The Success Machine Read online

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  THE SUCCESS MACHINE

  By HENRY SLESAR

  _Mechanical brains are all the rage these days, so General Products just had to have one. But the blamed thing almost put them out of business. Why? It had no tact. It insisted upon telling the truth!_

  The Personnelovac winked, chittered, chortled, chuckled, and burped acard into the slot. Colihan picked it up and closed his eyes in prayer.

  "Oh, Lord. Let this one be all right!"

  He read the card. It was pink.

  "_Subject #34580. Apt. Rat. 34577. Psych. Clas. 45. Last Per. Vac._

  "_An. 3/5/98. Rat. 19. Cur. Rat. 14._

  "_Analysis: Subject demonstrates decreased mechanical coordination.Decrease in work-energy per man-hour. Marked increase in waste-motiondue to subject's interest in non-essential activities such ashorseracing. Indication of hostility towards superiors._

  "_Recommendation: Fire him._"

  Colihan's legs went weak. He sat down and placed the card in front ofhim. Then, making sure he was unobserved, he broke a company rule andbegan to Think.

  _Something's wrong_, he thought. _Something is terribly wrong.Twenty-four pink cards in the last month. Twenty-four out of forty.That's a batting average of_--He tried to figure it out with a pencil,but gave it up as a bad job. _Maybe I'll run it through the Averagovac_,he thought. _But why bother? It's obvious that it's high. There'sobviously SOMETHING WRONG._

  The inter-com beeped.

  "Ten o'clock department head meeting, Mr. Colihan."

  The steel brain was having more fun than people.]

  "All right, Miss Blanche."

  He rose from his chair and took the pink card with him. He stood beforethe Action Chute for a moment, tapping the card against his teeth. Then,his back stiffened with a sense of duty, and he slipped the card inside.

  * * * * *

  The meeting had already begun when Colihan took his appointed place.Grimswitch, the Materielovac operator looked at him quizzically. _Damnyour eyes, Grimswitch_, he thought. _It's no crime to be three minuteslate. Nothing but a lot of pep talk first five minutes anyway._

  "PEP!" said President Moss at the end of the room. He slammed his littlewhite fist into the palm of his other hand. "It's only a little word. Itonly has three little letters. P-E-P. Pep!"

  Moss, standing at the head of the impressive conference table, leanedforward and eyed them fixedly. "But those three little letters, myfriends, spell out a much bigger word. A _much_ bigger word for GeneralProducts, Incorporated. They spell PROFIT! And if you don't know how_profit_ is spelled, it's M-O-N-N-E-Y!"

  There was an appreciative laugh from the assembled department heads.Colihan, however, was still brooding on the parade of pink cards whichhad been emerging with frightening regularity from his think-machine,and he failed to get the point.

  "Naughty, naughty," Grimswitch whispered to him archly. "Boss made afunny. Don't forget to laugh, old boy."

  Colihan threw him a sub-zero look.

  "Now let's be serious," said the boss. "Because things _are_ serious.Mighty serious. Somewhere, somehow, _somebody's_ letting us down!"

  The department heads looked uneasily at each other. Only Grimswitchcontinued to smile vacantly at the little old man up front, drumming hisfingers on the glass table top. When the President's machine-gunningglance caught his eyes, Colihan went white. _Does he know about it?_ hethought.

  "I'm not making accusations," said Moss. "But there is a let-downsomeplace. Douglas!" he snapped.

  Douglas, the Treasurer, did a jack-in-the-box.

  "Read the statement," said the President.

  "First quarter fiscal year," said Douglas dryly. "Investment capital,$17,836,975,238.96. Assets, $84,967,442,279.55. Liabilities,$83,964,283,774.60. Production costs are--"

  Moss waved his hand impatiently. "The meat, the meat," he said.

  Douglas adjusted his glasses. "Total net revenue, $26,876,924.99."

  "COMPARISON!" The President screamed. "Let's have last first quarter,you idiot!"

  "_Ahem!_" Douglas rattled the paper in annoyance. "Last first quarterfiscal year net revenue $34,955,376.81. Percent decrease--"

  "Never mind." The little old man waved the Treasurer to his seat with aweary gesture. His face, so much like somebody's grandmother, lookedtragic as he spoke his next words.

  "You don't need the Accountovac to tell you the significance of thosefigures, gentlemen." His voice was soft, with a slight quaver. "We arenot making much p-r-o-f-i-t. We are losing m-o-n-e-y. And the pointis--what's the reason? There must be _some_ reason." His eyes went overthem again, and Colihan, feeling like the culprit, slumped in his chair.

  "I have a suggestion," said the President. "Just an idea. Maybe some ofus just aren't showing enough p-e-p."

  There was a hushed silence.

  The boss pushed back his chair and walked over to a cork-lined wall.With a dramatic gesture, he lifted one arm and pointed to the white signthat covered a fourth of it.

  "See that?" he asked. "What does it say?"

  The department heads looked dubious.

  "_Well, what does it say?_" repeated Moss.

  "ACT!" The department heads cried in chorus.

  "Exactly!" said the little old man with a surprising bellow. "ACT! Theword that made us a leader. The word that guides our business destiny.The word that _built_ General Products!"

  * * * * *

  He paced the floor. The chairs in the conference room creaked as thedepartment heads stirred to follow him with their eyes.

  "ACT is our motto. ACT is our password. ACT is our key to success. Andwhy not? The Brains do the thinking. All of us put together couldn'tthink so effectively, so perfectly, so honestly as the Brains. They takethe orders, designate raw materials, equipment, manpower. They scheduleour work. They analyze our products. They analyze our people."

  Colihan trembled.

  "There's only one important function left to us. And that's ACT!"

  The President bowed his head and walked slowly back to his seat. He satdown, and with great fatigue evident in his voice, he concluded hispolemic.

  "That's why we must have pep, gentlemen. Pep. Now--how do you spell it?"

  "P! E! P!" roared the department heads.

  The meeting was over. The department heads filed out.

  * * * * *

  Colihan's secretary placed the morning mail on his desk. There was astack of memos at least an inch thick, and the Personnel Manager moanedat the sight of it.

  "Production report doesn't look too good," said Miss Blanche, crisply."Bet we get a flood of aptitude cards from Morgan today. Grimswitch hassent over a couple. That makes eleven from him this month. He really hashis problems."

  Colihan grunted. _He deserves them_, he thought.

  "How did the meeting go?"

  "Huh?" Colihan looked up. "Oh, fine, fine. Boss was in good voice, asusual."

  "I think there's an envelope from him in the stack."

  "What?" Colihan hoped that his concern wasn't visible. He riffledthrough the papers hurriedly, and came up with a neat white envelopeengraved with the words: OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT.

  Miss Blanche watched him, frankly curious. "That will be all," he toldher curtly.

  When she had left, he ripped the envelope open and read the contents. Itwas in Moss's own cramped handwriting, and it was a request for a threeo'clock "man-to-man" talk.

  _Oh, Lord_, he thought. _Now it's going to happen._

  * * * * *

  President Moss was eating an apple.


  He ate so greedily that the juice spilled over his chin.

  Sitting behind his massive oak desk, chair tilted back, apple juicedappling his whiskers, he looked so small and unformidable, that Colihantook heart.

  "Well, Ralph--how goes it?"

  _He called me Ralph_, thought Colihan cheerfully. _He's not such a badold guy._

  "Don't grow apples like they used to," the President said. "Thishydroponic stuff can't touch the fruit we used to pick. Say, did youever climb a real apple tree and knock 'em off the branches?"

  Colihan blinked. "No, sir."

  "Greatest thrill in the world. My father had an orchard inKennebunkport. Apples by the