CHAPTER 3
The offices of Jenkins, Parnell and Winthrop, known in the public relations trade as JPW, were located on the seventh floor of one of the more modern office buildings that gave downtown Baltimore a modern and distinctive skyline. Randy liked the feeling of office buildings filling the area two blocks north and running over ten blocks east to the Jones Falls expressway. The brick and steel shapes, from 10 to 20 stories high and holding walls of tinted glass, formed a stylish backdrop for the lighter architecture of the Inner Harbor shopping and tourist complex which the office windows mirrored below. However, their sheer massiveness also formed a comforting barrier to the rougher neighborhoods to the north of downtown.
Randy cheerfully entered the office area and moved past the much younger work force towards his private office, his knee still bothering him slightly from the hurried walk from the station. Modern modular furniture formed cubicles with only five feet high partitions placed on both sides of the isles. The space arrangement provided a good blend of privacy and openness for the junior designers and ad writers, in contrast to the larger walled in offices of the three project managers and the suites occupied by the three partners.
Most of the men and women this morning lingered in small groups with their coffee, waiting for the meeting and the day's work to begin in earnest. "Funny how so many of these young creative talents are night people," he mused to himself. "Nothing much ever seemed to get done around here before lunch." In fact, when a project deadline approached, the office lights of JPW often were the only sign that anyone other than the cleaning crews and a few scattered security officers were in the building.
Calls of "Hi Randy!" and "Good morning Mr. Palmer!", greeted Randy as he moved down the isle, slightly out of breath. After a few nods and "Hi's", he stopped momentarily beside one of the drafting desks.
Perched on the stool was a young lady, very slim and dressed in jeans, leaning over her table. A member of Sharon Patterson's team, she was intent in coloring in an area of a new corporate logo. Her boyish short haircut and a man's collared shirt would have made it difficult for anyone to identify her sex from the back. Yet, when walking, her girlish stature and walk were dead giveaways to her sex.
“Very crisp – I like it!“ Randy liked to give encouragement to the staff whenever he had the opportunity.
Kristy had come to the firm soon after graduation from the Maryland Institute of Art with a degree in Interior Architecture. Due to the recession, no jobs had been open in the interior design or architectural firms, so she had decided to give public relations a try.
"She sure seems young," he thought to himself as he thought of her. "I don't usually feel middle aged until I'm around someone like Kristy, just one year out of college. Sometime she looks too young to be going out without a chaperon!"
"Good morning," he said politely as he neared his office and approached one of the other project managers on the way out of hers. Sharon Patterson, dressed in a tailored suit, was carrying a small stack of papers. Without slowing down, she answered routinely, "Good morning. You know about the 9:30 meeting?" She had this way of speaking sometimes that made her sound like she was the mother hen of the roost.
"Right. We'll all be there." Randy never felt at ease with Sharon, especially when she pulled this authority attitude bit. Yet, he had to give her credit. She was professional and clearly had sights on greater things, including a new position known to be under consideration by the partners, "Director of Marketing." His own management style was more laid back and gentle. Working around with a woman manager who had a more "masculine" approach sometimes felt strangely uncomfortable.
Sharon had been hired away from Schneider and Hallstead nearly five years ago at the age of 30 and was the youngest of the three project managers at JPW. Her credentials included a degree in art from the Rhode Island School of Design. She was continuing her studies towards a masters in psychology by taking evening courses at Johns Hopkins University, not far from the area where she lived. Her project team competed for more than bragging rights with Randy's and Ron's teams. Client billings and professional citations and awards played a big role in each employee’s semi-annual performance review.
In recent years, Baltimore had advanced to the number four city in US advertising billings, and JPW's announced goal for this year was to overtake their competitor, Schneider and Hallstead, currently ranked number two locally. An important part of the JPW's strategy involved branching out from traditional advertising and marketing activities into product concept development. This more interdisciplinary area had taken them into areas like interior architecture and urban planning. But a major player in that area, the Columbia Design Group, had moved from the planned city of Columbia, Maryland to Baltimore over the winter and in the process had changed its name to Baltimore/Washington Design, Incorporated.
Why Sharon had been willing to leave her last job had always been somewhat of a mystery. The move to JPW had appeared to be a lateral career move following a divorce, and her first project was a minimal success. Her very structured approach to projects did not set well with some of the workers at JPW who were used to a looser rein. Recently, however, she seemed to be getting her act together. She also had become a member of a Baltimore professional women's networking group, and now she clearly had ambitions to eventually become the firm's first woman partner. Now full of energy, her hard work and directive style of management had clearly impressed the partners.
Randy's office was big enough for four desks, but contained only one. It was placed near the window-wall where, by swinging his armchair around 90 degrees, he could sit facing the harbor. Two walls were covered with examples of the work of some of his former teams, some of which occupied the space over his design table and horizontal files. The final wall, the one he normally faced while at his desk, contained a variety of framed photographs and posters. Nearly all were of scenes from around the Baltimore area, including one of a restored railroad passenger car parked at Camden Station. Randy had liked trains ever since he was a boy growing up not far from the freight yards on the east side of Baltimore. Now he was glad that his son shared his enthusiasm for trains.
He picked up the phone to buzz the secretary, shared by all three managers.
"Yes?"
"Has there been an agenda circulated for today's 9:30?
"No sir. Everybody's curious, but I haven't been told anything except that it's important that everybody be there."
"OK, thanks."
Randy released the button on his speaker-phone, looked at his watch and turned to the window. Tapping his fingers, he thought to himself, "This should be interesting. I wonder why they want us all there?"
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