In the summer of 1979, former co-worker Tom Pouncy called me and asked what I was doing. I told him I was running my own company in Amarillo, Texas, keeping 15 employees busy, assuming total control of the company after my two partners bailed out and moved to Houston, staying as busy as a beaver, and living the good life. Why?
"I need you in St Louis for a couple of weeks."
"No way, I can hardly find time to sleep, much less leave town."
Tom said he had a really bad problem--Tom's company had contracted to upgrade some bank's mainframe computer and things weren't going well. The new computer was installed but wasn't working correctly, people were moving software from the old computer to the new one but were behind schedule, they could not yet let the old computer go to the company that bought it and they were having to pay a thousand dollar per day fine for being late. And, Tom's room full of hired, high-dollar computer gurus were stumbling all over themselves.
"And, you want me to step into that mess? Are you talking to the developers of the new software and the authors of all the old software?"
"Those are the consultants we've hired," Tom said. "They're already here but we're still getting further and further behind. Everybody's pointing fingers, everybody's blaming everybody else, half the people spend half their time waiting for the other people to finish what they're doing. It's a zoo! Richard, we need you."
"And, you're how late?"
"We just started paying the $1,000-per-day fine yesterday. That goes on until we deliver the old computer to the company that bought it. Can you help us for just one week? Starting now?"
Obviously, Tom had gotten somebody's approval before he called me. He's desperate! "Shut up a minute and let me think."
Tom stopped talking. So did I.
"I'll come tomorrow at noon and I'll stay six days. Not one day more! Don't even ask. And, I'm sleeping at night. We clear?"
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The next day, I arrived in St. Louis around noon, took a taxi to the bank, got directions to a conference room where a meeting was in session and peeked in--fifteen very stressed-looking people looked straight at me. Tom was sitting in the far left hand corner. The room went quiet and then someone in the back right corner said, "Oh, boy--another new face." Lots of smirks and snickers. Nice group! Why am I doing this? (I found out later that the 'new face' speaker was Ric Diesel.)
I sneaked in and sat down in the only empty chair--no introductions--while Tom finished his talk. Three or four of us tossed out some questions, I bounced a few items off of some of the team (I use that term lightly) and finally the meeting ended. I was the gladiator and the room was full of lions. I thought, "I could easily be back in Amarillo before sunset tonight."
Before everyone left the room, Tom said, "Let me introduce Richard Warner. He's going to help us out. Richard and I worked together..." and he named some places. "Previously, Richard and I worked for..." and he named some companies. "Richard has installed this software many time in many places. And, Richard came up here today from Texas."
"As if we couldn't tell." That was Ric Diesel again.
Tom told someone to start a piece of paper around the room for everyone to sign. He said that I would visit with each person named on the sheet and that each person should be prepared to tell me what project he was working on, how it was going, if he was ahead or behind schedule, if he was behind schedule 'why,' what could be done to help move his project along faster, what could be done to help move the entire project along faster.
When everybody left the room, Tom shook my hand and thanked me for coming. I said, forget it, they hate me, I'm going back home. Shee! Call me a cab.
I stayed. We sat down and talked. I had my work cut out for me. Tom told me all that he knew and thanked me again for coming.
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In short--I met with the team, changed priorities, killed certain efforts, made telephone calls to people who could unstick stuck efforts, excused some people who were part of the problem, fixed some things that nobody else on the team could fix, brought people together who needed to share ideas, separated people who needed to be further apart, made some friends forever and made some enemies for an equal period.
Glad I didn't commit to two weeks! I worked 20 hour days, went to bed every night but one, worked about 120 hours total and stayed over the seventh day to watch the old computer roll out the door. Nice. I said, "Goodbye, Tom. Don't call me, I'll call you."
Ric and I had lunch together and he took me to the airport. Ric later moved to Paris, France and we stayed in touch by mail for a few years. Great guy, Ric was.
Tom called me a few times over the next few years, but, I never accepted his pleas. Life is too short.
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