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Chapter 10: Whoa Nellie!
June 13th, 1994
Will liked Mondays. There was always something fresh about them. Crisp. Clear. Refreshing?like being up on top of a mountain and seeing for miles, the workweek spread before him like an unforded river. He was usually in the office way before everyone else on Mondays. He sipped his Naught? Latte Double Mochaccino as he strolled down the hallway and flipped through the increasing pages of the petition. They had started off with three pages. Now they were up to six. Some of the staff had even brought the sheets home to have family and friends sign it. On Friday, off to San Francisco again, Will was going to drop the sheets off personally.
The battle against Che's was going well. There even had been an article in the local paper about it and Che's predatory business practices?and Will learned more about the coffee shop up in Willem, just outside of Portland, that fought a similar battle and won. Though Che's had the lease, the publicity was so bad they had to re-rent their lease to the local coffee shop! Now that was stinging them where it hurt, Will thought.
But there was bad news too. In that case, Che's Coffee Revolution had just waited a year and when the Willem caf? lease was up for renewal again, Che's booted them out and set up shop. There wasn't anymore fight left in the community. And who was going to raise a stink every year to keep the shop alive? It felt like a lose-lose situation where defeat was just a matter of time. Will wondered if they won this battle, how long would Naught? Latte have to look over its shoulders until Che's finally dropped them? A year? Less? This whole process would just be turned into a slow roast instead of instant coffee. That was kind of disheartening?but at least it proved that Che's could be held off, which meant something. And, with a full year and the help of Madre studios and other townspeople, maybe they could do something. Buy the lease from Che's themselves, perhaps. Who knows? Will was upbeat about it.
As he flipped through the sheets Will thought about signing twice to see if anyone would notice. But he decided against it. It would be dishonest. Instead Will took his coffee inside his office, straightened his red striped tie and began to go over the interview materials he had prepared.
The best part about Mondays in a programming outfit was that half of the staff didn't even show up to work until about ten. Programmers lived on diets of Kepsi Kola and nocturnal work hours?shunning Monday mornings like vampires. Will felt like the Mondays in this office were disproportionately his. He felt lucky to be so blessed. But even better than this was when people finally did start arriving?and the office started to fill with the imperceptible hum of work, as it was now, nearly an hour and a half after he had set down to his notes. There was this?tangible bustle?that seemed to build without him ever noticing it?and when it was all around him and he was in his nice clean suit with red striped tie?he was invigorated by it. Will's best work was done on Mondays. After Monday it was a slow wind down to Friday?until he pressed his suit on Sunday and then his body just?picked up again, excited about Monday.
There was a knock at the door. It was Kendra. She entered.
"How's it going?" she asked.
"Good." Will smiled. He was kind of glad they were finally getting to the interview stages. Within a few weeks they'd have a new manager and all this new stuff they had taken on?the headquarters, the general running of all the subsidiaries, the advertising would be someone else's responsibility. And he could get back to maintaining the heart of the ranch, the farm, the homeland and the sacred cows. He could see that future Monday now, sun streaming into the ranch?like now, but cleaner, purer, simpler.
"I wanna hire a woman to replace me," Kendra came right out with it.
"What?!" Will sat forward. If he had been drinking coffee he would have spit it out across his desk and interview sheets.
Perhaps I phrased that wrong, Kendra thought. Still, it was one of the first times Will had obviously been really listening. He was a great listener at home, but when he got in this office, his kingdom, sometimes it took longer to get through to him. Like that suit was a protective shield.
RESTART
"I want to stop making the Fantasy Quest games," she clarified.
"What!? Why? You can't just quit!" She was blowing him out of the water here. What was wrong? What did he do?
Perhaps that wasn't the best approach either, Kendra thought.
REPHRASE
"I don't mean quit Madre. I want to do something else. I'm tired of making Fantasy Quests." She'd been thinking about it for months. And on Friday evening she'd decided she was not going to make another one. But she didn't like to bring work home so she waited until today to tell Will.
Will calmed down. He could resume his composed approach now that he realized she wasn't going to quit. "But why? Don't you enjoy making games anymore?"
"Sure I do. I'm just tired of Fantasy Quest. I've been stretching it for ideas for the last two games. And the quality is dropping. They're still good by adventure game standards, I think. But they don't live up to Madre, to the Fantasy Quest series."
"But FQ5 is selling really well."
She'd lost him, Kendra thought. He was reverting back to his calm, gentle listening?which was kind of like not listening at all. He had begun managing what he was hearing?sorting, filing words. Nuts, she should have taken the advice of the game manuals and remembered to save her game early and often so she could restore to the better situation.
"But that doesn't mean it was good," she began. "FQ5 sold on the success of the series and the previous game. But even the last one wasn't nearly as good as the first three, I thought. I'm not doing as good a job and I'm bored of working on them."
"But do you think we can get away with another long break before the next one? We just had a two year break between 4 and 5." Will thought back to the room full of fan letters demanding a sequel after almost two years had passed after FQ4.
Kendra sighed. She'd definitely lost him. He wasn't listening. "I don't want to take a break. I want to stop. Like a telegram. FULL STOP."
"But we can't just get rid of Fantasy Quest! It's our flagship." God. He had thought it was going to just get immeasurably easier after they hired the new division head?and now these curveballs? Had he displeased the computer game gods?
"I know. I want to hire another person - a woman - to make the next Fantasy Quest game. I'll help her out, be a consultant?but I want to do something different. Something new. Besides, we need more women designers?women employees period."
"Sure. I agree we need more women. I don't know if we can find another Kendra Roberts, though."
Kendra smiled. She'd won. Actually, she'd won as soon as she had decided to do it. She was co-owner and the only one who could do the series and if she wanted it, it was going to happen. And if he refused, which he never would, but if he had, she would hire the new woman herself. And that was that. "Thanks," said Kendra. "I'll start looking for someone right away."
Will was now curious as to what she was going to do with her next project?and a little worried about it. Fantasy Quest, to a lot of people, WAS Madre games. Fantasy Quest WAS Kendra Roberts. But what could he do? The familiar business cogs in Will's mind began to spin and intermesh, spitting out data (or was it just looking on the bright side?) that now was a better time than ever to make some changes. They were a bigger and more stable company than they had ever been?and had a strong presence in the industry. They, for the first time in what seemed like a long time, could take risks, and walk a little off the beaten path again. They could take a risk by breaking away from their first and consistently best selling hit game?
Kendra smiled and walked happily (and a little bit flirtily) out of the office, grinning back at her husband as she left. Will hoped she knew what she was doing. But she was probably right, as usual. Madre games had been built on her game ideas. In many ways, the computer game industry had been built on her game ideas.
Will suddenly felt good about this, the way things were intermeshing: new designer, new headquarters, new manager. The simpler days of just running a good game factory instead of a national conglomerate were just around the corner. Will was pleased with the info sheets HR had given him on the three finalists for the job. It felt close now. After the interview on Friday, it would be like old times again.
Kendra felt invigorated, too. She had focus again! She had a goal. And she was excited. This was when Kendra was at her best?when things were changing?when she had new directions. She was always good at moving towards a goal, but never at completing them?particularly when she didn't have another goal to move on to.
With her afternoon Kendra crafted a few want ads and emails seeking a game designer and sent them around to a few contacts in the industry. And there was that novel she'd really liked lately... Who was that author? Kathy Willis? Maybe she'd contact her, see if she was interested in an interview. Why not? That would be really neat! She'd have Sheena get her contact from the publisher.
Down the hall somebody - it sounded like one of the programmers - yelled out 'Kicking your ass hurts sooo good!,' in the familiar tough-guy Dan Destroyem voice.
On the bulletin board just outside Kendra's office, someone had drawn and posted a picture of Dan Destroyem, the game hero du jour that just wouldn't go away. He stood there, flashing his white toothy grin, that fat, phallic machine gun in hands pointed at Kendra. He was supposed to be macho?but a joke stereotype at the same time: his overly cool look - spiked neon-orange hair, sunglasses and tank top, muscled muscles, the stupid Hollywood action-hero quips - were calculated to make him both the idol of macho-cool and a self-depreciating parody at the same time. To half the men in the company, Dan Destroyem was their new hero. Someone had drawn a speech bubble on him. "Bite my gnubs," it read. Dan almost seemed to be grinning down at her. Kendra turned back to her computer.
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