Free Russell Wiley Is Out to Lunch by Richard Hine

back and size Judd up some more. For his first day at his new consulting assignment, along with his suspenders and cufflinks, he is wearing a bold, blue-and-white-striped shirt and a red tie with small blue dots. His curly brown hair is cropped short, and he wears thick-rimmed, fashionable-nerd glasses.
    I try to imagine Judd 1.0, how he might have been in the days before he went to Harvard and earned his MBA. The picture I’m getting is of a shy wage slave failing to make a significant impression in the world of packaged goods, unsuccessfully trying to line up dates on Match.com. Judd 2.0 is someone completely different. Like a convict who’s spent two years working out obsessively in the prison yard, he has used his time at business school to re-create himself. In his case, the workouts have targeted the ego, arrogance and condescension muscles, which ripple impressively beneath his corporate attire.
    “What kind of budget are we talking about?” I say to Sam, swiveling in my chair so I can gaze thoughtfully out the window.
    “What do you mean?” she says. “I told you it was only two hundred dollars. I’m going to buy it.”
    “It’s definitely an interesting concept. How soon do you need an approval?”
    “What are you talking about? Is someone there?”
    Judd is fidgeting in his seat, holding his folder toward me and tapping it lightly on my desk. He’s printed a label that reads D-SAW PROJECT and stuck it neatly on the tab of his folder. I have no idea how to print labels like that and no time to figure it out. It must be something they teach you at Harvard.
    “Affirmative,” I tell Sam. “But I don’t think we need to rush into anything.” Even though I’m starting to grow curious about what Judd wants, there’s a principle involved here. He walked right into my office while I was on the phone. There’s a minimum time that must elapse before I can give him my focused attention.
    “I’ll talk to you later,” says Sam.
    “Just hold on,” I say.
    I’m silent for several seconds, holding the receiver to my ear, avoiding Judd’s expectant gaze, instead looking thoughtfully at a corner of his folder. He’s a few years younger than me, but because of his MBA he projects a lot more self-importance. What he doesn’t realize is that while he went off to Beantown, he lost out on two years of real-world experience. He’s showing up at the Chronicle with an outdated knowledge of how to sell baby care and personal hygiene products and no real clue about how a newspaper operates.
    “Stop playing your stupid games,” says Sam. “I’m hanging up now.”
    “OK. Can we talk about this later? I have someone in my office.”
    “Whatever,” says Sam and hangs up.
    “Sorry about that,” I say to Judd.
    He sits down, opens his manila folder, pulls out a sheet of paper and lays it on my desk. He starts describing the project Henry wants him to work on. He’s excited. It’s a launch opportunity—a brand extension that could herald a new era of growth for our stagnating division.
    “Stage one is information gathering,” he says, pointing with a nail-bitten finger to the first column on the page.
    “This is a nice looking table,” I say. “Did you do all this in Excel?”
    Judd looks at me for a second and then carries on with his explanation. He tells me that Henry wants him to schedule one-on-one interviews with me, Susan, Martin and Dave. He doesn’t mention Ben, but I assume that’s an oversight.
    Next, he pulls out a stapled black-and-white document I recognize immediately. I realize why Henry doesn’t want his full-time team working on this. We’ve all seen this project before. It’s a harebrained scheme that we’ve each been asked to work on at one time or another. If this is the best Henry can come up with, we’re in worse shape than I thought.
    I sit back and listen as Judd describes the project in as much detail as he feels comfortable sharing, detailing the marketplace analytics, the