Bitter Business

isn’t taught in any MBA program. More handsome than pretty, she wore a luxuriously simple navy-blue suit over a peach-colored silk blouse and somehow managed to make the combination seem both elegant and appropriate for a metal finishing plant. She had a fringe of shiny dark hair, intelligent eyes, and a wide smile. I liked her immediately. It was hard to imagine that anyone wouldn’t.
    “Daniel’s told me so many nice things about you,” she continued. “I know that we’ll enjoy working together. But I confess it’s going to take me a while to get used to not calling Daniel every time there’s a problem. I’ve known him my entire life. I know it sounds like a cliché, but I really do think of him more as a member of the family than as our lawyer.” She laughed. “I guess that’s an occupational hazard when everyone in the company is related. Business feels like family and family feels like business. Did Eugene show you around the place?”
    “We’d gotten as far as chrome plating when your secretary came to get me. I was sort of hoping to get a chance to see some of your specialty chemical operation—”
    “Cecilia went into the plant?” Dagny cut in, genuinely , horrified.
    “Eugene didn’t seem too pleased about it.”
    “Eugene hates her,” Dagny replied shortly. “My little f brother has very definite views about what is and isn’t appropriate behavior for women, and frankly Cecilia gets a kick out of goading him. But it isn’t Eugene I’m worried about, it’s the guys on the plant floor. When she goes down there they act like they’ve never seen a woman before. She’s going to cause an accident one of these days. You’ve seen that polishing equipment—you take your eyes off of what you’re doing for one minute and you can lose your hand. Cecilia knows she has no business in the plant, but she always finds some excuse. I honestly think she has some sick need for attention.” Dagny sighed. “We have such a hard time finding and keeping good clerical help. They all want to work downtown in some fancy place like Callahan Ross.”
    “I don’t think Cecilia would have much luck at Callahan Ross,” I replied. “Not dressed the way she was today.”
    “I know it seems hard to believe, but Cecilia came to her job interview with no makeup, her hair in a bun, and wearing a flowered dress with a lace collar. For the first three months she came to work looking like she’d just left church. Then boom, as soon as her three-month probationary period was up, she let her hair down and switched over to her hooker wardrobe.”
    “Why don’t you say something to her about it?”
    “It’s obvious you’re not an employment attorney.
    Technically Cecilia should be able to walk from one end of the plant to the other stark naked without anyone raising their eyes from their work. From what I’ve been told, her attire is irrelevant unless it interferes with job performance—and she’s a surprisingly good secretary. If I mention her wardrobe to her, I’m afraid I’ll just be opening myself up to a lawsuit.”
    “You’re right. I hadn’t thought about it that way.”
    “Welcome to employee relations in the nineties. Dad can’t understand it at all. He tells stories about when he first took over the company from my grandfather—who knows if they’re true—but back then he says that if he caught one of his employees stealing, he’d grab him by the scruff of the neck, beat the living daylights out of him, and literally kick him out onto the street as a lesson to the other workers.”
    “I haven’t spent that much time with your father, but I can believe it.”
    “Dad called me this morning and said he had a meeting with you at the house. Did he tell you what he wants to do about Lydia and her shares?”
    “I think he wants to beat up her husband and kick him out onto the street as a lesson to the other family members,” I replied.
    “So he’s blaming Arthur? I should have guessed.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “Whenever Lydia pulls a stunt like this, Dad always finds some reason why it’s all somebody else’s fault. And believe me, she’s been pulling stunts like this ever since she could talk.”
    “He really believes she could have no valid reason for wanting to sell her shares.”
    “Maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she’s trying to get attention, or express anger, or work through some unresolved crisis from a past life—you’d have to ask her therapist. I don’t know