Conditioning the Victim

Another example of Ravi's open hostility concerned the budget. Since I was suppose to “build the laboratory”, I needed to know what kind of resources the company was committing to accomplish that job and where current funds were going. Ralph Simpson, the office manager and accountant, came into my office one day and gave me a copy of laboratory expenses and the laboratory costs as a percent of sales. Three things immediately caught my eye. First, Ravi was very well paid and the cost of his company car was being charged to the laboratory. Second, the workers in the laboratory were not well paid when one considers the benefits the company had, and third, and most important to me was that the laboratory expenses as a percent of sales was 1.8%. I was to learn that the goal was to reduce that figure to 1.2%. Some large corporations spend 2-4% of gross sales and the nation as a whole spends 2-3% of GNP on R&D; the low figure bothered me.

I did not know what small companies spent as an average on R&D, but I thought Gamma's attempt to reduce the figure to 1.2% of gross sales was the wrong direction to go and was not in line with my objective. My concerns about the expenses quickly vanished several days later when Ralph Simson told me I would not be getting any more monthly budget reports because Ravi had ordered a stop to it. At this point I had had enough, and I requested that Darth. Ravi and I get together for a discussion.

That evening I reviewed my written offer of employment and compared it to my
situation at Gamma Supplies. About the only place the offer agreed with the my actual situation was in the salary. I wanted an explanation as to the discrepancies and I wanted to know what was going to be done to correct the situation.

The next morning Ravi and I met with Darth in his office. Darth sat behind his desk with Ravi to his immediate left, and I sat across the room confronting them. Suddenly, they were management, and I was put in the position of dissident worker. The meeting did never did address the problems between Ravi and me. Instead, I pointed out that they were not living up to their agreement with me. Darth tried to sell me on the fact that indeed my present assignment did not meet their promises, but he didn't see any problem. I was angry.

“I managed projects worth over $250,000 before I came here, and supervised four people. I didn't come here to be a bench chemist! The projects I managed were more than the entire laboratory budget here.”

Darth acted anxious and replied, “Gamma Supplies has a good future and we expect you to grow with the company.” He paused, “I have to catch a plane in a half-an-hour so Ravi , tell Russell about the good future here.”

With that statement, Darth got up and left the office! Ravi sat there dumbfounded and then mumbled something about the growth potential of Gamma Supplies and the good future with the company. I wanted changes made to give me the responsibility I had been verbally promised and had been lead to believe I would have in my offer of employment. Nothing was resolved in the meeting, and I left believing more and more that I had been hired solely to provide a technical base for Gamma Supplies' legal battle with Better Supplies. I considered the possibility of leaving Gamma Supplies, but the economic repercussions would be enormous.

After that meeting things simmered down in the laboratory, and I was able to work without hindrance from John Mason. But now I was curious as to how others viewed Darth and his reliability in doing what he promised. I decided to inquire about Darth's integrity from the head of the Quality Control laboratory, George Landry. George was an elderly man with an easy going nature and appeared to be a person who felt secure in his world as the man responsible for checking the products before they were shipped to the customer. One day I engaged George in a light conversation, and Darth came up as a topic of conversation.

“I guess if Darth promises you something you can rely on it,” I said.

“Oh yes,” George replied. “He keeps his word.”

At that point I started living on promises and not on the reality of the present condition. This was to become a standard practice of keeping me going with promises and delivering nothing in practice.

In addition to being told that Darth's word was good, the shock of his bizarre exit during the meeting was rationalized in a conversation with Ralph Simpson. We were chatting about the business one day when I brought up Darth's behavior. Ralph quickly assured me that his actions were typical for Darth, and that he had walked out of a sales meeting in Pittsburgh in a similar manner. He went on to tell me how incompetent Darth was and what a poor manager he was. This caused me a problem too, because I was aware Darth had an MBA from the University of Chicago, which is one of the top business schools in the country. He couldn't be that incompetent but he sure looked that way.

Other concessions were made after that meeting with Ravi and Darth. The second
change to occur, was that I was told that Jeff would now work for me as a technician. I immediately ceased upon the situation by assigning to Jeff the objective of carrying out the phenolic resin work which I had outlined while I explored other potential products. This arrangement quickly changed a week later when Ravi told me Jeff had to work on some other things, and since the phenolic resin had top priority, I was to do that work. What the whole scenario did was it reduced my immediate frustration and then quickly reverted back to the same situation.

Another nonproductive implemented change was that Darth informed me he was
organizing a series of management meetings which was to include myself, Ralph Simpson, Bill James, head of production, Dave Lipton, head of the computer room, Jay Wells, head of technical services, and of course Carl Host, the titleless wonder. Darth explained that he was conducting a similar series for the sales department and wanted to do the same for production/laboratory managers. He also made it a point to tell me that everyone thought the management meetings was a good idea, except Ravi. Ravi had opposed my attending the meeting. I was surprised at Darth's statement because he was just fueling the problem and he was keeping me in an insecure position by telling me of Ravi's opposition.

My inclusion to the management meetings supported the story that I was to be a manager and, in fact, that was how it was presented to me. I was to be a manager in the future. However, all of the other attendees were managers with appropriate titles and responsibilities, except for Carl Host who just seemed to float around the laboratory, production and technical services. While inclusion in the management meetings seemed good for me on the surface, I would learn in time that the purpose of these meetings served a much more sinister purpose.

In September of 1976, Buzhoha Yazzi returned to Gamma Supplies from Iran. Buzz, as everyone called him, was an Iranian citizen who had worked for Gamma Supplies for several years and then had returned home and had stayed there for six months before returning to Gamma Supplies. Darth had told me in August that Buzz would be returning, but no effort was made to introduce me to Buzz when he finally showed up in the laboratory one day. Finally, I went into the lab and introduced myself. It was apparent that Buzz did not consider me his boss, and there was no indication that he had been told that was the case.

Buzz was a diminutive, outspoken man who was to become another one of my
antagonists. Buzz's general attitude was summed up one day when he said, “You
Americans have too much freedom.” However, when it came to Iran, he believed Iranians should have more freedom under the American supported tyrant, the Shah of Iran. I guess I should have asked him if he didn't like in the U.S., why didn't he stay in Iran.

As time and events went on in subsequent years, I found Buzz was to be the first of several foreign nationals that American industry and government found to be more valuable than native American citizens. It is not surprising then that illegal foreign workers today have become a major political problem.

Buzz quickly decided he did not want to work in the main laboratory across from my office where John, Jeff and I worked, but instead, he wanted to work in what was called the lower quality control laboratory. Since that laboratory was separated from the main research laboratory by a fire door which was always kept closed, he was virtually hidden from all observation in that location. This made it difficult for me to keep track of the work he was doing. I expressed my concern at his working in the lower laboratory, but like everything else, I was powerless to take any corrective action. In fact, Darth quickly sided with Buzz and said there was no problem with Buzz working in the lower laboratory. Later, Buzz's relationship with Darth was to become much like John Mason's relationship with Ravi.

The subtle failures by Darth to back any of my recommendations in the beginning was to escalate into direct criticism of my actions. I was having difficulty dealing with everyone. Ravi was openly hostile, John was openly and aggressively antagonistic, Buzz was uncooperative and Jeff was generally lethargic. Coincidently, the first management meeting was to offer an explanation for all of my difficulties.

The first management meeting was held on September 27, 1976 in a rented room at the Red Carpet Inn near the airport. Darth talked about how the Gamma Supplies organization and his philosophy on why the company should grow. He talked about making acquisitions and how it was best to expand in hard times. It was like a stockbroker telling you the way to succeed in the stock market was to buy low and sell high. Everyone knows that but the key is in execution. Still, Darth made it sound as though he was revealing some sort of magic formula for company growth.

This was followed by the main theme of the first meeting which was that the Gamma Supplies organization was a horizontal, and not a vertical hierarchy. Management was done by persuasion and all people had equal say in things. Management by decree was not acceptable. Later one of the participants called what Darth had described as “bottoms up management.”

As part of the management meetings, we were given short texts to read in advance, and then we were asked to make an analysis of the scenario depicted. The first story we were given to analyze was was about a new manager in a company who wanted to make a change. To effect the change the manager sent out a memo detailing the procedure he wanted followed. The story went on to explain how no one followed his instructions and how his actions had disastrous consequences. Darth used this to expound on his theme that Gamma just did not operate that way. The analogy to my situation and my memo on monthly reports was hard to miss, and of course the obvious implied conclusion was that I had acted incorrectly.

I found it curious that Darth took most of the meetings time to dwell on a subject that really only applied to me since I was the only new "manager" in the group. He could have spent ten minutes in private to tell how he wanted things done. But instead he did it through suggestion and implication. (I was to learn much latter that the use of suggestion and implications are key to mind control and mental torture.) I thought to myself that maybe I was suppose to wait for the people in the laboratory to decide they wanted to write monthly reports! I felt like telling Darth to take his job and shove it, but somehow I got the feeling Darth knew I was trapped economically and had to put up with his BS.

This was not the last time the management meetings and/or short excerpts on some
subject from a book was used to imply that I had been wrong in taking some action. In addition, future meetings served to establish policies and rules which prevented me from taking corrective actions in the laboratory.

Two other important topics were covered in the first meeting. First, Darth went over a list of characteristics that were desirable to have in order to be a “winner”. The list included thirteen characteristics such a dedication, honesty and maturity. The importance of this list was not in its content, but rather in how it would be used in the future. The other item discussed was the formation of an investment club. This would allow us as a group to learn and practice investing in the stock market. I was particularly enthused about the formation of the investment group and expressed my interest to several members of the group after the meeting.

Several days after the management meeting, Darth came into my office and I asked him about the investment club. He replied he had changed his mind and that the club would not be formed. I was very disappointed because I was interested in learning how to invest and I was looking forward to participating with the rest of the group. Darth gave no explanation as to why he had decided against forming the investment club.

My war with Ravi continued, and it was picking up again after a couple of weeks
respite following the meetings in Darth's office. One day Jeff Teller came into my office and started to talk about Ravi. I replied that he shouldn't worry because Ravi didn't have the final say in everything and that he should just do his job. That was the extent of my comments – don't worry and do your job.

The next day Ravi called me into his office and started blasting for my conversation with Jeff!

“Did you say I don't have complete authority in the laboratory?” he shouted.

“I told Jeff the you don't make all of the decisions concerning policies at Gamma Supplies.” I calmly replied.

He continued to aggressively attack me. “Then you did say I don't have authority. My word is final! What I say goes!”

I was shocked. “How do you know what I told Jeff?”

Ravi was momentarily stunned and not sure what to say. After a moment of silence he retorted, “Never mind how I know. You admitted to saying it.” Then he continued his attack on me which lasted for about ten minutes. The theme of the attack was constant. I was wrong and I had better watch my step.

I left his office angry and confused. What purpose did yelling at me serve? And I was getting tired of constantly be told I was wrong about everything I said or did. How did he know what I had told Jeff? Ravi's office was adjacent to mine, but he was not in his office during my conversation with Jeff, and I had checked the hallway and my office door had been ajar so I knew no one had been in the hall. How did he know? It was almost as if everyone was plotting against me, but that didn't make any sense unless I was part of some elaborate psychological experiment and that didn't seem likely. But I couldn't help but wonder how Ravi knew what I had said.

The next day, as had already become the norm, someone would give me an rational for some unusual occurrence. Jeff came in my office again and began talking to me.
Just before he left, he turned and said, “Oh by the way, when we were talking the other day I saw John listening outside your door. I forgot to tell you.”

And just like that another mystery was solved. It seemed so convenient.

The implication was that John had told Ravi about my conversation with Jeff. The only problem was I wonder how Jeff had managed to see John outside my door and I hadn't. And I had checked before, during and after our conversation. Things didn't seem right, but I had no better explanation.

Conditions continued to deteriorate and I was continually amazed at Ravi's and John's open hostility toward me. They were a team whose mission was to cause me as much rouble as possible. The emphasis on their closeness was demonstrated one day when I walked into the lab and there was John talking quietly to Ravi.

John looked at me and then exclaimed loudly, “After all, what are they going to do? Fire us?”

The implication was clear, as Ravi goes, so goes John. But I couldn't help thinking what a careless, crass remark that was for John to say in front of me.

While my life at work was very unsettling, my personal life was initially enjoyable. After work hours were spent settling in our new house. Our furniture had not arrived yet and our time was spent doing general cleaning and painting the interior of the house. The previous owners had some unusual color schemes and repainting the purple hall walls was a top priority. With my help at night and Anita working on it most of the day, we were able to repaint most of rooms before our furniture finally arrived.

An immediate problem that confronted us was how to mow the one acre of rapidly
growing grass. Mowing the lawn with our hand pushed power mower required four to
five hours a week and that quickly became a chore. Since we couldn't afford to purchase a riding lawn mower, Ursula and I took turns keeping the lawn under control. Besides the rapidly growing grass, we had to contend with a plethora of dandelions which were springing up all over the area. We decided to let the dandelions flourish since it was well into the summer by the time we moved into the house.

The local community had two sets of public outdoor tennis courts so we
occasionally found time to sneak in a set or two of tennis. Tennis was one of my favorite recreational pastimes, and like most things I did, I took it seriously and worked hard at it. In my previous job I had belonged to the company tennis ladder and had done fairly well. In a company playoff tournament to determine the tennis champion, I lost a closely contested three set match to the number three seed.

Anita had first sparked my interest in tennis when we lived in Florida and we played together quite frequently. Actually, she knew my game so well and played with such confidence against me I had difficult time beating her. If she had a particularly good day or I had a bad day, she would occasionally beat me. I also found that Jeff from the lab played tennis, and we occasionally would stop at some near-by courts after work and play a set or two.

In mid-August, a notice for a tennis tournament that was being held at a local club was posted on the company bulletin board. It was a handicap tournament which benefited a local charity. The reason it was on the Gamma bulletin board was that the Clines were supporters of the tournament and the awards dinner was being held at the Full Sails Restaurant which the Cline family owned. Bobby Cline, the younger brother to Arnold, ran the Full Sails and a couple of other restaurants which were part of the Cline's Resco Corporation.

When I first arrived at Gamma Supplies, the Full Sails served as a Friday after work watering hole. Every Friday the management group along with Darth, Arnold and Bobby Cline would gather there and consume a fair amount of alcohol. All the managers attended except Carl Host and Ravi. Of course, the laboratory workers never attended although they were all aware of the ritual. Bar tabs would frequently disappeared which meant the drinks were in essence, on the house. The free drinks encouraged drinking and the meetings frequently became quit boisterous. These gatherings took place regularly for the first few months I was at Gamma and then they suddenly ceased. In addition to the sudden cessation, no one ever mentioned the gatherings. But, for the first few months, this gave me a weekly social hour with other people at Gamma Supplies.

One of our last Friday gatherings occurred in a Milwaukee hotel lounge rather than at the usual meeting place, The Full Sail. As usual, Darth was the center of attention and he talked incessantly on a variety of subjects. And he receive some kidding about his pig covered, mcp (male chauvinist pig) necktie.

It was still early in the evening when the gathering began to wind down. I was about to leave when Jay and Cliff came over to me and invited me to a private party. I quickly said “No Thanks,” but the were insistent and kept badgering me. Then they started telling me about all the women that would be at the party and how attractive these women were. They emphasized that there would be a lot of attractive women ther and only a few men. As they were trying to sell me on going to the party, I could hep but wonder why two single men would want a married man to go to a party to meet attractive single women. Finally, over their protests, I said “NO” and left.

As I drove home, I had an uncomfortable feeling about what had just transpired. I kept thinking about how a one night mistake at a party could be used to blackmail me in the future. It almost seemed like a setup to me and given what I was perceiving to be the morals and ethics of the people I was working for and with, the idea didn't seem all that far fetched. In fact, several years later I saw the movie “The Firm” with Tom Cruise and that type of blackmail scenario was part of the plot.

The following Monday I went to work and shortly after my arrival I got a call from Josh, the Chief Financial Officer. Josh said he wanted me to come to his office right away. I was bewildered as to why Josh wanted to talk to me and was a little apprehensive as I hurried to his office. After we exchanged pleasantries, Josh got right to the point.

He said, “I hear you didn't go to the party Friday night. You know those women were there for you!”

I was a bit stunned but replied, “Well, I'm married and didn't think I
belonged there.”

“Well, here at Delta Oil, we work hard and play hard and I wanted to make sure you knew those women at the party were there for you,” Josh continued.

As I left his office I wondered if those women were a company expense which is why Jack gave me the message. And I never could shake the thought that the whole party incident was a setup for future blackmail. From that point on, I never attended another Friday after-work gathering.

Another event which was satisfying was the availability of tickets to the Green Bay Packers football games. In early September, Darth came walking through the laboratory and said he had four tickets to the Sunday game in Green Bay and wanted to know if anyone was interested in them. I quickly said I would like to take my wife and John and Jeff took the other two tickets. Later, I talked to John and Jeff and invited them to ride along with my with me my wife. Since our house was on the way, I thought it would give Anita and I a chance to socialize with John and Jeff. After all, I was still trying to befriend them.

I was thrilled. Not only was I going to get to see my first pro football game live, I was going to see my favorite team, the Green Bay Packers. Somehow, despite growing up on the East Coast, I had become an avid Green Bay fan during their illustrious Vince Lombardi era. And although the team had fallen on bad times, I remained a loyal fan.

That Sunday John and Jeff arrived in John's pickup truck and after a brief tour of our new home, we departed for Green Bay. That day was to be the only day in one and a half years that anyone from Gamma Supplies would enter our house.

The weather was perfect with a cool fall breeze, a sunny blue sky and moderate temperatures. During our drive north, John remained true to form and talked nonstop on any and every subject that came up. It was a relief to get to the stadium and hear the roar of the crowd in lieu of John's verbal barrage.

Green Bay's loss that day did not distract from the excitement of the game. The return trip to Williamsburg was relatively quiet, since John was tired from all of the beer that he had consumed. On the way back home, I extended an invitation to John and Jeff to join us for some hamburgers when we arrived home. Both of them quickly refused. I repeated the offer and Anita also requested that they stay for some dinner, but both were adamant in their refusal.

When we arrived at our home, John and Jeff got out of the car and headed directly to John's pickup truck. John was the first to notice that the rear window of his truck was totally shattered. Since the truck had been parked in the rear of the house, out of sight and a considerable distance from the highway, no errant stone or flying object had caused the breakage. The glass from the broken window was on the truck seat so the window had been smashed inward and had not exploded outward from the force of some temperature build-up within the cab. After we helped John bi clean up the mess, John and Jeff left with no explaination as to what had happened. Overlooked in the incident was our invitation to join us for dinner.

That fall I attended one other Green Bay game with tickets I procured through one of
the salesmen at Gamma Supplies. I was told that if I wanted to go to any of the games, just see that salesmen and I could get tickets. The implication was that the tickets were available to me because I was important to the company and Green Bay Packer tickets were hard to come by in Chicaqgo. I was the only non-sales, Gamma Supplies personnel with access to the football game tickets.

Another way my social life was used to reflect my status in the company by the social interaction with G. T. Cline and his wife. I was discreetly told Mr. Cline wanted to have dinner with Anita and me, but of course, I was not to tell Ravi about this meeting. G. T. lived in a magnificent house located on the drive along Lake Michigan in Blue Fish Bay.

When we arrived at his house, Mrs. Cline greeted us, sat us in the living room and then told us about her family and grandchildren while we waited for Mr. Cline to arrive. G. T. came in, sat down and briefly told us about his family, expounded on his wealth and then drove us to the Full Sails for dinner.

During dinner G. T. unraveled his tale about how he had accumulated his fortune. Now he was Chairman of the Gamma Supplies, Restco and Cline Advertising Company of Madison, Inc. Each of his three sons was the President of one of the three companies.

G. T. had amassed his fortune by building a chain of independent service stations in the Chicago area, and then he sold out to a major oil company. Throughout dinner, W. T. related how he had built his Empire. I sat there thinking about how all evening all he had talked about was how wealthy he was. It seemed like the only value he saw in his own life came from his wealth. At the same time, I couldn't help but get the feeling that despite all of his success, he appeared to be a very bitter man. In fact, he hardly mentioned his sons except to point out that he had given each one a company to run, and the only time he mentioned his daughter was when he was bragging about the price of a house she had sold in Door County in northern Wisconsin. I expressed a lot of interest in his business success
and spent most of the evening just listening. Anita and G. T.'s wife said very little during the evening. That evening was the last time I would have any social interaction with the G. T. Cline family.

Another aspect of my social life which was pleasant was my membership in Club Tennis. The club was a new facility located just north of the Gamma Supplies site and consisted of indoor and outdoor tennis courts, an exercise room with Universal weight machines, saunas, whirlpools, swimming pool and sun rooms. Ordinarily we would not have been able to afford the membership, but several Gamma employees started a company membership drive which entitled all employees to a reduced corporate rate. Since I had always been physically active, the access to such an indoor facility was a blessing when it came to enduring the long cold Chicago winters.

It soon became routine for me to stop at Club Tennis on my way home to exercises and enjoy a sauna. When the weather turned cold Anita and I would play tennis on the indoor courts at least once a week, and we attended various social events which Club Tennis sponsored. Membership in Club Tennis was an excellent fringe benefit for all Gamma employees.

Shortly after we moved into our new home, we met our three neighbors. The elderly couple adjacent to us was quiet and lead a rather secluded life, Other than to say an occasional hello, we spoke very little with each other.

On the other hand, Jane and Bill Krane lived just down the road from us, and they were about our age. We soon became friends and would get together for dinner or just to have a drink and talk about the Williamsburg area. Bill was a native of the area and was quite knowledgeable about the local history and folklore. The Kranes also had know the previous owners of our house and knew a lot about the design and construction or our house, the surrounding plants and the landscaping. In fact, the previous owners had left with them a complete file of when each shrub, bush and tree had been purchased and where it had been planted.

The third neighbor was Zed Murphy, a local attorney. He, along with his wife and two kids lived in a restored farm house that was situated across the highway from us. Zed was also originally from the area, a successful lawyer in Williamsburg and was now a gentleman farmer. Zed, in addition to being a good neighbor, would become my personal attorney.

If one looked at my life at this point at Gamma Supplies, I had what I came to call a magician's life. A magician waves his left hand about to keep you distracted from what the right hand is doing. But it is the right hand that pulls the rabbit from the magician's hiding place to pull off the trick. That was my life. I had what appeared to be a good life and acceptance at Gamma Supplies. I had a nice house (although Gamma had no connection to that), I went to pro football games, I belonged to a tennis club, I was part of a management group, I went to dinner with the owner of the company and I was well paid. But while all the visible parts of my environment(the left hand) appeared great, my problems on the job were overwhelming. I had constant conflict with my immediate boss, open hostility by the workers in the lab, no authority to make any changes, no support from Darth and my only real role was to work on the phenolic resin for the Gamma Supplies' “Rapid Set” system and to build a technical base for the patent lawsuit defense. The latter two items had never even been mentioned to me until I began working for the company. So while things looked good from the outside, on the inside work environment(the right hand) things were very bad. This type of scenario became what I called the magic act or magician's life.


In early October, Darth came to me and said he was starting a committee to look into the quality control of Gamma's products, and that I, along with Bill James, George Landry, Jay Wells and Darth, would form the task force. I was to head the project and keep all records. I was pleased for two reasons. First, Gamma Supplies had a very high return rate of products because of poor quality, and this was an opportunity to implement some practices to correct that situation. Second, it gave me an opportunity to become familiar with the myriad of products which Gamma produced and sold. In one conversation, Carl Host had related to Tenneland personnel that Gamma Supplies had over five hundred products on its books. Also the quality control committee would also give me the opportunity to get to know some of the personal and work habits of the managers of the other areas.

Darth laid the groundwork during the first meeting and formally appointed me the secretary for the group. The responsibility he gave me in front of the group was far less that what he had privately discussed with me. The task was simple; we were to look at quality control practices in the plant and in the lab, recommend ways to improve the practices and then implement the recommended changes. Since the people responsible for carrying out any recommended changes were part of the group, the changes should take place with relative ease. Thus, an opportunity to impact Gamma's poor business practices appeared possible, and the changes would have Darth's blessing which was essential.

Darth was emerging more and more as the one man who oversaw everything and who had to approve all changes. His power was conveyed in direct ways and in some subtle ways. In one instance I had written a monthly report that I had which showed the results of some work I had done which indicated that the patent application submitted by Ravi and Darth could be circumvented by a simple chemical trick. The procedure which I had tested would allow other companies to essentially use our system. A couple of days later, Darth called Ravi and me into his office and gave us a lecture on how he would make all decisions on how the Tenneland legal battle would be fought. He emphasized that it was not my job to do that. I was a little confused, because I had made no attempt to steer the direction of the legal battle, but the timing of the meeting in relation to my monthly report and Darth's direct remarks to me implied that Darth thought I had. I left the meeting feeling his comments were irrelevant to the issues at hand, but Darth did emphasize his total control.

The meeting also served to reinforce the idea that everything I did was wrong. I ouldn't do anything right. It was like a child with a domineering parent or a marriage with a verbally abusive spouse. What I couldn't see was how the constant belittling of me was wearing down my self confidence and self-esteem.
On one occasion Darth and I were discussing authority, decision making and general business practices in relation to the task of the quality control committee. At one point Darth paused and said, “Russ, the best form of management is the BENEVOLENT DICTATOR.” The message was clear. You did not discuss policy with Darth, because what he said was the way things were to be and, of course Darth was benevolent.

Darth's power and appearance of total control was reinforced by Paul Johnson and Ralph Sampson. Pauk commented that Darth treated everyone the way that I was being treated.

Ralph came in one day and said, “Darth is treating you the way the Chinese treats their prisoners. He likes to break people down, and then he molds them the way he likes them." He laughed and then departed.

I did not find his comment humorous at all, and I thought the analogy to the communist treatment of prisoners was not a totally inaccurate description. Jay Wells reiterated that Darth had the Cline's ear and he had the final word in everything. The bottom line was that Darth was all powerful in Gamma Supplies.

More subtle means of conveying Darth's power ran from the ridiculous to the sublime. During quality control studies of a particular product, the question arose as to how to determine the point in time when a reaction was complete in order that the product could be drummed and a new batch could be started as quickly as possible. I was discussing the problem with Jay and I suggested we put a torque meter on the stirrer shaft, since there was a sharp increase in the thickness of the product when the reaction was complete. Jay said he didn't like the idea. When I asked why he said, “Well, Darth told me we should hook up an amp meter to the stirrer motors and then measure the increase in the current on the motors when the reaction became complete.” After some more discussion, I said fine, and eventually the quality control committee agreed to recommend Darth's solution to the
problem to Darth for action. The incident enforced the idea that all changes came from Darth and more importantly, it placed Jay as Darth's official spokesman in the quality control group. It again appeared that Darth was undermining my position in the quality control group. This was after Darth took great pains to tell the group that I was heading up the task force. It looked like the old “magic act” again.

To make sure that Darth had actually told Jay that the amp meter was the solution Darth wanted, when we presented our group findings to Darth I said, “Of course, we did consider monitoring the torque on the stirrer as an alternative. What do you think of that?”

Darth just glared at me as if to say, what do you think you are doing, you
insubordinate? Then he said, “The amp meter should work fine”.

I remained silent the rest of the meeting.

The ridiculous means of conveying Darth's position of power took very subtle
psychological forms. In Darth's office, across from his desk, was a couch which was very low. When you sat on the couch, your knees came up to your chest, making the occupant quit uncomfortable. One day I was talking with Jay and I mentioned a book I had read by Michael Korda called Power. In the book, Mr. Korda related how some managers arrange their furniture in their office to give them a position of power when they talked with someone. It is a subtle form of intimidation. One example in Korda's book was about a manager who had his furniture so low that the people in his office felt uncomfortable, and the manager from behind his desk had a feeling of towering over his subjects. For a vertically challenged person like Darth, he probably wanted to feel he towered over other people.

JaY blurted out, “Yeah, just like Darth's couch.”

I said, “Yes, exactly like that.”

We both laughed and I didn't think anymore of the conversation until a couple of days later. I went into Darth's office , sat down on the couch and was surprised that the couch had been raised to a comfortable level. The timing relative to my conversation with Jay bothered me immensely. And this was another time when something I told a coworker in private seemed to have made its way to one of my managers. I was baffled as to why that should be happening.