The Amateur

I'm not sure they expected the staff meeting to happen at all.

"Terrible thing about your wife."

"If there's anything you need..."

"How are you holding up?"

"Everybody have a good weekend?" I asked, when they had all been seated. "Catch the fireworks?"

Ok, to business then. Jim, is that protocol ready? Why not, you've had two weeks! Charlie, how's the diagnostic package shaping up? Good, then you can help out the encoding team, they're three weeks behind schedule, and I want them caught up by the end of the month. Hear that, guys? I want a plan on my desk this afternoon showing what needs to be done, and how it's going to get done by August first. Anyone staying later than 8:00 pm gets dinner, on me, sent to this room, every night. Julia has a list of places that deliver.

By the end of the hour, the group was energized; buzzing with conversation, people drawing diagrams on the whiteboard, taking notes on laptop computers.

Nothing like meetings past. And no one questioned me, or dared to say what couldn't be done.

I left late, after 9:00, and the encoding team was still there, laptops drawn into a circle in the conference room, Chinese take-out cartons and dry-erase markers strewn around the table.