Seer (2 page)

I thought fast. Ed had been a good client. Unlike many clients, Ed always paid my invoices promptly and never argued about them. He’d given me good work and treated me with a great deal of respect. As a woman in a man’s world, that meant something to me.

“How soon?”

“Can you make a meeting tomorrow at two?”

I pulled up my calendar. “I presume for the remainder of the afternoon?”

“Possibly a working dinner as well,” he said.

“I’d have to move a few things, but they can be moved. And the trip?”

“Monday.”

“Ed
…”

“I know.” He paused. “I screwed up, Sidney.”

“Tell me.”

“I had a project manager here who was supposed to call you. He didn’t, and it was intentional.”

“Don’t tell me. Kirk McGuire.” Three years ago, Kirk had made a fool of himself in front of Ed, and I knew he blamed me.

“Good guess,” Ed replied.

“Does he still have a job?”

“I haven’t decided.” He paused. “I told him if you turn me down, he’s out.”

“Ed…” That wasn’t fair to me.

“You could patch things up with him by saying ‘yes’.”

“He’s going to resent me anyway.”

“All the better reason to keep him here, where he can’t poison your reputation with anyone who might listen to him.”

“Ed…” I laughed at that.

“I’ll pay,” Ed said. He paused. “Two-twenty-five an hour.”

I sat still for several heartbeats. Ed knew right then he had me.

“That’s for anything you have to do off-site,” he said.

“Off my site or off yours?”

“Yours.
Meetings here, travel, etc. Plus expenses, of course. One-twenty-five for the work you can do at your own offices.” My own offices were in my house, and Ed knew it, but he was treating me as a professional.

“What was Kirk supposed to offer me?”

“One-seventy-five and one-hundred.”

“You wanted me.”

“Yep.”

I thought about it. “This is going to be more than one trip, isn’t it?”

“Probably, but you can probably do a lot remotely, too.”

“How onerous is the NDA you want me to sign?” An NDA was a Non-Disclosure Agreement. Basically it was a legal means of making sure I didn’t give his technology away.

“It’s the same one you signed last time, with updated details. You won’t have a problem with it, but I can mail you a copy. Sidney, I’m not going to let the details of an NDA serve as an excuse to say ‘no’.” He paused. “Travel is via private jet.”

“I didn’t know you had a jet, Ed.”

“I don’t. It belongs to the law firm I’m using.”

I looked at my calendar again. “I can find the time, Ed.” I paused. “I can make the meeting tomorrow if I move one phone call. But I have to sweet talk two existing clients if I’m going to be gone next week, and I have to be here the following week.” I looked ahead. “I could go again
one of the following three weeks, but I’d need to know by early next week when.”

“So that’s a yes?” he asked.

“Let me call the two clients and sweet talk them.”

“I’m offering you a great deal of money, Sidney,” he replied.

“Yes, but you are hiring someone whose integrity is important to her, and that’s a good share of the reason you want me. I wouldn’t be the person you want to hire if I screwed an existing client that’s depending upon me.”

“How soon can you call me back?”

“An hour,” I said. “If I can reach them. I have your number.” I read it off.

“That’s the main line,” he said. “Let me give you my cell.” He read a series of digits, and I wrote them
down then repeated them. “Call me directly,” he said. “Sidney, I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. If you can’t make it, we’ll adjust, but it won’t be at two-twenty-five if you can’t make this schedule.”

“I’ll see what I can do, Ed. I might have to do a phone call or two next week, but otherwise I think I can focus on this.”

“Excellent. I look forward to your call, Sidney. You know there’s only one answer you’re going to give me.”

I laughed. “Thanks for thinking of me, Ed.” We hung up.

I’d been taking notes during the call. I had written down the numbers. Two-hundred and twenty-five, with a dollar sign in front of it. One-hundred and twenty-five with another dollar sign. The one-twenty-five was the rate I usually charged for the type of analysis I mentioned earlier, and I’d never gotten more than one-fifty before. And that had been work I hadn’t wanted; I’d thrown out a number I thought was twice what the work was for just to get the possible client to look elsewhere, but he’d winced then said, ‘all right’.

I had also written down 150-200 hours. I shook my head. Ed wanted me bad.

I wasn’t really motivated by the money, not exactly. I was happy with the money I made doing pure programming, the lower end of my bill rate, which was quite a bit less than these numbers. I had a nice home, I lived relatively simply, and I liked my work. But the numbers involved were a sign of success. It wasn’t about the money; it was about a client putting his money where his mouth is. Basically, Ed was saying, “You’re the best.”

That felt really, really good. Emotionally, I couldn’t walk away from that now. I’d grown up with low self-esteem. Don’t we all? I’d been a geek, and I’d known it. So had all the other kids. But now, being a geek had become cool, and I was on the top of the game. No, I couldn’t walk away from it.

I called the first of my clients and explained the problem. “No worries,” he said. “Everyone is available if you want to do it in, say, fifteen minutes instead? We shouldn’t need more than a half hour.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Call me when you’re ready. I just have one more call to make.”

“Sure thing, Sidney.”

The second client was a little more difficult. She was a nervous woman named Dolores Hammer, and schedule changes always threw her. I could tell right away she didn’t want to move our meeting, but then I said, “How about if I pick you up for lunch instead? My treat.” And she was a budget-conscious client. “And I won’t charge you for the time. As long as we’re done by one-thirty at the absolute latest, this works for me.”

I could practically see her eyes light up from over the phone. I wondered if she’d try to negotiate more concessions from me. “I can make that work,” she said. “Can you be here at eleven?”

I didn’t laugh. She wanted two and a half free hours from me, but I figured I’d be well ahead for the day, and I’d have three happy clients.

“Eleven it is,” I agreed.

I had five minutes. I called Ed. “Yes,” I told him. “If we need to talk longer, it needs to be later. I moved one of my calls to five minutes from now.”

“Thank you, Sidney,” he said, and I could hear the relief in his voice. “Attire here is usually pretty casual, but dress up tomorrow.”

I always dressed professionally, but there is professionally, and then there’s professionally. “Of course.”

* * * *

Lunch with Dolores was stressful, mostly because she was always so stressed out. I spent a great deal of time managing her as a client. She was a middle manager for a modest department store chain. She had been a marketing manager, but had been promoted and moved sideways, and now had to interface with IT far too often. She relied on me to be that interface for her.

I spent a great deal of time answering questions like, “Are you sure it will be done in time.”

Yes, it would, but only because I always doubled what IT told her, and then I knew I’d end up riding
herd on the technical staff, anyway. They were decent programmers, but they were miserable at time estimates.

Although being off by one hundred percent was practically “on time” in the computer programming industry.

I picked her up at her office. She brought a bulging satchel of papers with her, and she was even more nervous than usual. We drove to a nearby restaurant, got settled, and ordered before she turned to me. “I must seem like a real dweeb to you.”

“No, Dolores,” I said.
“You don’t.”

“It’s just those programmers. They don’t respect me. I’m just ‘that bitch from marketing’ to them, and then they start speaking in techno mumbo jumbo, and I can’t tell if they’re serious or giving me a hard time.”

The sad part was — they were, indeed, giving her a hard time. At more than one client, I’d subtly told the programmers, “Our job is to help the people who make money for the company do what they have to do to pay our salaries.” Hey. We programmers can be pretty arrogant, and it’s amazing how many people don’t realize such a simple fact.

Maybe an MBA should be required for all programmers.

I didn’t confirm any of that for Dolores. I simply said, “That’s why you have me.” I did something I don’t typically do. I reached out a hand and set it over hers, intending it for just a moment, but she glanced down and immediately covered my hand with her other, holding mine like that.

“I was
good
at marketing,” she said. “I can run Word and Excel just fine, but anything more advanced than that, and I’m lost. I never should have taken this so-called promotion.”

I’d seen her with Excel. She wasn’t ‘just fine’. She was damned good. What that woman could do with a spreadsheet…

“I think I’ve hit the Peter Principle,” she said, “but I’m stuck. I upgraded my house, and then that bastard husband of mine had an affair besides. So now I’m stuck with a house I can barely afford, the mortgage is under water, and I’m barely holding on at work. I can’t afford to go back to my old job, a job I was good at.”

She’d never told me this; she had never told me any of this. “Dolores,” I said, “I’ll take care of you. That’s what I do.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, still not releasing my hand. “You called and said you had a new client who needed your time, and I thought you were going to tell me you couldn’t help me anymore.”

“Oh Dolores, no,” I said.

“And those programmers…” she looked down, then lifted her chin and looked me in the eye. “I can’t tell when they’re lying to me. I think they’re always lying to me. And they’re so lazy!”

I’d never gotten the impression the staff there was lazy.

“Oh hey, Dolores,” I said. “Wait.” I paused a moment. “You know I’m on your side, right?”

She nodded slowly.

“Tell me why you think they’re lazy.”

“They come in so late!” she said.
“I get in at 6:30, every single day. I like to beat the rush. So I know. They don’t even start arriving for another two hours, and sometimes one or two are still wandering in at 9:30. I’ve seen them show up as late as 10:00 before, and it’s not like they’re late because they’ve had doctor appointments. They just don’t care.”

“What time do you leave?” I asked.

“Usually between five and six,” she said. A long day.

“And do you notice? Are they still there?”

“Yes,” she said. “But still…”

“Dolores, I get emails from them as late as eight or nine at night. Programmers are frequently not morning people. And I know that Daniel has two little girls he takes to school in the morning. He works from home for an hour or so, then takes his girls to school before driving to the office.”

She stared at me.

“I’m on your side, Dolores. And they may sometimes give you the runaround. But they’re good programmers. It’s a good staff. And if you listen to them sometime, they
will show a great deal of pride in what they do. Maybe you can’t tell, but I’ve had them flat out refuse to show me code a few times.”

“Why would they do that?”

“They weren’t ready for anyone else to see it. It wasn’t up to professional standards yet.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “That’s like me refusing to show preliminary sketches for an advertising campaign.”

“Nevertheless,” I said. “A few times, I’ve sneaked looks, anyway, and they were right. The code wasn’t up to standards. But whenever they finally let me see code, it’s nearly always good.”

We talked about it for another minute or two before the food arrived, and she had long released my hand, but she was still nervous. She was always nervous.

Still, we had a productive meeting. I took everything she had and told her I’d format it for the technical staff and get them on it. We wrapped up over coffee. During the car ride back to her office, she apologized.

“It’s quite all right,” I assured her.

I pulled up in front of her offices. She sat in the car for a moment, looking straight ahead. I wondered what else she wanted to say. Finally she turned to me.

“Sidney,” she said. “When couples get divorced, they divide their assets, sometimes evenly, sometimes not so evenly. I got the house with the underwater mortgage. He got the car. I got to keep my grandmother’s china. He kept the bedroom set, not that I wanted it after he slept in it with that woman.” She turned to me. “You understand?”

I nodded, unsure where she was going.

“He kept the friends,” she said. “All of them.”