Black Friday  − 6 August, 1993

The end, when it came, was...entertaining... to say the least.

I had worked at APC, a small contract programming firm in Winston-Salem, since 1988. By this point, Alex (who had told me about the job to begin with) had left to start his own consultancy. That left three programmers (Cathy, Steve and myself), two administrative assistants (Sylvia and Joan), and the principles, Bob and Beverly - the two problem children in this endeavor.

Bob was, and still is, a good code jockey, but perhaps a better salesman. Beverly, was the more polished, all-business face of the company; working with existing clients and always on the lookout for new business. Trouble was, they both possessed strong personalities and ,unfortunately, they were married to each other.

During the week or so leading up to the end, we could see things beginning to go south in matrimony-land. The arguments grew in frequency. Bob increasingly did his own thing with respect to the business. Late on a Thursday afternoon in August, the other shoe dropped and he announced he was leaving the company. This was done by telephone and Beverly was out of the office, so us working stiffs really had no idea what was next. We discussed it amongst ourselves and decided to play "business as usual".

Friday was probably one of the few times that I actually made it to the office by 8am (what can I say, I'm a night owl). A somewhat agitated Beverly was back in the office and in short order, called a staff meeting. She quickly explained what we already knew, then demanded an answer from each staff member as to their intentions. I was first on her list. Lucky me.

"Are you in or out?", her eyes boring into me. At this point, I had zero desire to be stuck in the middle of a marital conundrum. I had taken this job on a whim, so it seemed reasonable to leave it the same way. "Out", I replied.

Beverly repeated the question to the rest of the staff with the same results. She paused for a minute, regained some composure and asked us to meet back at the office after lunch. We filed out, essentially unemployed, but glad to be excused from the Inquisition.

News travels fast and within an hour of leaving the office, I received a call from Bill Sinclair at Liberty Data Systems. Bill was the head of network engineering for Liberty, which was a company we worked with from time to time on large projects. He was also a good friend. I explained what I knew about the state of APC and that I didn't know what the afternoon meeting would entail. "We think a lot of you here. When you're ready, stop by. We need to talk.", Bill offered. Well, at least there was some sort of a job prospect on the horizon.

As for what I did during the next few hours, I can't remember. I probably drove over to my mom's house to recount the morning's events. Around 1pm, I strolled back into the office, completely unsure of what was next in this cavalcade of corporate comedy. Standing in the lobby, I was greeted by the sound of breaking glass - over and over and over. Brad, Beverly's father and a man that I still have a deep respect for, stepped out of Beverly's office slowly shaking his head.

"Brad, what's going on. Where is everybody?"

He explained that Beverly was having "a moment" and that no one else had yet returned to the office. Great, I thought, I'm the only one stupid enough to want a second helping of this. We walked back into her office which was strewn with the remains of a dozen or so promotional coffee cups bearing the APC logo. She had apparently taken the cups out one at a time and smashed them on the tile floor.

"Scott, I'm sorry about all of this.", she said in a slightly shaky voice. "Don't sweat it. I'm fine. Just take care of yourself.", was all I could offer in response.

Over the next few minutes, we discussed what was next for the company. Beverly would start calling clients to find out which ones were loyal to the business and which ones had left with Bob. In the meantime, she asked me to consider staying on to either wrap up the company's affairs or keep the enterprise going. I agreed to give it a week and see what happened. As I left, Beverly had begun sweeping up the remains of the cups.

I returned to my car just as the bag phone inside began ringing. Bob's cheerful voice greeted me, "We need to talk. How's about stopping by my new office."

Oh, boy. Could this day get any more confusing...

Comments:

Previous story  |  Next story