The Success Machine

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

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

Moss, standing at the head of the impressive conference table, leaned forward and eyed them fixedly. "But those three little letters, my friends, spell out a much bigger word. A much bigger word for General Products, 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 which had 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 a funny. 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 Grimswitch continued to smile vacantly at the little old man up front, drumming his fingers on the glass table top. When the President's machine-gunning glance caught his eyes, Colihan went white. Does he know about it? he thought.

"I'm not making accusations," said Moss. "But there is a let-down someplace. 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 quarter fiscal year net revenue $34,955,376.81. Percent decrease--"

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

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

"I have a suggestion," said the President. "Just an idea. Maybe some of us 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 sign that 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! The word that made us a leader. The word that guides our business destiny. The word that built General Products!"