Lightning Rods (5 page)

Anyway, now that he had come to his senses he realized that for what he was trying to achieve it was impossible to look too good.

He bought a thousand-dollar suit on the installment plan. It was a dark, silky charcoal, so dark it was almost black in certain lights. He bought a deep red silk tie. He bought ten white shirts and a pair of heavy silver cufflinks. He bought ten pairs of black silk socks. He bought a pair of three-hundred-dollar English shoes. He bought ten pairs of Jockey underpants and ten Jockey T-shirts because it’s important to be clean. He bought a box of crisp white handkerchiefs. It’s important not just to look like a rich man, but to feel the way a rich man feels in his clothes.

Then he had some stationery printed up. He wrote to a lot of businesses in the area explaining that he was doing research in personal interaction in occupational psychology, and asking whether members of staff would be prepared to participate in a simple study.

Seventy-five companies didn’t bother to reply. Fifteen wrote to say they weren’t interested. Ten said they would need to know more about it. He went in to Number 91 and he explained:

“As you know personal inter- and intra-gender interaction is a minefield in the modern office. Studies in Germany have shown that the tensions generated by an environment where the sexual is taboo have been eased by what I call a lightning rod.”

“A what?” said the personnel officer.

“An arbitrary device permitting yet limiting interpersonal interactions. A common example is the mistletoe. Persons walking beneath it may be kissed. Persons who avoid it are exempt. Studies in Germany have shown that a similar device, installed in the office environment, removed much of the ill feeling which had previously been generated by, on the one hand, unwelcome advances and, on the other hand, unanticipated rejection.”

He explained that the study would examine the effects of such a device in an American business environment.

Nine out of ten were not interested. One agreed to the study.

Now the way he had set it up—and this was a
long
way from the hole in the wall—was this. Participants would be placed in a computer-generated random-selection procedure. In phase one, the selection would take place once a day at 5. In phase two, there would also be a lunchtime selection. In phase three, there would be hourly selection. Two names would be chosen, one male and one female. These two persons would then be required to kiss in full view of the office, say under the main clock. In other words, Spin the Bottle.

Everyone in the office agreed to play.

Interesting.

SPIN THE BOTTLE

Right,” said Joe. “This is D-Day. I’m going to go activate the program and generate our first draw and then we’ll see who’s the lucky couple.”

He was standing under the clock of an open-plan office. Some of the employees were watching him; some weren’t. There was a little laughter; not enough. He was wearing his thousand-dollar suit, but it didn’t seem to make much difference.

He turned to the computer which had been put at his disposal, and clicked the icon of the program he had written. This was the tricky part. Joe would have been the first to admit that he knew nothing about writing software, but where there’s a will there’s a way. Anyway he sure as hell couldn’t afford to have someone else write it. So he had bought a book called
Beginning Programming for Dummies
, and he had worked his way through it.

It was a real departure from the ordinary call of duty, because normally a salesman doesn’t have to come up with the product. Somebody else has the job of making the product the best possible product for the money. It’s the salesman’s job to persuade people that they succeeded. It helps, obviously, if they at least got halfway there. But even if they didn’t, that’s not the
salesman’s
fault.

There’s a lot to be said for that feeling of limited responsibility. On the other hand, if you have actually produced the product yourself, you can’t help but know it inside out. Besides which, one of the frustrating things about
being
a salesman is the fact that if there
is
something wrong with the product, there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. Whereas if you made it yourself you can always go back to the drawing board if need be.

On the other hand again, a salesman tends not to turn on a vacuum cleaner thinking: It’s in the lap of the gods.

On the
other
hand again, at least one good thing had come out of it, because if it all came to nothing at least he’d learned a new skill.

The little hourglass on the screen turned over and over and over, and a little message box appeared. It said: The persons selected in today’s draw are Sharon Blake and Jeff Smith.

Joe tried to look as if he had known all along it would work. He looked out of the corner of his eye at the screen on the nearest occupied desk, and that too said “The persons selected in today’s draw are Sharon Blake and Jeff Smith.”

Now that he was pretty confident he knew the answer he was able to move around the office asking, “Right, now did everyone get the results of the draw on their screen? Great. We’re in business.”

“So are we supposed to do it right now?” A girl with shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes was looking up at him. A mug on her desk said
SHARON
.

“That’s right,” said Joe. “As soon as the draw comes through the two selected persons are supposed to make their way to the clock.”

“Well, here goes nothing,” said the girl. She got up and walked to the clock. A tall, gangling guy with a big Adam’s apple and an acne problem walked up to the clock and pecked her on the mouth. There was scattered applause and laughter in the office. And they walked back to their desks.

Am I just wasting my time here? thought Joe. Something told him he was barking up the wrong tree.

But he said, “Thank you. See you tomorrow, same time, same place.”

“Look, Joe,” he told himself that night. “Will you stop being so negative about everything? Just look at what you’ve achieved. For starters, you wrote a program that worked! Plus, you got people to do something they wouldn’t necessarily have thought of themselves that was a little embarrassing. Not one single person asked to see your credentials. Nobody even
questioned
your right to make that kind of suggestion. And this is just Day One.”

“I know,” he said. “I know I’m off to a good start. It’s just that I can’t see there ever being much money in it if this is all there’s ever going to be
to
it. But if there’s ever going to be more to it there’s one hell of a long way to go.”

“Well, that’s true in
one
sense,” he said. “But in another sense this might actually be the harder of the two to swing. Because with
this
kind of set-up people can see what they get. They go in it with their eyes open. The gals know there’s a guy in the office with a face like Mount Vesuvius, you gotta get them to agree to a potential involvement, even if a pretty
superficial
involvement, with someone who looks like that. Whereas in the longer term you’re talking about an arrangement where nobody has to see anything unpleasant. The only thing you’ve got to overcome is the initial prejudice against engaging in intercourse in an unfamiliar set-up.”

He sighed. “Say what you will,” he said. “This was a real anti-climax.”

So he spent a lot of time getting arbitrarily selected individuals to kiss each other. The longer it went on, the more he felt like he was on the wrong track. He thought he could probably add a random selection for tongue in mouth but he couldn’t see how to get from there to the hole in the wall. Or maybe you could get to the hole in the wall but it would take a long time.

Still, he kept notes on the experiment and it was not without interest. There were three attractive women in an office of ten; there was one good-looking guy, two passable again out of ten. The unattractive you could say had an obvious interest in taking part. But even the attractive were prepared to play as long as they had a one in three chance of someone attractive. For this they were willing to run a two in three chance of someone unattractive. At the end of the three weeks they all said they’d enjoyed it but once an hour was too disruptive.

He thought: Wait just a second.

What if it worked like this?

You randomly select two members of staff who may kiss at their own discretion. By the end of the day! As soon as they have kissed they set off the selection device. But again, the persons selected may respond in their own time! Within a 24-hour period!

So he held a meeting with the staff putting forward the suggestion and it was received with enthusiasm. It meant another head-to-head with
Beginning Programming for Dummies
, but the thing that separates the sheep from the goats is the willingness to go that extra mile. They tried it for a week and they really liked it. They felt that management had responded to their concerns. After all, they all said, anyone who didn’t want to could drop out. They all agreed that it was a lot of fun.

The head of the company said he would like to keep the random selection device, since it seemed to be having a good effect on staff morale.

Joe said: “I’m sure you’ll appreciate that a lot of work has gone into this. Also, this is just a prototype and I’m concerned about releasing it too soon. But I appreciate your letting me work with your staff. They have been a lot of fun to work with. They’ve been a big help. I can let you have it for $1,000.”

The guy bought it.

Interesting.

LOOKING FOR HIGHLY QUALIFIED PROFESSIONALS

So far Joe hadn’t done much more than extend the spirit of the Christmas party throughout the year. He hadn’t broken any taboos, or at least not in a major way. But his confidence was up. Just succeeding in making a sale, and a sale, at that, of a product that wasn’t self-explanatory, like a vacuum cleaner, had boosted his confidence to the point where he felt able to tackle something more demanding.

So he went out on a limb.

He took an office in an expensive building for just one month.

He advertised some positions for which women might be expected to apply. They called for good qualifications and offered good salaries. Basically he had just plagiarized from ads by legitimate businesses.

A woman answered the ad and he gave her an appointment. She was not ballooning but it would not be the end of the world if she walked out. Good practice material.

He said: “I’m afraid the position you are applying for has been filled. I do have another one which calls for someone with your qualifications. The pay is good, we are offering $60,000 a year, but I have to say I’m very doubtful about mentioning it to you.”

The woman said: “Please go on.”

He said: “It involves an unusual range of responsibilities.”

She said: “Please go on.”

He said: “I’m sure you are aware of the dilemma the issue of sexual harassment poses for many employers. It is a source of very serious concern, and rightly so. A woman has the right to go into her place of work without being subjected to unwelcome attention of a sexual nature. A woman has the right to be assessed purely on the qualifications which are relevant to the job, and not on her sexual availability, for example.”

She said: “Do you mean, is it some sort of position as sexual harassment officer?”

He said: “Not exactly.”

He said: “As you know, many offices have introduced codes of practice in an effort to eliminate behavior which might lead to litigation. This is of limited value. Breaches are not reported. The persons it is meant to protect are
not
protected. At the same time the atmosphere of the office is poisoned. A cloud of suspicion hangs over the most innocent encounters.”

He added: “It is an unfortunate fact of life, also, that some of the worst offenders have been among the most successful in purely job-related terms. Employers are anxious not to lose the services of these valuable individuals.”

She said: “I don’t understand.”

He said: “Many firms are now supplementing their sexual harassment policies with what we call lightning rods.”

She said: “Lightning rods?”

He said: “Let me explain. Typically, a firm will have a range of openings for which women typically apply. They may choose to hire an individual for a limited range of tasks—word processing, xeroxing, and so on. But they may choose to pay an individual a very substantial premium—typically the amount of the original salary—to carry out these tasks and also act as a lightning rod. The individuals concerned would be randomly selected perhaps two or three times a week to provide contact of a sexual nature to selected members of the firm.”

She said: “
What
!”

He said: “It’s not for everybody. That’s why I hesitated to mention it to you. I think everyone would agree that if you could get double the salary for holding somebody’s hand a few times a week it would be a good deal. Perhaps one woman in a thousand would see this as no more than holding hands. We’re looking for that one in a thousand. I need hardly say that the difficulty of finding such individuals is reflected in the pay.”