Page 163 - Just Deserts

Scrubbers

big manufacturer of home cleaning products: Cocker and Philpott.
They’ve been developing it for five or six years, in the strictest
secrecy. And here you hold this miracle of technology in your hands.
Look closely: it’s like a washcloth, but it has a cleanser integrated into
its fibers. You have to rub it against itself in water to get the soap to
lather up; otherwise it’s just a regular washcloth. And it’s reusable, so
you can leave it in the shower for weeks until the soap is gone. And it
won’t be available only in white, of course. What do you suppose it’s
called?”
Billy squeezed the cloth, a commodity as yet without a name or
means of being sold to its market. He stroked his face with it, sniffed
it, folded it up into a tiny ball and tossed it in the air in the general
direction of the tense expectant account executive.
“Why, they must be Scrubbers,” declared Billy. “You know, ‘Rub-
a-dub-dub, three dabs in the tub, that’s how you clean up with
Scrubbers.’”
Earl collapsed in his chair, almost tipping back into the plate glass
window, struck momentarily dumb by the lightning force of Billy’s
brainstorm. How could it be so easy?

* * * * *

Wayne N. Wachs, acting professor of business administration at
Malcolm Pree College, stifled a yawn behind a lengthy shuffle of his
lecture notes. Teaching night school was a drag, he told himself for
the hundredth time; but the money was good, and the students were
not demanding. Why should they be? Getting through a course in
business ethics was like a stroll in the park: no math, no accounting,
no charts and graphs. Just case studies, shaded in gray and
regurgitated in blue books. He looked out over his spectacles at the
dozen or so members of his class, cleared his throat authoritatively
and began yet another bedtime story for MBA candidates.
“Corporate responsibility, as you will have learned in chapter
seventeen of the text, is an elusive and evolving entity in the business
environment—not unlike a virus, against which the government
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