SERIAL : 14 INDIAN IN COWBOY COUNTRY

THE INTERVIEW

He anxiously swiped his card again, trying to recall the instructions during his orientation session when he joined the company on how to swipe correctly swipe security cards. Nothing happened.
He cleaned the magnetic strip on the card with saliva on his fingertips; still no access.
“It’s just dirty,” he said with a sheepish smile to the secretary who stood behind him.
“It’s okay, Satish,” she said. “If your card don’t work, you can go in with me. I know who you are.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he replied just as he heard the sounds of his card’s acceptance. He pushed the door with relief and ran up the stairs to Tim’s office.
Liz waved him in, saying, “Go on in. He’s waiting for you.”
“Hi, Tim. What’s up?”
As soon as Tim saw Satish, he stubbed his half-smoked cigarette, grabbed his coat from behind his chair, and said, “Let’s go. We are going to be late. There’s a meeting in a few minutes.”
“What meeting?” he asked.
“Just come with me. No questions,” Tim instructed in a firm tone that he had not heard before. “I’ll explain on the way.”
The pair went briskly down the stairs and left the building. When they were on the sidewalk to the corporate building, Tim said, “Last night Charlie had a meeting with all the divisional presidents. It went on till way past midnight. They are going to make some announcements this morning.”
A puzzled Satish asked, “Why me? Why am I going to this meeting?”
“Beats me. Charlie called me at two in the morning and asked me to call John and Steve to come to this meeting. Billy called few minutes later asking that you be present, too!”
“Billy asked for me?”
“Yes, Billy. The very same Billy who Pete said would not accept you as a manager.”
“What’s going on, Tim?” asked a breathless Satish, trying to keep pace with the older man.
“I’ve told you all I know,” Tim said as he swiped his card and gained immediate entrance to the building. Satish followed him in. Charlie Clark’s office was at the far end of the hallway with the grim portraits, one door past Pete’s.
Tim rushed into Charlie’s office with Satish following a step behind, and both turned into the adjoining conference room. Surrounding the large oval mahogany conference table were twelve well-upholstered chairs occupied by people in suits. Along the inner wall of the room were additional chairs. Tim and Satish sat on the periphery with other unknown faces.
Looking around the room, Satish recognized the cheerful Charlie, a sullen Pete, his recent nemesis, and John and Steve, who seemed to be exchanging small talk. He had never seen the rest of the people before. Seated near Charlie was Sandy, his assistant, with a stenographer’s pad and pencil ready, poised to take notes.
“Good morning,” said Charlie as he rose from his seat after a brief sip of coffee from a mug.
“Good morning,” mumbled the room in response.
He continued, “Sorry for the short notice, but I have some announcements.”
There was stony silence in the room. Nobody moved, and all eyes were on Charlie as he continued, “As y’all know, our industry is in a recession, and we have to continually look for ways to be more effective in this market.”
He paused and took a sip of coffee. Like everyone else in the room, Satish waited for the other shoe to fall.
Charlie put his coffee mug down, stood upright, and looked around, making eye contact with everyone at the table but ignoring those seated on the periphery.
He said, “We met last evening to review our revenue and P and L forecasts for the year.” He paused briefly before adding, “They don’t look good.”
Satish noticed that Charlie’s cheerful disposition had now morphed into a cold, steely one as he said, “We are losing cash every month, and we cannot let this continue. So the management team has come up with a plan to generate positive cash flow by the end of the next quarter.”
He paused, took another sip of his coffee, and surveyed the room, including the periphery. He stopped briefly at Satish’s unfamiliar face and moved on.
“First of all, we will be consolidating our eight divisions into three: a drilling division, a production division, and a logging division. Pete and Paul’s organizations will now report to Billy, who will be an executive vice president of Clark Oilfield Technologies, as well as president of the drilling division. Pete and Paul will report to me and work on special projects.”
He paused, looked at Billy, and asked, “Billy, do you want to say something?”
While Billy readied his papers and glanced at his notes, Satish looked to Tim as if asking, “What’s going on?”
“Not now!” was his silent reply as he looked intensely at Billy and focused on what he had to say.
Satish looked at Pete and saw that he still had his superior grin on his face. This demotion had not affected his demeanor a bit. As he caught Satish’s eye, his smirk turned into a sneer.
Billy stayed seated. He looked around the room with a wide grin that displayed a gold molar and said, “Thank you, Charlie. I b’lieve I do have somethin’ to say. I always do!”
As Charlie sat down, Billy stood up and said to him, “Thank you, Charlie, for the trust and confidence.”
He then raised his hand with the missing index finger and added, “We have serious challenges ahead of us, and I am not going to do this alone. The only way we can come out ahead in this recession is by attracting and keeping the best brains in the world, with the best can-do hustlers in the world. And let me tell ya, nobody has a monopoly on brains or hustle.” He paused and added lightheartedly, “Not even people from West Texas!”
The room responded with a polite, subdued laughter of nervous relief that soon subsided.
He continued, “Seriously, this downturn is going to be a long one, and we need to work smart if we are going to beat it.”
He sat down, looked at his notes, and said, “Just a few quick announcements. John and Steve will be my vice presidents for engineering and operations, and Tim will be my VP of human resources.
“I will work with these gentlemen to define the rest of the organization, but I do have one more announcement.”
He paused, pointed at him with his clenched fist and added, “That young man out there next to Tim, Satish Sharma, will be engineering manager, reporting to John.”
Satish was oblivious to Tim shaking and pumping his hand. He barely heard Billy continue, “Clark got here by attracting the best people in the world, and by keeping them. We are a service company, and we are as good as our people.”
Satish looked at Pete, who stared back at him with a disapproving nod. While feigning attention to and pleasure over what was being said, he leaned over, nudged Tim, and whispered, “Tim, can I have my resignation letter back?”
“No,” whispered back Tim, as he pretended to pay rapt attention to the proceedings.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I want to keep it,” hissed Tim, stressing “keep” the best he could.
“Why?”
“Because it’s the stone that shattered this fickle glass house,” Tim said earnestly.
However, he was puzzled at Satish’s unexpected response. Something was missing. His reactions were not typical of a victor.
Tim paused, and when the meeting agenda had moved to other reorganization issues, he nudged Satish and asked, “Why do you want your letter back?”
Satish sat up straight, slowly removed his tie, and neatly folded it. He stuffed it in his shirt pocket and said, “Because I want to change the date on the letter. My resignation still stands, Tim, but I want to make sure you know that it was today’s meeting that pushed it over the edge.”
Staring icily in the direction of the head of the conference table, he added, “And that malignant cancer, Pete, is still here, sitting right next to Charlie!”
With that, he quietly rose and politely excused himself from the meeting. With every eye in the room on him, he left the conference room, walked through Charlie’s office and down the gloomy hallway with the grim portraits, and exited the building.

He took deep breaths of fresh air, and collected himself. As he walked to his car, he began digging deep in his pockets for Tom’s card, which had his attorney’s telephone number written on it.