Wild Fyre by Ike Hamill Read Free Book Online Page A

point. Do me a favor though—let me know if you see anything odd in there,” Ed said.
    “Yeah, no problem.”
    After Maco left with his envelope of money stuffed way down in his front pocket, Ed returned to his desk to look for news about 28c. It was everywhere. Well, it was everywhere on the technical sites that Ed read. He tried to stay current on all the latest trends in technology, but it was difficult. When he read about a new breakthrough, or some fancy new technique, he had to read the article several times before it began to make any sense. People he worked with—Jim, or Maco, or Lister—could read the headline and immediately guess exactly what was going on.
    # # # # #

      Autobiography2();

    /*****
    When I first set up my staffing business—Statler Staffing—I worked with anyone. I didn’t have that much business, so I would take anyone who walked through the door. The figurative door, I mean. I didn’t have a real door at first. I was still working for the government during the day, so I did my staffing hobby during lunch, while I was on break, or nights and weekends. Someone would send me their résumé, I’d sit on it until I found them the right job, and then I’d give them a call. Sometimes, before I’d get a chance to call, the person had already taken a job.  
    You might think the really talented people would get jobs before I could place them—you’d be wrong. Often, the most talented employees have to wait the longest before someone recognizes their value. At least that has been my experience.  
    My break came with a machinist. She was brilliant with her hands. Give her some specs and a mill and she would turn out perfect parts every time. She was also really frugal with her stock. Any other machinist would cost twice as much in raw materials. She had a way to understand how to get the most out of limited resources. When she first sent over her qualifications I thought she would have to move to Portsmouth, or Norfolk, or even out west to one of the naval shipyards. That’s a good spot for a machinist. She wouldn’t move though. She liked her house and intended to stay in it.
    There were no jobs for a machinist in DC at the time. At least there were no good ones. She had already interviewed a few times and turned down the offers. They didn’t pay enough or offer any challenges.
    I sat down with her at a coffee shop one afternoon.
    “You like to work with your hands,” I said.
    “Yes, of course,” she said.
    “Do you have to?”
    She laughed. “It’s what I do. I guess I don’t understand.”
    “Would you be willing to take a chance on project management?”
    “I’m sorry?”
    You have to understand—at the time, Project Management wasn’t a buzzword, or it was only becoming one. It started in the ’50s, and became popular in the ’60s, but not with people like machinists. She had probably worked a project or two and not known it. All she knew was here are the specs, give us a part.
    “You would organize all the tasks involved with a project. Organization and communication would be your primary duties, but there’s some amount of resource allocation in the project I’m thinking of.”
    “I wouldn’t know where to start. I like learning things, but I already have a specific set of skills. Shouldn’t I stick with what I know?”
    “First, this is a short-term commitment. It’s only going to run about five months, and if you find a better job during that time you can burn the bridge. Since you don’t care about this field, who cares if you piss off some company you’ll never want to work for again?”
    “That’s not the way I like to leave things,” she said.
    “That’s one of the reasons why you’re going to be brilliant. Look, you’ve been underemployed for eight months. Why not give this a shot? I’ll write you up a short-term contract and you can test the waters. You could do it for six months, right? The pay is generous.”
    “But why would they even want