Since it spent weeks in my suit jacket, tobacco connoisseurs may find it dry. I sniff it with pleasure during Peach's big meeting, remembering that strange meeting with Jonah. Was it stranger? Peach is tapping a graph with a long wood pointer. Slide projector smoke swirls slowly. Someone is intently poking a calculator across from me. Everyone but me is listening, writing, or commenting. "Consistent parameters... essential to gain... matrix of advantage... extensive pre-profit recovery... operational indices... provide tangential proof." I'm confused. Their words sound like a language I once knew but now barely remember. I recognize the terms. Now I'm confused. Just words.

You're playing word and number games. I contemplated Jonah's words at O'Hare in Chicago. He had good points and made sense to me. It felt like a foreigner had spoken to me. I shrugged. Houston was my robot talk. Time for my flight. I'm wondering if Jonah was right after all. As I look around, I get the feeling that none of us here knows more than a witch doctor about the medicine we're practicing. We're dancing in ceremonial smoke to exorcise the devil that's killing our tribe. The real objective? No one has asked a basic question. Peach chants about cost opportunities and "productivity" goals. Hilton Smyth praises Peach's words. Does anyone comprehend our actions? Peach breaks at ten. Everyone but me leaves for coffee or the restrooms. I sit until they leave. Why am I here? I'm wondering why I'm here. Will this daylong meeting make my plant competitive, save my job, or help anyone? I'm helpless. I'm unfamiliar with productivity. How is this not a waste? I repack my papers. Closed. I leave silently. Initial luck. I reach the elevator unnoticed. Hilton Smyth passes while I wait. "Are you abandoning us, Al?" I consider not answering. However, Smyth may intentionally say something to Peach. "Must," I tell him. What? Emergency? Sure. Elevators open. Entering. As he passes me, Smyth looks puzzled. Closed. Peach may fire me for leaving his meeting. As I walk through the garage to my car, I think that would only shorten three months of anxiety leading up to what I think is inevitable. I return to the plant later. I cruise around. I drive one road until I'm bored, then switch. Two hours pass. Just get me outside. Freedom can be thrilling until it gets boring. I avoid business while driving. Clearing my head. Nice day. Sunlight. Warm. Cloudless. Azure. Even though the land is still yellow brown from early spring, it's a good day to play hooky. I checked my watch before entering the plant gates and saw it was past 1 P.M. It feels wrong as I slow down to turn through the gate. Observing the plant. I accelerate and continue. I'm hungry and considering lunch. I suppose I don't want to be found yet. I can't think at the office. Pizza is a mile away. I stop in because they're open. I order a medium pizza with double cheese, pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, green peppers, hot peppers, black olives, onion, and anchovies—mmmmmmmm. While I'm waiting, I can't resist the Muchos on the cash register stand, so I tell the Sicilian owner to put me down for two bags of beer nuts, taco chips, and pretzels for later. Trauma satisfies. One issue. Beer nuts don't go with soda. Beer, please. Look in the cooler. I don't drink during the day, but I like how the light hits those frosty cold cans. Screw it. I grab six Buds. I'm out for $23 and 62 cents. A gravel road climbs a low hillside opposite the plant. A half-mile substation access road. I turn the wheel sharply on impulse. A quick hand saves my pizza from the gravel after the Mazda bounces off the highway. Ascending raises dust. I park, unbutton my shirt, remove my tie and coat, and open my goodies. My plant is down the highway. A large gray steel box without windows sits in a field. I know 400 dayshift workers are inside. The lot holds their cars. I watch a truck back between two unloading dock trucks. The machines and people inside use the materials from the trucks. Conversely, more trucks are being filled with their products. That's the gist. I'm in charge down there.

I open a beer and make pizza. The plant looks iconic. It's always been there and always will be. The plant is only about fifteen years old. It may disappear in the future. What's the goal? Why are we here? What powers this place? Jonah said one goal. No way. Daily operations involve many vital tasks. Most, or we wouldn't do them. Heck, they could all be goals. A manufacturing company must buy raw materials. We must buy these materials cheaply to manufacture them. The pizza's great. I'm eating my second piece when a tiny voice inside me asks me Is it? Is the plant's purpose cost-effective buying? Laughing. Nearly choked. Sure. Purchasing's brilliant idiots act like that's the goal. They're renting warehouses to store their cheaply bought junk. Presently, what? Copper wire for 32 months? Seven-month stainless steel sheet inventory? Variety. They've invested millions at great prices. This plant's goal is not economical purchasing. What's next? We employ hundreds here and tens of thousands across UniCo. The annual report's P.R. flack called us Unico's "most important asset." Despite the bull, the company needs good people of various skills and professions. Glad it creates jobs. Paycheck stability is important. Providing jobs isn't the plant's purpose. How many have we fired? Even if Unico offered lifetime employment like some Japanese companies, the goal isn't jobs. The plant wasn't built to pay wages and provide jobs, but empire-building department managers and politicians seem to think so. Why was the plant built? It manufactures goods. Why not? Jonah disagreed. I don't see why it's not the goal. We manufacture. Doesn't that require manufacturing? Producing products—isn't that the point? Why else? I contemplate recent buzzwords. Quality? Perhaps. If you don't make quality products, you'll make costly mistakes. If you don't satisfy customers with quality products, your business will fail. UniCo learned that. We've learned that. We've made significant quality improvements. Why can't the plant survive? How did Rolls Royce nearly go bankrupt if quality was the goal? Quality isn't enough. Important. It's not the goal. Why? Costs? Efficiency is the key to low-cost production. Quality and efficiency, perhaps. Usually. Less errors mean less rework, which lowers costs. Maybe that's Jonahmeant. Goal: efficiently making a quality product. Sounds good. "Efficiency." Nice words. "Mom and apple pie"-ish. I relax with another beer. Pizza is now a fond memory. I'm content. But something's off. It's not lunchtime indigestion. Quality production efficiently sounds good. Can that goal maintain the plant? Some examples irritate me. Why isn't Volkswagen still making Bugs if the goal is to efficiently produce a quality product? It was affordable and high-quality. Why did Douglas stop making DC-3s? I've heard the DC-3 was good. If they had kept making them, they could make them faster than DC-10s today. Producing quality products efficiently isn't enough. Goals must change. What? I contemplate the smooth finish of my aluminum beer can as I drink it. Mass production technology is. This was a rock until recently. We then use our skills and tools to turn the rock into lightweight, workable metal you can reuse. Amazing— I'm contemplating. Done! Technology—it. that's We need cutting-edge tech. It's crucial. We'll fail if we don't keep up with technology. That's the goal. That's wrong, actually. How come manufacturing companies' most important jobs aren't in research and development if technology is their goal? Why is R&D always on the side in every organization chart I've seen? Would the latest versions of all our machines save us? No. Technology is important but not the goal. Efficiency, quality, and technology may be the goal. However, we have many important goals. Except that it contradicts Jonah, it doesn't mean anything. Stumped. Looking downhill. The offices are in a glass-and-concrete box in front of the plant's steel box. Front left is my office. Squinting, I can almost see my secretary's wheelbarrow of phone messages. Okay. I swig my beer. They appear when I look back. Two long, narrow buildings are outside the plant. Our warehouses. They're full of spare parts and unsold merchandise. Twenty million dollars in finished goods inventory—quality products of the latest technology, produced efficiently, sitting in their boxes, sealed in plastic with the warranty card and a whiff of the factory air—waiting for someone to buy them. Finished. Unico's plant doesn't just fill the warehouse. Sell. Why didn't Jonah accept market shares if sales were the goal? Market share matters more than sales. Market share determines industry sales. Capture the market and succeed. Don't you? Possibly. "We're losing money, but we'll make it up with volume," I recall. UniCo has sold at a loss or slightly above cost to clear inventory. Who cares about market share if you're not making money? Money. Naturally, money matters. The plant's high costs will force Peach to close us. I must find ways to cut the company's losses. Wait. I did something brilliant to stop the losses and break even. Were we saved? Long-term, no. The plant wasn't built for breakeven. Unico does not exist to break even. It's a business. I see now. Manufacturing companies make money. Why did J. Bartholomew Granby start his company in 1881 and market his improved coal stove? Appliance love? Was it a generous act to warm millions? Never. Old J. Bart made a bundle. He succeeded because the stove was a gem in its day. Investors gave him more money to make a bundle and J. Bart a bigger one. Is money everything? What are my other worries? I grab my briefcase, a yellow legal pad, and a pen from my coat pocket. Then I list all the goals people think of: cost-effective purchasing, hiring good people, high technology, producing products, selling quality products, and capturing market share. I also add customer satisfaction and communications. All are necessary for business success. What's their job? They boost profits. They're just means to an end. How am I sure? Nope. No. However, "making money" seems like a good manufacturing goal. For one, if the company isn't making money, none of that list matters. What happens if a company loses money? The company fails if it doesn't make money from selling products, maintenance contracts, asset sales, or other means. Stops working. Make money. No substitute works. It's my only assumption. According to Jonah, an action that helps us make money is productive. Non-productive actions take money away. The plant has been drifting away from the goal for a year. To save the plant, I must make it profitable for Unico. That's an accurate but simplified explanation. It's a logical start. Bright and cold through the windshield. Sunlight seems stronger. I seem to have woken up. I find everything new. Last beer swallow. I'm compelled to move.

QUESTION:

^{Describe what happened during the meeting. What happened when Al dropped out to have a beer? Do you recommend his approach? Why or why not?}