Page 39 - Like No Business I Know

The Outsourcer’ Apprentice
(Fantastic Transactions 2, 1997)

The other executives at Palltree and Blythe had suffered an
admixture of curiosity and envy over the success of Tommy Vasek,
the youngest and most-recently appointed vice president.
Accordingly, all were in attendance when, after several months of
apparent inactivity in a plush suite at the home office, the world-
beater called a meeting to explain his methodology to his elder peers.
Instead of an overhead projector linked to a laptop computer, the
assembled officials found nothing in front of Vasek’s place at the
head of the conference room table but a single sheet of paper.
“I believe we can start now,” said Robin Steele, closing the door to
the room. The others, mostly men, deferred to his imposing stature,
silver-tipped hair and senior status by folding up their personal
organizers and looking attentive. “Tommy is going to tell us how to
succeed in business—and he was really trying.”
Ice broken with the jagged edges of nervous laughter, the
presentation began. Vasek stood up and put his thumbs in his rather
ostentatiously bright red suspenders. At twenty-seven he barely
looked old enough to shave; he had often been mistaken in the
hallways for a minor factotum.
“Thank you, Robin. What I was trying to do, of course, was to
apply what I had learned in my economics and business
administration classes. It’s really a wonderful thing to learn a lot of
theory and then be given the opportunity to go out and use it in the
real world. Not that everything I picked up at Slough College was
immediately or universally applicable—some of you were very helpful
during my apprenticeship. Well, enough of that; I know you want to
hear about my experiences at Nutrienterprises, Inc. This was, as I’m
sure you remember, an RFP we low-balled to get in the door. It’s a
big company, and at the time a little hesitant about outsourcing. We
were like a test case. I recall you saying, Robin, that this was a chance
to get in on the ground floor and run with the ball. I took the hint,
grabbed the bull by the horns, and hit a homerun.”

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