operation for him. I didn’t know what to say. He said tell me something about your current project. I gave him a quick version of various stages of the project and told him that I was in the process of finalizing the future model for the Consumer Sales Tax System. He said can anybody continue the project without jeopardizing the overall objectivity or quality of the project if you were needed somewhere else. I said yes anybody with analytical skills as well as familiarity with the modelling tool that we were using can continue the project. I told him that I had no clue whatsoever about the modelling tool that I used when I joined the department. I had to learn everything I could in a hurry and if I could do that anybody could do that.
Gill started asking about my family and kids whether or not they liked living in Fredericton. He told me about his kids and his wife. I asked him several questions about his company and his recent projects. He was very unstinting with his information. At the end of our lunch, he asked me if I had given any thoughts to applying for any of those jobs from the list. I said I didn’t get around to reviewing those jobs yet but I was definitely going to apply for a job. He said perhaps you should consider applying for the Manager, Production Control which includes all the responsibilities in a typical datacentre with the exception of computer operations. While I was stunned with his suggestion, I said I would look into it.
When I got back from lunch, I had no meetings planned for that afternoon. I tried to concentrate on reviewing the model with no luck. I called home and asked Lynda what she was doing. She said she just came back from a long lunch with her sorority sisters and was thinking about doing something about supper. I said why don’t I pop in as I need to talk to you about the lunch I had with the leader of the Touché Ross’s team. When the kids get home, we will take them out for hamburgers. She said it sounds like an excellent idea.
I told Lynda that based on my conversation with Gill Marco I learned something about his company – Touché Ross – which used to be an accounting company in the 1950s when computers weren’t popular. In 1952, they became the first large accounting company to automate its bookkeeping system. In 1964, the organization’s work with statistical sampling led to the Auditape System, which brought computer technology to audits. The organization’s Management Consulting group, which provided computer systems advice, felt the greatest impact from the technology revolution. The company did pioneering work for several leading corporations and for many government agencies. At Touché Ross, the discipline matured during the 1960s and 1970s and they started offering all kinds of consulting services related to IT as well as the management consulting.
Lynda said you are telling me that they are not altogether out to lunch. I said we should have thought about that. Gord must have done his homework before he recommended them to his boss. Gill seems to be very friendly guy and he explained to me how he’s going to manage his team to get the whole project going ASAP.
She said were you surprised when he called you to have lunch with you? I said I was totally staggered but didn’t like to miss the opportunity. Perhaps the most important part of our conversation was when he suggested that I should apply for the newly created management position which’s two levels higher pay scale than what I am currently making. She said you know what? It has everything to do with Gord. Nobody can figure out the core competencies of anybody only from a resume. If Gord didn’t tell Gill directly, he must have given him enough reason to call you and get together. I said it seemed to be the case.
