Chapter 24

 

George Schultz was extremely worried but he consciously didn’t know why. He had recently lost some very good employees, but so what, he reflected, he had lost good employees in the past and survived. In fact, as he recalled, he usually made out better with their departures. Schultz didn’t believe that he had an equal in this world; so by his definition everybody else was expendable and readily replaceable. His business was highly successful and he was making loads of money. So again, why was he so worried? Furthermore, he didn’t really care about people or their problems. The only person under his management that he was decent to was his secretary, and only because she could potentially do more damage to him than anyone else by forgetting his appointments, hanging up on prospective customers and potentially instigating any other nefarious deed that might hurt his business.

This morning, however, his emotions overtook him and he totally ignored her as he entered his office and locked it from the inside. He sat down, then immediately got up and went again to his office door to make sure it was locked. He sat silently for five minutes and then checked on the door lock again. “Of course it’s locked,” he said to himself. Nevertheless he decided not to see anyone today; he called his secretary and said, “Cancel all appointments and don’t forward any calls to me.” He felt somewhat better. He realized that his office was impenetrable; no one could possibly get in if he didn’t want them to. And then he checked his office locks again, returned to his chair and stared into space wondering once again why he was so damned worried.

He was a control freak, one who believed he alone had the solution to all of life’s problems. He hated to admit that some issues just might be beyond his capacity to handle.

 “Maybe I do need some external help,” he thought, “but I’ll have to make sure no one knows about it, although with my money and extensive contacts in the community, that might not be easy. But, hey, hell, I can solve anything. And certainly I will solve this.”

At that point he started to relax. But shortly thereafter he again checked the door locks, for probably the tenth time in the past hour, all the time knowing that all the locks in the world would do no good.