{"id":30145,"date":"2024-08-24T05:00:58","date_gmt":"2024-08-24T09:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=30145"},"modified":"2024-08-23T23:51:14","modified_gmt":"2024-08-24T03:51:14","slug":"the-safety-dance-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/24\/the-safety-dance-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"The Safety Dance \u2013 Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Safety Dance \u2013 Part 2<\/a><\/p>\n

Faber tapped his left index finger on the table top a couple of times and nodded his head once.\u00a0 \u201cMr. Locke, I think we have a reason to continue our discussions further.\u00a0 I would like you to meet with one of the leaders of our firm.\u00a0 But he never travels to the Northeast.\u00a0 At your convenience I\u2019d like to set up a meeting with him at our corporate headquarters in Wyoming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim thought about this for a few moments.\u00a0 All of this was so irregular that he was starting to feel like he was being set up for something illegal.\u00a0 He began thinking of how he could back away from this without appearing to be afraid which, in point of fact, he was.\u00a0 \u201cMr. Faber, I\u2019ve just lost my job and I haven\u2019t got the resources right now for airplane trips and mysterious job opportunities.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got to find a job right away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Milo smiled.\u00a0 \u201cJim, I realize that this has been a very confusing \u201cjob interview.\u201d\u00a0 But we\u2019re used to how unorthodox our organization appears from the outside so I\u2019m also prepared to provide you with an incentive to entice you to give us a listen.\u00a0 Here is ten thousand dollars in cash to give you the flexibility to consider talking to us.\u00a0 All you\u2019re committed to is meeting with us.\u00a0 After you hear our story, you can walk away and continue your job search with enough money to get you through the next month.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim looked at the bankroll with its crisp one-hundred-dollar bills strapped together.\u00a0 He was beginning to think he had fallen asleep on the commuter train and would soon be awakened by the conductor and told to move along.\u00a0 But after a minute or so he picked up the bundle and examined it.\u00a0 He flipped through the bills and determined that they were all the same denomination.\u00a0 They looked and felt real.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you guys sell fentanyl?\u201d\u00a0 And that finally, forced Faber to smile. \u00a0\u201cMr. Locke, here\u2019s my card.\u00a0 Go home and think about all this.\u00a0 Talk to your wife and see what she thinks.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t want to go forward just call me up and arrange to return the money.\u00a0 Keep a thousand for your trouble.\u00a0 That\u2019s fair, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 All I\u2019m asking is for you to meet with my bosses and find out if we\u2019ve got an opportunity that makes sense for you.\u00a0 I think you can see we\u2019re serious in our intentions.\u00a0 Why not hear us out?\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim put the bankroll in the breast pocket of his jacket and told Faber he would call him the next day with his answer.\u00a0 Then he got up from the table walked out of the restaurant and wandered aimlessly around midtown Manhattan for an hour before heading back to Penn Station to go home.\u00a0 Every few minutes as he pondered what had happened, he found himself saying out loud, \u201cJudy is not gonna like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

A week later Jim Locke found himself on a jet headed to Boseman MT.\u00a0 Once there he was met by a large odd-looking SUV-like truck driven by a non-descript man in sunglasses and a polo shirt.\u00a0 Not being directed where to sit he took the front passenger seat and prepared for the long ride to the corporate headquarters in Wyoming.\u00a0 Having never been to the Mountain West Jim was impressed by the view of mountains, prairie and especially by some cattle crossing the road.\u00a0 So, he engaged the driver whose name was Paul in some discussion about the countryside.\u00a0 \u201cYeah, after a while you forget that it\u2019s pretty amazing scenery hereabouts.\u00a0 You just get used to the view and it just becomes the background to your life.\u00a0 But every once in a while, you realize just how beautiful it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you lived in this area long?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOh, ever since I came home from Iraq.\u00a0 So quite a while.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cDo you work for the company that I\u2019m visiting?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cYeah, I\u2019ve been with them for a good long while.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWhat are they like?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWell, I hear the guy in charge is a little screwy, but all the people I deal with are pretty decent types.\u201d<\/p>\n

After this there was silence for about a half hour.\u00a0 Then Paul asked Jim, \u201cSo what do you do?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWell, by training I\u2019m an engineer but what I do mostly is run projects for assembling complicated and expensive machines.\u00a0 I build a team and then they build the machine.\u00a0 Then I take the credit (or blame) for the result.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cSounds like a very interesting job.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWell, that depends on a lot of particulars.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cLike what?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWell, can you find and pay for the right talent for all the disciplines?\u00a0 Is the budget honest or did they buy the job?\u00a0 Is the client smart or stupid?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cYou mean if the client is too smart the project will lose money?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cNo.\u00a0 If the client is too stupid, he won\u2019t believe you when you show him realistic constraints.\u00a0 How many times have I been confronted with a client who demanded dry water?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOh, I think I see your point.\u201d<\/p>\n

After another lull in the conversation Paul asked, \u201cSo where are you from?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWell, originally I\u2019m from Brooklyn but I live on Long Island now.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWould you really move to a place like this?\u00a0 We don\u2019t have a lot of restaurants and clubs here.\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t you be bored?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u00a0 We spend most of our free time at kids\u2019 soccer games and movies with yellow animated characters.\u00a0 Do you have those things around here?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cYeah, I guess so.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have any kids so I\u2019m just going by what I\u2019ve seen but yeah, folks around here have lots of kids\u2019 sports teams and sure there are movie theaters though a few of them have gone broke.\u201d<\/p>\n

Afterwards, Jim excused himself saying he needed to get in a nap before they arrived.\u00a0 He woke up as Paul shook him to announce they had arrived at the headquarters.\u00a0 It was an old storefront converted into an office building.\u00a0 At the receptionist\u2019s desk he was asked to wait until his hosts came to get him.\u00a0 When they arrived, there were six men, ages thirty to fifty something.\u00a0 They brought him into a room filled with computer displays and started peppering him with questions about his previous work and asking him hypothetical questions about how he would approach some projects that seemed to require technologies that as far as he knew did not exist.\u00a0 He found himself getting excited about the prospect of incorporating these impossible innovations into some of his best designs for industrial equipment.<\/p>\n

And his enthusiasm sparked a synergistic energy from his hosts.\u00a0 A couple of hours in they broke for a meal but it was plain to see that Jim fit in well with these men.\u00a0 At the lunch, which consisted of ham or turkey sandwiches and decent coffee, Jim tried to pick the minds of his hosts about the company.\u00a0 Their answers were a mixture of enthusiastic boosterism and a complete lack of details.\u00a0 They insisted that the company would be a fantastic fit for Jim but they assured him that the details about the contract he would sign had to wait until he met the boss, Mr. Connors.\u00a0 Apparently, in some senses this was a one-man band.\u00a0 After they finished lunch, they went back to finish up discussions of some preliminary aspects of the project he would hopefully become involved in.\u00a0 A half hour in a young man in a suit with a clip board walked in and announced that it was time for the interview with Mr. Connors.\u00a0 Jim shook hands with the men he had so easily bonded with and ruefully headed off to what was for him, the least favorite aspect of any interview, meeting the head honcho.<\/p>\n

He was led down a few corridors to an area of the building that looked more like a corporate office than the rest of the building with polished hardwood paneling and gleaming metal trim.\u00a0 The kid with the clip board swiped his keycard through the electronic door mechanism and after the chime announced its acceptance Jim was told to let himself in.\u00a0 Walking through the imposingly tall and broad doors he walked toward the large desk and halfway there he recognized the man behind the desk by his sunglasses and polo shirt.\u00a0 It was his chauffer, Paul.\u00a0 Paul saw him enter and jumped up to meet him on his way to the desk and said, \u201cHey Jim, good to see you again.\u00a0 I\u2019m Paul Connors.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Safety Dance \u2013 Part 2 Faber tapped his left index finger on the table top a couple of times and nodded his head once.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1289,1263],"tags":[76,1290],"class_list":["post-30145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction-by-me","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","tag-fiction-writing","tag-my-fiction"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Safety Dance \u2013 Part 3 - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/24\/the-safety-dance-part-3\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Safety Dance \u2013 Part 3 - 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