Sometime Soon

four



The nice gentleman at the Honda collision office knows me by name. This is certainly not a good thing. “Back again, Ms. Whitman,” he says, stepping out of the garage into the bright morning sun. I can’t recall his name, but he is an older man dressed in the same beige polyester pants and Red Sox T-shirt he’s worn the last two times I’ve seen him.

“It’s not too bad,” I say leading him around to the back of the car.

He puts his hands on his hips as he bends down to peer at the bumper. “Someone hit you again, huh?” He shakes his head at me. “You’re one unlucky lady.”

“Actually, you could say I’m lucky. Three accidents within a year, and I’m still unscathed.” I realize that this is probably not smart to say out loud. It’s kind of like throwing down the gauntlet to the driving universe.

“Can’t say the same for your car. Have you got the insurance estimate?”

“Actually, the other driver offered to pay for the damages. I just need an official estimate from you.”

“Okay, give me a second.”

I head to work with an estimated repair cost of three-hundred and ninety-eight dollars and an extra thirty dollars a day for the two days in which I will need a rental car while my bumper is being smoothed out and painted. I would consider keeping the money and not fixing the car, but I really like my car. I want it to look like new, despite the traumas it has suffered under my care.

“Running late this morning,” Joan says.

I buzz by her. I’m on a mission today. I’m going to find Karthik once and for all. I dump my bags on my desk and take the stairs up two flights. When I get there, I can’t believe it. Karthik is sitting in his chair, hunched over his keyboard and monitor.

“Hi there.” I decide to take the friendly approach rather than attacking him with accusations for ignoring my emails.

He swivels around in his chair to face me. He is wearing his M.I.T. sweatshirt and he appears as freezing cold as I usually am. Karthik’s cubicle is the same cramped, mustard-colored box we all are issued, but his looks as though he hasn’t cleaned or organized it ever. He has a handful of computer towers scattered around, some in use, others retired to paperweight status. Empty soda cans balance upon paper piles of differing heights. Each surface looks as though one more paper, or one more soda can, or even one more breath released too strongly would cause an avalanche, burying Karthik under his own disorganization.

Karthik’s clipped dark hair is graying at the temples. I can’t recall the grey being there when I first met him three years ago. He eyes me expectantly, his hands still poised in the air, ready to swivel back to his keyboard and pick up where he left off.

“I need to talk to you about the feature descriptions for the marketing white papers,” I say, as though I haven’t already sent him a handful of emails on the subject.

“What about them?” he asks, lowering his hands, realizing he can’t dismiss me quickly.

“Well, I read the specifications you wrote, looking for more details on the software features Rob wanted me to include. And either I couldn’t find any information on the features or the information I found was only partially what I needed. Do you have more specs you haven’t posted yet?” I ask hopefully.

His forehead creases. “What features are you referring to?”

I point toward his monitor. “I put the features in an email. Did you see it?”

He swivels back now, his hands racing over the keys, accessing his email. Peering over his shoulder, I spot my name in his Inbox on the most recent email I sent, and I point it out to him. Karthik opens the email and scans it. Meanwhile, I take a step back, careful not touch or brush up against a pile of paper or a soda can.

Karthik spends a fare amount of time reading the short email. Finally, he turns back to me with a strained look on his face. “Rob gave you these features?” he asks.

I nod.

“Is he in his office now?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him yet today.” So far, this is not a good response to my initial question.

“We’d better go and talk to him.” Karthik unfolds himself from the chair, and with determination he leads the way back downstairs. I follow him. Karthik stops just outside and knocks on the open door. Rob is apparently in there.

I follow Karthik into the windowless office. Based on Karthik’s tight expression, there’s something going on here. It isn’t good and it isn’t my fault. The rising anticipation I feel is mainly due to the reluctant spectator status to which I am about to be subjected. Karthik is one of the most reasonable people I have ever dealt with, but Rob generally has a hard time making coherent conversation with anyone who doesn’t watch at least one reality television show a night.

“What can I do for you?” Rob asks, leaning back in his chair as we enter.

“Andrea sent me a list of features you gave her for the next release. I have to say, I was surprised to see that it was the original list you presented last year. The wish list you created before we culled it down.”

“It’s the list we all agreed to,” Rob says calmly.

Karthik runs his hand over the back of his neck. “No Rob, I have the email trail. I’ll send you the shortened list. Those are the only features we’re working on.”

Rob sits up straighter now. “You can send me whatever you like, but I have an email trail, too. It ends with the list I gave Andrea. The list everyone signed off on.”

“I never signed off on the list you gave Andrea.”

Rob stares at Karthik and then at me. I have no idea why. I have nothing to offer here. Next he opens a drawer, searches around for a bit, and comes up with a piece of paper. He hands it to Karthik. “You’re telling me you’re not working on the items on this list?”

Karthik studies the paper. He takes a pen from his pocket, sits down in one of the two chairs facing Rob’s desk, and begins putting checks next to items on the list. I take the other chair and watch. Rob is leaning over the expanse of his desk following Karthik’s pen. Karthik makes the last checkmark, efficiently returns the pen to his pocket, and turns the paper around toward Rob. “These are the features in your release.” From my upside-down view, I can see that roughly half of the items have checkmarks beside them.

Rob looks at the paper and frowns. “Well,” he says, leaning back again, “This is a problem. We’ve already told customers that everything on this list is in the next release.”

“Well, you’ll have to tell them that’s not the case. Or you can tell them that the release is delayed for another year while we work on the rest of your list.”

I wonder how Rob could have made such a monumental error. It’s not like him to make a mistake like this, but it is like him to purposely do something devious to get his way in the end. Perhaps he hadn’t liked getting his list culled. My suspicions are fueled when he says, “Delayed by a year. Would it really take another year to finish everything on this list?”

“I don’t know exactly, but we would certainly slip the end date by a good amount.”

“Could you get me an accurate time-frame on how long it would take?”

A look of disbelief crosses Karthik’s face. “We had to cut your list in the first place because it was completely unrealistic. We didn’t have the time or the manpower to even scope out all those features. Now you want us to stop everything and do that?”

“Well, you don’t have to stop everything, but I could put the word out to the field that we might not hit the release date. That would give you some extra time to investigate.”

The air in the room seems to radiate as Karthik stands up, his shoulders tense. “That makes it look as though we’re missing deadlines because of engineering. My guys have been working twelve-hour days to meet the target date. I won’t have you telling the field that engineering is delayed when you’re the one at fault for moving the goal line.”

When men argue, they often use sports analogies, I’ve noticed. I look from Rob to Karthik. Karthik is wound tight as a coil, but Rob seems his usual unflappable self. I do not belong here. I may have precipitated this, but I am not a part of it, nor do I want to be. But I don’t know how to make an appropriate exit; just standing up and dashing out might seem awkward.

“Well, the field is already out there selling this to customers,” Rob explains, shrugging.

“Then they’re selling vaporware!” Karthik’s volume increases.

“Look,” Rob says, his voice filled with calm and reason, “let’s just take a step back here. Why don’t you give me a rough estimate on the time-frame with the additional work, and we can figure something out. Maybe we can have a staggered release where we send out small releases every few months. There has to be a way to make this work. We’ve got the smartest engineers in the business here.”

Karthik takes a step back, crossing his arms over his chest. He glances from me to Rob. I can see understanding sinking in. Rob did not make a mistake. The tight lines around Karthik’s mouth slowly slacken. He has been outsmarted, and he’s not sure what to do about it. Karthik is undoubtedly used to being the smartest person in the room, but when it comes to deviousness, he cannot compete with Rob.

“We’ll need to have a meeting with Tom if you’re changing the release this way,” Karthik says. Tom is the department vice president.

“That’s fine. I’ll schedule it,” Rob offers graciously.

Karthik doesn’t respond. If that was a veiled threat to go over Rob’s head, Rob hasn’t flinched.

Karthik looks over at me now. “I’m afraid this doesn’t help you much, Andrea. At least, not in the short term.”

“Don’t worry about me,” I say, hardly believing he remembers my innocent inquiry that started all this.

“Make that meeting sooner rather than later,” Karthik tells Rob. Then he walks out.

I stand there and stare at Rob. He puts the list aside and looks at me, satisfaction on his face.

“I can’t believe you did that.”

“Did what?” he asks innocently.

I glare at him, hoping my eyes are conveying my disbelief and distaste.

“Hey.” He grins. “It’s not deception. It’s marketing.”

“It was an ambush.”

“It’s not lying through my teeth, it’s marketing,” he continues, enjoying his joke. “It’s not subterfuge, it’s…”

“I know.” I interrupt him. “It’s marketing on planet Rob.”

He grins, liking that as much as I knew he would.

I go back to my desk with my marching orders. I am to complete the write-ups for which I have engineering specs. The rest can wait until additional specs are ready. Rob is very confident that eventually, they will be.

Before getting started I pull from my backpack the crumpled notebook page with Ryan Miller’s name written on it. I am about to find out if he’s given me his real telephone number.

“This is Ryan,” he answers after one ring.

So far, so good. “Hi. This is the person whose car you hit the other night. Hopefully, I was the only one, so there’s no need for further clarification.” I hear a soft chuckle in response.

“I’m afraid you, alone, hold that honor. Andrea, right?”

“Right. I got the repair estimate.”

“Wait, don’t tell me yet,” he says. “Okay, I’m sitting down now. Go ahead. What’s the bad news?”

“It’s not so bad really. Four-hundred and fifty including the car rental.” I decide to round it off.

“Under five-hundred then? I can manage that and still eat this month. So, they don’t have to replace the whole bumper. That would cost at least a grand or more.”

“Nope. Just some smoothing and painting, according to the estimate. I can fax it to you if you like.”

“Sorry, no fax machine yet.”

“Well, I could mail you a copy.”

“Actually, maybe we could just meet somewhere. You bring the estimate, I’ll bring my checkbook, and we can settle things.”

“Oh, umm…” I hesitate. Meeting isn’t really necessary. I recall his “looking forward to hearing from you” comment and start to think he may have ulterior motives. He isn’t bad-looking if you get past his disheveled, haggard appearance. Or with my luck, he probably wants to meet because he doesn’t have a mailing address. Maybe he lives in his car. I am way over-thinking this. “Okay,” I finally say.

“Great. Is this Saturday good for you?”

I remember the cake tasting. “Actually, Sunday is better.”

“Okay then, Sunday. I’m coming from Waltham. How about you?”

Waltham is about twenty minutes from my townhouse. “I can meet you in Waltham,” I answer, still being cautious.

“Are you sure? I could come to you.”

“No, Waltham is fine.”

He names a neighborhood brewery that I’m familiar with, and we agree to meet there Sunday afternoon. I hang up, not quite sure what to think. Probably best to think nothing, I decide.