Hi Chris, Today is Sunday, March 14
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3/12
Tim Murray
New Occasional Absence Policy
Effective April 1, we will convert all employees from our previous sick-leave policy, to an “Occasional Absence” policy. Our analysis has shown that there will be both cost and productivity savings from this change. Basically, if an employee is sick, they do not need to come to work. There is no predetermined number of days considered acceptable—managers have discretion to work with employees to ensure the job gets done. When this policy is instituted, we will eliminate any accrued sick days for all employees. There will be no compensation for any unused sick days, and the policy of paying 50% of accrued sick time upon retirement will also cease. To assist you in communicating and implementing this change, there will be mandatory training sessions for all managers. Please call Tina Baldwin at X3470 to schedule yourself for either the March 22 or March 29 session—both sessions will be held in Conf. B from 8-9 AM.
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3/12
Amy Fielding
Alex Johnson Urgent Hire Reviews
Hi Chris, I pulled together all the following reactions to Alex Johnson, the potential replacement for Leroy. HR says they need you to interview him on Monday or Tuesday which won’t work because you’re in San Francisco—what should I tell them? Please read all emails attached below. Amy Fielding Administrative Assistant 555-555-0121 BarTek Inc | AirSystems Email Attachment 1/6: Date: March 1 From: Sondra Prody Subject: Alex Johnson interviews To: Chris Jenson Chris, First off, I realize that Leroy’s retirement is only a month away, and right now is Not a good time to be without a Marketing director. However, I was not impressed with Alex. He acted like he was doing me a real favor to interview at all—felt like I was pulling teeth or interrogating a prisoner. And I don’t think I’m hard to talk to. Got the impression that he maybe didn’t like having to interview with a peer, and a sales peer at that. I can’t imagine his style wearing well with the team that’s in place. Are there any other viable candidates that we could bring in and look at? Email Attachment 2/6: Date: March 1 From: John Martin Subject: Alex Johnson hire To: Chris Jenson I only had a half hour to meet with him, but was quite impressed. No-nonsense, get-it-done, results-oriented. Talked about his intolerance of endless, pointless meetings, and how he demands that all meetings start by specifying the desired outcome of the discussion. Maybe we could clone him once he’s here! He told me that he is being courted by a number of other companies, including some of the big NYC agencies, so I think we should pull the trigger on this ASAP. Email Attachment 3/6: Date: March 2 From: Ali Shields Subject: Leroy’s replacement To: Chris Jenson Chris, I met with Alex for an hour, and there are some pros and cons. I think he’s very bright and conceptual—really seems to understand strategy. I asked him to comment on the marketing materials we’re currently using, and he made it quite clear that they were not up to his standards of professionalism. When I probed re why and what he’d do, he did the Jack Welch routine re having only “A” players, and moving out people who can’t or won’t meet those standards. I am concerned that he may come in and do surgery with an axe—he hasn’t even met Leroy’s people to my knowledge. Also, seems like the “breadth” that the headhunter touts in the glossy write-up is another way of saying he’s had a whole bunch of jobs. While he presents himself as fast track, fix it and move up, is there a way we can check his references carefully to make sure he’s the real thing? Hate to start off with a negative impression of a potential peer, but my gut is waving little red flags on this one.… Email Attachment 4/6: Date: March 11 From: Leroy Tibbs Subject: My Replacement To: Chris Jenson Chris, I know you haven’t yet had a chance to interview Alex, but I think we need to move on this pretty quickly. This guy brings the perspective we need as we move into a much more competitive and cutting edge technology world. His extensive experience in big agencies with sophisticated clients will probably reduce our dependence on the high-priced MacPherson Agency slicksters, and end up saving us some serious money. I ran into Sondra after she interviewed Alex, and she wasn’t impressed. That alone suggests he’s probably the right guy for the job—she quickly figured out that she wasn’t going to be able to run over him, so decided she didn’t like him. Can we get him on your calendar on the 15th or 16th? We need to make him an offer so he can give notice where he is—if we’re not going to have an empty chair for the whole summer. Email Attachment 5/6: Date: March 12 From: Miquel Vasquez Subject: Alex Johnson To: Chris Jenson Chris, Leroy brought this guy to my office, gave me the “Meet your new AP Marketing Director,” and mentioned that you were the only one left to interview him. Don’t waste your time. We need another arrogant ad agency empty suit like Boston needs more traffic. Call me if you want the details. This is yet another instance of HR not sourcing decent candidates, and having their headhunters do the sales job with glossy write-ups and feel-good reference checks. Email Attachment 6/6: Date: March 12 From: Tim Murray Subject: Alex Johnson hire To: Chris Jenson Salent met with this guy for a half hour, and wanted to know when we were going to make him an offer. I realize that Alex had to cancel the one day you had available last week, but Alex has another offer that has a deadline at the end of next week, so if we don’t make him an offer by Wednesday we’ll lose him. I’ll call Amy first thing Monday morning and get him on your schedule for Monday or Tuesday—he’s available. Thanks.
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3/12
Frank McKracken
TR-450 Problems
Mr. Jenson, I’m the Operations VP at the Denver Airport. I’m responsible for all maintenance and repairs on our state-of-the-art automated baggage handling facility. As you know, we operate 24/7, with only some “slow-down” time from midnight to 5 AM, during which time we can close one line at a time for any necessary work. In the last 90 days, there have been several instances in which it was necessary to close down two or more lines at the same time to correct problems. Our analysis of all incidents shows that 18% of the problems were related to the TR-450 scanning modules, manufactured and installed by BarTek. Obviously, this is unacceptable, and to date, we have not been able to resolve it. We’ve been through Sales, Operations, Installation, Engineering, and even R & D, but all we get is excuses and promises to have yet another person or area call us to resolve the issue. Please call me and let me know how we can get to the bottom of this. My cell phone is 613-558-8890.
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3/12
Kent Mosler
System glitches
Chris, Sorry to kick this up to you, but this is really frustrating. I just really don’t get it—I inform IT that there’s a problem, it takes them almost a month to get back to me, and then all they tell me is to use the web form, that they haven’t had complaints, and that it must be my PC or connections. I’ve checked with other reps., and nearly all of us are ready to toss the new sales demo. system and go back to the booklets. Email Attachment 1/3: Date: March 11 From: Bob Burch Fwd: System problems To: Kent Mosler Kent, Steve passed on your Email to me. We expect some bugs as we implement any new system. There is a quick form on the Tech. Web page for reporting such problems, and I would encourage you to use this form any time you experience future difficulties. Looking over our logs, we have not had a significant number of complaints from other reps. It may be that your laptop has a problem, or that internet connections in your area are not reliable. Please let us know if you experience future problems. Email Attachment 2/3: Date: February 23 From: Steve Jobs Fwd: System glitches To: Bob Burch Bob, can you please look into this and get back to the Region II people? Thanks. Email Attachment 3/3: Date: February 15 From: Kent Mosler Subject: System glitches To: Steve Jobs CC: Sondra Prody Steve, We’ve been having significant problems with the new product demonstration software. About half the time we’re in front of a customer, the system freezes up, disconnects, or runs so abominably slow that everyone falls asleep. I thought the point of this was to make our lives easier and impress potential customers. I’m tired of making excuses and jokes about new systems—when is this going to get fixed?
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3/12
Al Steinberg
February Flash Report
See Attached Air Systems Feb. Report below: Email Attachment 1/1: February FLASH Report Bar-Tek Airport Systems Month Year-to-date February Prior Year Current Year Prior Year Orders (000’s) 3,150 2,600 10,150 8,400 …versus Prior Year +21.2% +20.8% Revenue (000’s) $2,400 $2,210 $9,800 $9,120 …versus Prior Year +8.6% +7.5% Customer Backlog* 2,008 1,450 …versus Prior Year +38.5% *Greater than 30 days
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3/12
Sondra Prody
Jose Hernandez
Chris, Jose has not worked out in the sales position on my team, and I plan to terminate him next Friday. When I informed the HR generalist, she said we need to place him on a “performance improvement plan,” and give him “sufficient time” to see if he can meet standards. However, I’m not interested in dragging this out any longer—it’s not good for the company, and it’s also not good for Jose. He’s got major call reluctance, it’s never clear where he is or how to get ahold of him, and in 3 months, the only “sale” he’s made is one that was 95% done when he inherited that client from his predecessor. It’s not a fit—I know HR has a program to encourage greater diversity in the professional ranks by posting jobs in the manufacturing plants, but this is an instance where we just put a good guy in the wrong job. So, HR is not going to be happy, but I wanted to let you know in advance so you could back me on this if/when it hits the fan. Thanks!
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3/12
Miquel Vasquez
Re: Web Use Oversight
I’m inclined to go ahead with this. Just last week Mary walked in and caught one of the engineers quickly shutting down what was obviously a porn site on his computer. Get back to me if you have any objections—otherwise let’s give it a try. Begin forwarded message: Date: March 10 From: Steve Jobs Subject: Web Use Oversight To: Miquel Vasquez I was approached last week by a salesperson from a company called Security Systems, Inc., that provides systems to monitor and block inappropriate Internet usage. They are offering to install and run their reporting software on our systems for a month at no cost whatsoever to us. At the end of that month, they will provide a detailed report of the type, extent, dollar costs, and legal risks of inappropriate usage. I saw a sample report, which detailed significant employee time spent on pornographic sites, music download sites, as well as some sites associated with illegal sports betting. The salesperson said that, in his experience, it would be very unusual if the software didn’t show similar results in our company. With the need to focus on systems costs and productivity, I think we should give this a trial and see what we get. With all the pressure to increase the size of the sales pipeline, this program may in the end more than pay for itself. Let me know if you’re in agreement—the sales guy said that they could get in here as early as a week from next Sunday to get it installed and running.
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3/12
Thomas Salent
Re: Insurance Crisis
Chris, is this new information to you? What is your plan to counteract this??? Begin forwarded message 1/1: Date: March 11 From: Jan Rossler Subject: Insurance Crisis To: Thomas Salent CC: Sarah Albert, Miquel Vasquez, Chris Jenson We have just been informed by our corporate insurance provider, American Allied, that they will not renew our liability insurance coverage at the end of the current contract, just 60 days from now. Post 9/11, all the carriers have been scrambling to limit their exposure and pass it off to whoever they can. So the airlines’ insurers have rewritten contracts to exclude coverage due to problems associated with airport facilities, and those facilities are responsible for ensuring both passenger and baggage screening. In response, the airports’ carriers latest scheme is to exclude coverage for problems that arise from what they refer to as the “machinery” of screening. Bottom line, they’re saying that, if explosives or weapons end up on board an aircraft, the manufacturing organization of the screening equipment is both liable for damages, and will indemnify the airport facilities. Since none of this is secret, and has made for some interesting debate in the insurance community, our carrier got wind of this, and their actuaries suggested that they drop this whole product line until this has had some time to shake out. We have, of course, asked for proposals from several other carriers, but their preliminary estimates suggest that the coverage might be almost prohibitively expensive, if we can get it at all. I’d suggest that we meet as soon as possible to plan for various contingencies. Obviously, I’d not recommend that we continue to do business in the airport market without insurance.
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3/12
T. R. Shaft
Mac Support Issues
For several months now, we have been working with people in the Airport Systems marketing group, to change over their hardware and systems to the new, integrated platform. However, there are two individuals, Pete Nader and Cynthia Allen, who continue to use Macs, which causes a number of associated difficulties. Not the least of which is taking up inordinate amounts of time with our help-line people, who frankly can’t be expected to keep up to date with dinosaur Mac issues. I have listened, argued, begged and pleaded with them to let us switch them over, but they have some almost-religious belief that only the Mac can handle the kind of graphics and art that they need to do. If they would get off this kick and get on board, I think they’d find they’re missing out on a much better tool. This is to inform you that as of March 25, we will no longer be providing any support to Mac users. I have informed all help-line people of this, and I’ve left voice mails to that effect for both Pete and Cynthia.
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3/12
John Martin
Product Backlogs
I just fielded a call from a very unhappy customer at the Minneapolis/Saint Paul Airport. They’re in the process of expanding runways and facilities, we sold them additional baggage scanners for their e-Ticket kiosks—and they’re still waiting for the installation that was supposed to take place by March 1st. I called Theresa in Installations and got much song and dance about parts shortages, dock workers on strike in California, etc. What’s going on? We exceed our sales targets, only to find out that the products are not getting delivered as promised? This is going to kill our credibility with our customers.
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3/12
Ali Shields
New Technology Development
Chris, I was just at a college reunion, and one of my old sorority sisters is working for a small, high tech. start-up in Silicon Valley called “Micro-Technology Innovations.” They’re involved in “nanotechnology” which she describes as building extremely small widgets. She says they’re working on a project that would build very tiny RF chips that could be implanted in products, like even within the paint layer on a Coke can, and which could be read by a radio frequency scanner. Idea is that it could virtually replace barcodes, because it could be read simply passing the scanner regardless of position. They hope that, with enough development, you could push your whole cart of groceries past the scanner, and it would all register. So, needless to say, it was quite an interesting conversation when I told her where I worked. A couple drinks later, she told me that they’re running off the end of their financial commitment from their venture capital people, and wondering if they’ll be able to keep going. One of the possibilities they’ve discussed is to look for a buyer, and she suggested that I push this within BarTek, because she really believes that this has the potential to make our current technology obsolete. I have no way of knowing whether this is something we should pay attention to, or if she is just blowing smoke, but thought I should let you know. Let me know if I can help further. My friend’s name is Cara Norgard, and she’s basically a finance nerd there, but she could introduce us to the CEO and others.
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3/12
Alice Frede
CONFIDENTIAL
CONFIDENTIAL—To be opened only by Chris Jenson Email Attachment 1/1: Chris, I don’t know if it’s the right thing to even write this, so feel free to simply delete this if it’s inappropriate. As you may or may not know, I’ve worked as a sales rep. on the Reg. II team for only two months. I’m the only female, and frankly, I’m beginning to wonder if I made a mistake coming here. This is a real “guy” organization—everything is a sports or war analogy, and since I don’t follow football, about half of the talk in our staff meetings is something I can’t participate in. Nor do I want to throw money in their weekend betting pools. Anyway, we had a planning offsite last Wednesday at a nice hotel about 30 miles up the coast. We had all driven together. On the way back, they were all winking and giggling and talking about how they planned to “initiate” me by inviting me to the “Region II Executive Staff Meeting.” So they stopped at a strip joint on the turnpike, and we spent two hours in a smoky bar watching nude “dancing.” While I don’t consider myself overly conservative, this is not at all something I enjoy or feel I should have to put up with as part of my job. Since John Martin was there participating all the way, it’s not like I can complain to my boss. Any advice? I really don’t want to make a stink, but at my last employer, they would have viewed this as harassment.
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3/12
Sue Franklin
Big Problem with Federal Bid specs.
We’ve got a major problem that’s just hit at our three biggest hub systems—Minneapolis, Cleveland and Denver. With the push to install all the Federally mandated baggage screening machines, it seems there’s only one big player that’s manufacturing the machines and winning the bids for major airports. The current machines simply X-ray and “sniff” for explosives, and the screening employees use a hand held scanner to read the tag barcodes when there’s a problem bag. Now, the Federal specifications for additional machines require that the machines incorporate “compatible readers” into the machines. So, Steve Jenson, of Northwest Technologies, the subcontractor who builds the machines, called me and asked if we’d like to submit a bid for those components. When he sent me the Bid Specs., I about fell over—the cost per machine can’t exceed about 75% of our base cost! I called him to ask what’s up, and he told me that they’ve already gotten 3 bids below that, two from foreign competitors, but couldn’t tell me the names. When I pushed the technical issues, it’s pretty clear that they don’t know what they’re doing, and the bid specs. only require the kind of basic technology we were using 10 years ago. He wasn’t interested in listening to my explanations of why the bid specs. were clearly wrong—he said he had no interest in trying to convince the Federal government that they needed to redo the specs. to spend more money—he was just going to build what they asked for. When I pulled our group together to look at the issue, Greg Pratt, who handles the Denver account, said that the Denver Airport systems manager let him know in no uncertain terms that he expected the new machines to have BarTek technology and systems in them—we had promised him “full integration” in all aspects of baggage handling, and in his mind, that meant not having to learn and support two different hardware and software systems for baggage handling. He’s expecting us to keep that commitment by getting BarTek technology in the new machines, even if we have to give it away. I think you need to call a meeting with Mr. Salent, and anyone else who understands Federal bureaucracy to address this before it blows up. Please call me ASAP on my cell.
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3/12
Leroy Tibbs
Elimination of Sick Leave
Chris, I assume that you got the Email from HR announcing their great cost saving idea re sick leave. Maybe their analysis is correct (I doubt it…), but obviously, implementing this policy 15 days before my retirement is totally unacceptable. John Stevens hired me as the first marketing person in 1985, and in the more than 30 years I’ve been here, I’ve probably missed a total of 5 days. So, naturally I’ve accrued the max. allowed of 60 days. At the time I announced my retirement in writing, I was entitled to being paid for 50% of that time—the equivalent of 6 weeks of pay. I suppose I could move my date up by two weeks and get in under the wire, but that seems silly. Please arrange an exception to this great new policy for me—I really don’t want to leave on a sour note over something this silly.
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3/12
Greg Pratt
Confidential
Chris, I thought you should know about this Email that Alice sent… She’s not the strongest member of our team, but can be fairly influential in a funny sorta way. I don’t really like her trying to rile up the team—from my vantage point, things are fine. Also don’t know if John is handling this very well—he doesn’t seem to know what to make of Alice. Anyway, hope you are adjusting well to the company. Email Attachment 1/1: Date: March 5 From: Alice.Frede Subject: Raises, or lack thereof… To: Harlan Dodd, W. Smith Jr., Greg Pratt So I hear through the grapevine that Bob, Kent and Cindy in Region I are all in line for raises at the end of the fiscal year, but we’re not! Once again, John is making excuses instead of stepping up and supporting us. Sally Vrain who used to work for Ali says Boston Scientific is looking for sales people, and that they will pay what it takes to get and keep good people. I think we ought to confront John in the next staff meeting.
March 12
Tim Murray
New Occasional Absence Policy
To: (list of all managers)
Effective April 1, we will convert all employees from our previous sick-leave policy, to an “Occasional Absence” policy. Our analysis has shown that there will be both cost and productivity savings from this change. Basically, if an employee is sick, they do not need to come to work. There is no predetermined number of days considered acceptable—managers have discretion to work with employees to ensure the job gets done.
When this policy is instituted, we will eliminate any accrued sick days for all employees. There will be no compensation for any unused sick days, and the policy of paying 50% of accrued sick time upon retirement will also cease. To assist you in communicating and implementing this change, there will be mandatory training sessions for all managers. Please call Tina Baldwin at X3470 to schedule yourself for either the March 22 or March 29 session—both sessions will be held in Conf. B from 8-9 AM.
March 12
Amy Fielding
Alex Johnson Urgent Hire Reviews
To: Chris Jenson
Hi Chris, I pulled together all the following reactions to Alex Johnson, the potential replacement for Leroy. HR says they need you to interview him on Monday or Tuesday which won’t work because you’re in San Francisco—what should I tell them?
Please read all emails attached below.
Amy Fielding
Administrative Assistant
555-555-0121
BarTek Inc | AirSystems
Email Attachment 1/6:
Date: March 1
From: Sondra Prody
Subject: Alex Johnson interviews
To: Chris Jenson
Chris, First off, I realize that Leroy’s retirement is only a month away, and right now is Not a good time to be without a Marketing director. However, I was not impressed with Alex. He acted like he was doing me a real favor to interview at all—felt like I was pulling teeth or interrogating a prisoner. And I don’t think I’m hard to talk to. Got the impression that he maybe didn’t like having to interview with a peer, and a sales peer at that. I can’t imagine his style wearing well with the team that’s in place. Are there any other viable candidates that we could bring in and look at?
Email Attachment 2/6:
Date: March 1
From: John Martin
Subject: Alex Johnson hire
To: Chris Jenson
I only had a half hour to meet with him, but was quite impressed. No-nonsense, get-it-done, results-oriented. Talked about his intolerance of endless, pointless meetings, and how he demands that all meetings start by specifying the desired outcome of the discussion. Maybe we could clone him once he’s here! He told me that he is being courted by a number of other companies, including some of the big NYC agencies, so I think we should pull the trigger on this ASAP.
Email Attachment 3/6:
Date: March 2
From: Ali Shields
Subject: Leroy’s replacement
To: Chris Jenson
Chris, I met with Alex for an hour, and there are some pros and cons. I think he’s very bright and conceptual—really seems to understand strategy. I asked him to comment on the marketing materials we’re currently using, and he made it quite clear that they were not up to his standards of professionalism. When I probed re why and what he’d do, he did the Jack Welch routine re having only “A” players, and moving out people who can’t or won’t meet those standards. I am concerned that he may come in and do surgery with an axe—he hasn’t even met Leroy’s people to my knowledge.
Also, seems like the “breadth” that the headhunter touts in the glossy write-up is another way of saying he’s had a whole bunch of jobs. While he presents himself as fast track, fix it and move up, is there a way we can check his references carefully to make sure he’s the real thing? Hate to start off with a negative impression of a potential peer, but my gut is waving little red flags on this one.…
Email Attachment 4/6:
Date: March 11
From: Leroy Tibbs
Subject: My Replacement
To: Chris Jenson
Chris, I know you haven’t yet had a chance to interview Alex, but I think we need to move on this pretty quickly. This guy brings the perspective we need as we move into a much more competitive and cutting edge technology world. His extensive experience in big agencies with sophisticated clients will probably reduce our dependence on the high-priced MacPherson Agency slicksters, and end up saving us some serious money.
I ran into Sondra after she interviewed Alex, and she wasn’t impressed. That alone suggests he’s probably the right guy for the job—she quickly figured out that she wasn’t going to be able to run over him, so decided she didn’t like him. Can we get him on your calendar on the 15th or 16th? We need to make him an offer so he can give notice where he is—if we’re not going to have an empty chair for the whole summer.
Email Attachment 5/6:
Date: March 12
From: Miquel Vasquez
Subject: Alex Johnson
To: Chris Jenson
Chris, Leroy brought this guy to my office, gave me the “Meet your new AP Marketing Director,” and mentioned that you were the only one left to interview him. Don’t waste your time. We need another arrogant ad agency empty suit like Boston needs more traffic. Call me if you want the details.
This is yet another instance of HR not sourcing decent candidates, and having their headhunters do the sales job with glossy write-ups and feel-good reference checks.
Email Attachment 6/6:
Date: March 12
From: Tim Murray
Subject: Alex Johnson hire
To: Chris Jenson
Salent met with this guy for a half hour, and wanted to know when we were going to make him an offer. I realize that Alex had to cancel the one day you had available last week, but Alex has another offer that has a deadline at the end of next week, so if we don’t make him an offer by Wednesday we’ll lose him. I’ll call Amy first thing Monday morning and get him on your schedule for Monday or Tuesday—he’s available. Thanks.
March 12
Frank McKracken
TR-450 Problems
To: Chris Jenson
Mr. Jenson,
I’m the Operations VP at the Denver Airport. I’m responsible for all maintenance and repairs on our state-of-the-art automated baggage handling facility. As you know, we operate 24/7, with only some “slow-down” time from midnight to 5 AM, during which time we can close one line at a time for any necessary work. In the last 90 days, there have been several instances in which it was necessary to close down two or more lines at the same time to correct problems. Our analysis of all incidents shows that 18% of the problems were related to the TR-450 scanning modules, manufactured and installed by BarTek. Obviously, this is unacceptable, and to date, we have not been able to resolve it. We’ve been through Sales, Operations, Installation, Engineering, and even R & D, but all we get is excuses and promises to have yet another person or area call us to resolve the issue. Please call me and let me know how we can get to the bottom of this. My cell phone is 613-558-8890.
March 12
Kent Mosler
System glitches
To: Chris Jenson
Cc: Sondra Prody
Chris,
Sorry to kick this up to you, but this is really frustrating. I just really don’t get it—I inform IT that there’s a problem, it takes them almost a month to get back to me, and then all they tell me is to use the web form, that they haven’t had complaints, and that it must be my PC or connections. I’ve checked with other reps., and nearly all of us are ready to toss the new sales demo. system and go back to the booklets.
Email Attachment 1/3:
Date: March 11
From: Bob Burch
Fwd: System problems
To: Kent Mosler
Kent,
Steve passed on your Email to me. We expect some bugs as we implement any new system. There is a quick form on the Tech. Web page for reporting such problems, and I would encourage you to use this form any time you experience future difficulties. Looking over our logs, we have not had a significant number of complaints from other reps. It may be that your laptop has a problem, or that internet connections in your area are not reliable. Please let us know if you experience future problems.
Email Attachment 2/3:
Date: February 23
From: Steve Jobs
Fwd: System glitches
To: Bob Burch
Bob, can you please look into this and get back to the Region II people? Thanks.
Email Attachment 3/3:
Date: February 15
From: Kent Mosler
Subject: System glitches
To: Steve Jobs CC: Sondra Prody
Steve,
We’ve been having significant problems with the new product demonstration software. About half the time we’re in front of a customer, the system freezes up, disconnects, or runs so abominably slow that everyone falls asleep. I thought the point of this was to make our lives easier and impress potential customers. I’m tired of making excuses and jokes about new systems—when is this going to get fixed?
March 12
Al Steinberg
February Flash Report
To: Directors, AVPs, VPs, SVPs, EVPs
See Attached Air Systems Feb. Report below:
Email Attachment 1/1:
Bar-Tek Airport Systems
|
|
Month |
|
Year-to-date |
||
|
|
February |
Prior Year |
|
Current Year |
Prior Year |
|
Orders (000’s) |
3,150 |
2,600 |
|
10,150 |
8,400 |
|
…versus Prior Year |
+21.2% |
|
|
+20.8% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Revenue (000’s) |
$2,400 |
$2,210 |
|
$9,800 |
$9,120 |
|
…versus Prior Year |
+8.6% |
|
|
+7.5% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Customer Backlog* |
|
|
|
2,008 |
1,450 |
|
…versus Prior Year |
|
|
|
+38.5% |
|
|
*Greater than 30 days |
|
|
|
||
March 12
Sondra Prody
Jose Hernandez
To: Chris Jensen
Chris, Jose has not worked out in the sales position on my team, and I plan to terminate him next Friday. When I informed the HR generalist, she said we need to place him on a “performance improvement plan,” and give him “sufficient time” to see if he can meet standards.
However, I’m not interested in dragging this out any longer—it’s not good for the company, and it’s also not good for Jose. He’s got major call reluctance, it’s never clear where he is or how to get ahold of him, and in 3 months, the only “sale” he’s made is one that was 95% done when he inherited that client from his predecessor. It’s not a fit—I know HR has a program to encourage greater diversity in the professional ranks by posting jobs in the manufacturing plants, but this is an instance where we just put a good guy in the wrong job.
So, HR is not going to be happy, but I wanted to let you know in advance so you could back me on this if/when it hits the fan.
Thanks!
March 12
Miquel Vasquez
Re: Web Use Oversight
To: Sarah Albert, Chris Jenson
I’m inclined to go ahead with this. Just last week Mary walked in and caught one of the engineers quickly shutting down what was obviously a porn site on his computer. Get back to me if you have any objections—otherwise let’s give it a try.
Begin forwarded message:
Date: March 10
From: Steve Jobs
Subject: Web Use Oversight
To: Miquel Vasquez
I was approached last week by a salesperson from a company called Security Systems, Inc., that provides systems to monitor and block inappropriate Internet usage. They are offering to install and run their reporting software on our systems for a month at no cost whatsoever to us. At the end of that month, they will provide a detailed report of the type, extent, dollar costs, and legal risks of inappropriate usage. I saw a sample report, which detailed significant employee time spent on pornographic sites, music download sites, as well as some sites associated with illegal sports betting. The salesperson said that, in his experience, it would be very unusual if the software didn’t show similar results in our company. With the need to focus on systems costs and productivity, I think we should give this a trial and see what we get. With all the pressure to increase the size of the sales pipeline, this program may in the end more than pay for itself. Let me know if you’re in agreement—the sales guy said that they could get in here as early as a week from next Sunday to get it installed and running.
March 12
Thomas Salent
Re: Insurance Crisis
To: Chris Jenson
Chris, is this new information to you? What is your plan to counteract this???
Begin forwarded message 1/1:
Date: March 11
From: Jan Rossler
Subject: Insurance Crisis
To: Thomas Salent CC: Sarah Albert, Miquel Vasquez, Chris Jenson
We have just been informed by our corporate insurance provider, American Allied, that they will not renew our liability insurance coverage at the end of the current contract, just 60 days from now. Post 9/11, all the carriers have been scrambling to limit their exposure and pass it off to whoever they can. So the airlines’ insurers have rewritten contracts to exclude coverage due to problems associated with airport facilities, and those facilities are responsible for ensuring both passenger and baggage screening. In response, the airports’ carriers latest scheme is to exclude coverage for problems that arise from what they refer to as the “machinery” of screening. Bottom line, they’re saying that, if explosives or weapons end up on board an aircraft, the manufacturing organization of the screening equipment is both liable for damages, and will indemnify the airport facilities.
Since none of this is secret, and has made for some interesting debate in the insurance community, our carrier got wind of this, and their actuaries suggested that they drop this whole product line until this has had some time to shake out. We have, of course, asked for proposals from several other carriers, but their preliminary estimates suggest that the coverage might be almost prohibitively expensive, if we can get it at all.
I’d suggest that we meet as soon as possible to plan for various contingencies. Obviously, I’d not recommend that we continue to do business in the airport market without insurance.
March 12
T. R. Shaft
Mac Support Issues
To: Chris Jenson
Cc: Steve Jobs, Miquel Vasquez, Leroy Tibbs
For several months now, we have been working with people in the Airport Systems marketing group, to change over their hardware and systems to the new, integrated platform. However, there are two individuals, Pete Nader and Cynthia Allen, who continue to use Macs, which causes a number of associated difficulties. Not the least of which is taking up inordinate amounts of time with our help-line people, who frankly can’t be expected to keep up to date with dinosaur Mac issues. I have listened, argued, begged and pleaded with them to let us switch them over, but they have some almost-religious belief that only the Mac can handle the kind of graphics and art that they need to do. If they would get off this kick and get on board, I think they’d find they’re missing out on a much better tool.
This is to inform you that as of March 25, we will no longer be providing any support to Mac users. I have informed all help-line people of this, and I’ve left voice mails to that effect for both Pete and Cynthia.
March 12
John Martin
Product Backlogs
To: Chris Jenson
I just fielded a call from a very unhappy customer at the Minneapolis/Saint Paul Airport. They’re in the process of expanding runways and facilities, we sold them additional baggage scanners for their e-Ticket kiosks—and they’re still waiting for the installation that was supposed to take place by March 1st. I called Theresa in Installations and got much song and dance about parts shortages, dock workers on strike in California, etc. What’s going on? We exceed our sales targets, only to find out that the products are not getting delivered as promised? This is going to kill our credibility with our customers.
March 12
Ali Shields
New Technology Development
To: Chris Jenson
Chris,
I was just at a college reunion, and one of my old sorority sisters is working for a small, high tech. start-up in Silicon Valley called “Micro-Technology Innovations.” They’re involved in “nanotechnology” which she describes as building extremely small widgets. She says they’re working on a project that would build very tiny RF chips that could be implanted in products, like even within the paint layer on a Coke can, and which could be read by a radio frequency scanner. Idea is that it could virtually replace barcodes, because it could be read simply passing the scanner regardless of position. They hope that, with enough development, you could push your whole cart of groceries past the scanner, and it would all register.
So, needless to say, it was quite an interesting conversation when I told her where I worked. A couple drinks later, she told me that they’re running off the end of their financial commitment from their venture capital people, and wondering if they’ll be able to keep going. One of the possibilities they’ve discussed is to look for a buyer, and she suggested that I push this within BarTek, because she really believes that this has the potential to make our current technology obsolete.
I have no way of knowing whether this is something we should pay attention to, or if she is just blowing smoke, but thought I should let you know. Let me know if I can help further. My friend’s name is Cara Norgard, and she’s basically a finance nerd there, but she could introduce us to the CEO and others.
March 12
Alice Frede
CONFIDENTIAL
To: Chris Jenson
CONFIDENTIAL—To be opened only by Chris Jenson
Email Attachment 1/1:
Chris, I don’t know if it’s the right thing to even write this, so feel free to simply delete this if it’s inappropriate. As you may or may not know, I’ve worked as a sales rep. on the Reg. II team for only two months. I’m the only female, and frankly, I’m beginning to wonder if I made a mistake coming here. This is a real “guy” organization—everything is a sports or war analogy, and since I don’t follow football, about half of the talk in our staff meetings is something I can’t participate in. Nor do I want to throw money in their weekend betting pools.
Anyway, we had a planning offsite last Wednesday at a nice hotel about 30 miles up the coast. We had all driven together. On the way back, they were all winking and giggling and talking about how they planned to “initiate” me by inviting me to the “Region II Executive Staff Meeting.” So they stopped at a strip joint on the turnpike, and we spent two hours in a smoky bar watching nude “dancing.” While I don’t consider myself overly conservative, this is not at all something I enjoy or feel I should have to put up with as part of my job. Since John Martin was there participating all the way, it’s not like I can complain to my boss. Any advice? I really don’t want to make a stink, but at my last employer, they would have viewed this as harassment.
March 12
Sue Franklin
Big Problem with Federal Bid specs.
To: Miquel Vasquez, Chris Jenson
We’ve got a major problem that’s just hit at our three biggest hub systems—Minneapolis, Cleveland and Denver. With the push to install all the Federally mandated baggage screening machines, it seems there’s only one big player that’s manufacturing the machines and winning the bids for major airports. The current machines simply X-ray and “sniff” for explosives, and the screening employees use a hand held scanner to read the tag barcodes when there’s a problem bag. Now, the Federal specifications for additional machines require that the machines incorporate “compatible readers” into the machines. So, Steve Jenson, of Northwest Technologies, the subcontractor who builds the machines, called me and asked if we’d like to submit a bid for those components. When he sent me the Bid Specs., I about fell over—the cost per machine can’t exceed about 75% of our base cost! I called him to ask what’s up, and he told me that they’ve already gotten 3 bids below that, two from foreign competitors, but couldn’t tell me the names. When I pushed the technical issues, it’s pretty clear that they don’t know what they’re doing, and the bid specs. only require the kind of basic technology we were using 10 years ago. He wasn’t interested in listening to my explanations of why the bid specs. were clearly wrong—he said he had no interest in trying to convince the Federal government that they needed to redo the specs. to spend more money—he was just going to build what they asked for.
When I pulled our group together to look at the issue, Greg Pratt, who handles the Denver account, said that the Denver Airport systems manager let him know in no uncertain terms that he expected the new machines to have BarTek technology and systems in them—we had promised him “full integration” in all aspects of baggage handling, and in his mind, that meant not having to learn and support two different hardware and software systems for baggage handling. He’s expecting us to keep that commitment by getting BarTek technology in the new machines, even if we have to give it away. I think you need to call a meeting with Mr. Salent, and anyone else who understands Federal bureaucracy to address this before it blows up. Please call me ASAP on my cell.
March 12
Leroy Tibbs
Elimination of Sick Leave
To: Chris Jenson
Chris, I assume that you got the Email from HR announcing their great cost saving idea re sick leave. Maybe their analysis is correct (I doubt it…), but obviously, implementing this policy 15 days before my retirement is totally unacceptable. John Stevens hired me as the first marketing person in 1985, and in the more than 30 years I’ve been here, I’ve probably missed a total of 5 days. So, naturally I’ve accrued the max. allowed of 60 days. At the time I announced my retirement in writing, I was entitled to being paid for 50% of that time—the equivalent of 6 weeks of pay. I suppose I could move my date up by two weeks and get in under the wire, but that seems silly. Please arrange an exception to this great new policy for me—I really don’t want to leave on a sour note over something this silly.
March 12
Greg Pratt
Confidential
To: Chris Jenson
Chris, I thought you should know about this Email that Alice sent… She’s not the strongest member of our team, but can be fairly influential in a funny sorta way. I don’t really like her trying to rile up the team—from my vantage point, things are fine. Also don’t know if John is handling this very well—he doesn’t seem to know what to make of Alice. Anyway, hope you are adjusting well to the company.
Email Attachment 1/1:
Date: March 5
From: Alice.Frede
Subject: Raises, or lack thereof…
To: Harlan Dodd, W. Smith Jr., Greg Pratt
So I hear through the grapevine that Bob, Kent and Cindy in Region I are all in line for raises at the end of the fiscal year, but we’re not! Once again, John is making excuses instead of stepping up and supporting us. Sally Vrain who used to work for Ali says Boston Scientific is looking for sales people, and that they will pay what it takes to get and keep good people. I think we ought to confront John in the next staff meeting.
Scenario and Instructions
A management simulation
Info
Remember: Please don’t refresh your screen at any time or you will have to start the program over.
BarTek History
A management simulation
BarTek was founded in 1983 by John Stevens. Stevens had previously worked with David Collins, one of the pioneers in bar code applications, in Collin’s company, Computer Identics. Computer Identics had developed the concept of using laser readers to scan simple, two-digit bar codes in assembly line applications. The lasers could read codes from several feet away, and from several different angles, thus eliminating the need for a person to pass a hand-held scanner over each label. Steven’s expertise lay in developing the software to convert the photocell impulses to digital information, while accurately reading a high percentage of wrinkled, damaged or smudged labels. Prior to Steven’s work, such labels were simply rejected, and not read as usable data.
Grocery store scanning, first demonstrated in 1971, had to wait until the Uniform Product Code concept could standardize bar codes across all manufacturers and product suppliers, after which scanning became a viable option. Once uniform product codes, UPCs, were in place, grocery scanning grew exponentially in the early ‘80’s. However, most people remember the early scanners as rather finicky—clerks would often have to pass items over the reader several times and at several angles before the reader would “beep” that the code had been read. Stevens saw this as an opportunity to develop refined software that could decipher signals from multiple angles, and in spite of wrinkled or otherwise damaged labels. BarTek was launched in 1983 in Steven’s basement, and within 6 months, moved to a production facility with 13 employees.
Between 1984 and 1988, BarTek’s sales quadrupled, continuing to concentrate on leading edge hardware, and state-of-the-art software for the grocery business. In 1988, Stevens was approached by the CEO of AMH, Automated Materials Handling, a company that manufactured and installed conveyors for warehouses and assembly plants. AMH had bid on a large, fully automated baggage handling/sorting system for a major airport. However, in tests, their current software was rejecting up to 20% of baggage tags as unreadable because of wrinkling, dirt, smudges, and other damage. BarTek became the supplier of hardware and software for those systems, and in 1995, purchased AMH at the request of the retiring CEO.
In the aftermath of 9/11, BarTek was contacted by several of its airport clients, and asked to help with the problem of matching on-board passengers to loaded luggage. Recognizing the growth opportunities, BarTek moved to a matrixed organization, with product groups broken into Retail and Airport Systems, and shared services for R & D, engineering, IT, manufacturing and operations. Thus, the people in these five areas report directly to the SVP of R&D/Engineering/Manufacturing, and with a dotted line to the SVP, Retail Systems and the SVP, Airport Systems.
BarTek’s corporate headquarters are located in Boston, with software development and manufacturing in a facility 30 miles west of Boston. Materials handling is located in Cleveland, in the conveyor manufacturing complex that came with the AMH purchase. Increasingly, materials handling purchases component parts abroad, including some high-tech components from Germany, and other manufactured components from Mexico, Taiwan and South Korea.
BarTek’s Strategy Today
BarTek’s strategy is evolving. The retail market is quite mature, and the opportunities for higher margin products are diminishing. BarTek has continued to maintain a respectable 34% of this market, but cheaper technology and foreign competition have led to a need to actually decrease prices over the past 3 years. There has been some discussion at the board level (and within the company) that it may make sense to sell and exit the retail market and concentrate on the higher margin Airport Systems opportunities. Stevens has gone on record as strongly opposing such a move—he has stated that, as long as he is CEO, “BarTek will never abandon its roots and core business.”
Airport Systems had been a rapidly growing business as air travel grew in the ‘90’s, and airports upgraded baggage handling systems. In the years since 9/11, the business has taken on something of a “frantic” quality, with almost weekly announcements of pending and closed sales for either new systems or upgrades. Wary of building and hiring to keep up with what might be a short-term boom, Stevens has pushed the organization to add shifts rather than facilities, and utilize overtime and temporary workers rather than adding new, permanent hires. Thus, while business is good, the economic uncertainty associated with the airline industry has made it difficult to predict future sales and growth.
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
March28 | Mar 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
14 Delta Flight DL425 – 5:20 pm to 9:05 pm 5:20pm Delta Flight DL425 – 5:20 pm to 9:05 pm March 14 5:20pm - 9:30pm | 15 Technology Standards Committee – San Francisco 8:00am Technology Standards Committee – San Francisco March 15 8:00am - 6:00pm | 16 Technology Standards Committee – San Francisco 8:00am Technology Standards Committee – San Francisco March 16 8:00am - 6:00pm | 17 Delta Flight DL2610 11:25 AM to 8:20 PM 11:00am Delta Flight DL2610 11:25 AM to 8:20 PM March 17 11:00am - 9:00pm | 18 Sarah A & Miguel V monthly status meeting 8:00am Sarah A & Miguel V monthly status meeting March 18 8:00am - 10:00am Prepare for Monday staff meeting 10:00am Prepare for Monday staff meeting March 18 10:00am - 12:00pm Lunch with Alice Frede (Mentoring Program Participant) 12:00pm Lunch with Alice Frede (Mentoring Program Participant) March 18 12:00pm - 2:00pm | 19 1:1 Ali Shields 8:00am 1:1 Ali Shields March 19 8:00am - 9:00am 1:1 John Martin 10:00am 1:1 John Martin March 19 10:00am - 11:00am 1:1 Leroy Tibbs 11:00am 1:1 Leroy Tibbs March 19 11:00am - 12:00pm Out – School conferences 3:00pm Out – School conferences March 19 3:00pm - 5:00pm | 20 |
21 | 22 T. Salent’s staff Meeting 8:00am T. Salent’s staff Meeting March 22 8:00am - 11:00am 1:1 Sondra Prody 1:00pm 1:1 Sondra Prody March 22 1:00pm - 2:00pm TR6 Project Engineering Update Meeting 3:00pm TR6 Project Engineering Update Meeting March 22 3:00pm - 5:00pm | 23 Blanner and Dermit – Review RFPs for Boston plant remodel 8:00am Blanner and Dermit – Review RFPs for Boston plant remodel March 23 8:00am - 11:00am Rotary meeting 12:00pm Rotary meeting March 23 12:00pm - 2:00pm | 24 Hold for Management Trainee class interviews 9:00am Hold for Management Trainee class interviews March 24 9:00am - 12:00pm | 25 Alan Stenberg Budget integration RE: China vendor joint venture 1:00pm Alan Stenberg Budget integration RE: China vendor joint venture March 25 1:00pm - 3:30pm | 26 Prep for acquisitions review meeting 9:00am Prep for acquisitions review meeting March 26 9:00am - 11:00am Acquisitions review meeting Salent’s office 1:00pm Acquisitions review meeting Salent’s office March 26 1:00pm - 3:00pm | 27 |
April28 | 29 Out for Spring Break – Orlando 8:00am Out for Spring Break – Orlando March 29 8:00am - 5:00pm | 30 Out for Spring Break – Orlando 8:00am Out for Spring Break – Orlando March 30 8:00am - 5:00pm | 31 Out for Spring Break – Orlando 8:00am Out for Spring Break – Orlando March 31 8:00am - 5:00pm | Apr 1 Out for Spring Break – Orlando 8:00am Out for Spring Break – Orlando April 1 8:00am - 5:00pm | 2 Delta Flight DL1757 – 7:06 am to 10:04 am 8:00am Delta Flight DL1757 – 7:06 am to 10:04 am April 2 8:00am - 11:00am 1:1 T. Salent his office! 3:00pm 1:1 T. Salent his office! April 2 3:00pm - 4:00pm | 3 |
4 | 5 Advanced Optics project review 8:00am Advanced Optics project review April 5 8:00am - 11:00am | 6 Finalize Boston plant remodel plans – Blanner, Dermit 1:00pm Finalize Boston plant remodel plans – Blanner, Dermit April 6 1:00pm - 4:30pm | 7 | 8 Performance review Amy Fielding 8:00am Performance review Amy Fielding April 8 8:00am - 10:00am | 9 | 10 |
11 | 12 | 13 Dentist 8:00am Dentist April 13 8:00am - 9:00am | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 1 |