2006-06-14T11:31:00.000-07:00

“Hello.” Warren answered solemnly
Warren was confused by her response. Meagan was, for the most part, very direct and at times thought of as insensitive. Her demeanor was almost always lauded in her male counterparts, but usually just gave her the “bitch” title. Warren was aware of Meagan’s reputation in college, but it was not the part of her that he had experienced early in their relationship. Her relationship with Warren had been more comparable to maternal. She showed tremendous affection towards him that had filled a void left by the death of his mother. Warren gravitated towards her feminine touch, her soft skin, and the smell of her freshly shampooed hair when they met for study sessions in the university library. Her directness had not bothered him in those early years, as Warren desired a strong woman to help make decisions he couldn’t make.

“Warren,” she started “I don’t know what to do. Josh is…is…”

“Is what?” Warren questioned.

Meagan’s voice was noticeably shaky. Warren’s mind began to race thinking about all the possibilities. He was preparing himself for tremendously bad news, as Meagan was well beyond her normal “in control” self.

“Is dead” Meagan continued, her voice barely audible as Warren sensed her tears through the phone.

For a moment, there was silence. Warren thought of how fond of Josh he had been. It was hard not to like him as he had such a zest for living and was an extremely giving person. He fit almost every nice guy cliché one could think of, yet he was successful in a profession that seemed to rip the hearts out of most nice guys. Josh was Meagan’s younger brother by several years and was currently a football coach at the University of Texas. He had been a player there for five years including a redshirt year after hurting his knee. He left UT and bounced around a few NFL training camps, had a stint in the World Football League, then basically retired from competitive playing and focused on coaching.

Meagan began relaying details of Josh’s death over the phone. Her voice never solid, the anguish was more than apparent in every word she spoke. She explained that Shondra, Josh’s wife, had found him collapsed face down in their bedroom after an apparent shower. Shondra tried several times to revive him, but he would not move and at two hundred forty pounds, she couldn’t do anything but roll him over. She called 911 and when they arrived informed her that he was already dead. The cause of death was not immediately known, but they suspect a heart attack or stroke.

Warren wondered out loud if Josh had some sort of tumor or cancer that had gone undiagnosed. Warren contemplated Josh’s age (thirty), his level of physical activity (high), and the lack of stroke history in Meagan’s family and concluded it highly unlikely that a stroke or heart attack was the cause of death. But, if not those, than what?

Meagan continued giving an account of the details as known so far. Paramedics arrived at the house and attempted to revive Josh through the use of CPR and a defibrillator. They took him to the hospital located 20 minutes from their home just outside of Austin where he was pronounced dead. There is some paperwork that must be completed, an autopsy performed and several other things that would be difficult on Shondra and the two boys. Meagan was in-process of making plane reservations and wanted to know when Josh would be able to join them.

For selfish reasons, Warren thought that the timing could not have been worse. He was days away from the biggest moment in his career and now he would not be able to be a part of it. He was not sure how things would play out, but he was certain that the credit he had been working so hard for, would somehow get diminished if even slightly.

Warren indicated to Meagan that he would fly down the next night. He needed a day to get things situated at work and he could be there for the weekend and would stay through the funeral before he had to come back. And that’s when the shakiness, the inaudible voice, and the solemnity all went away.

“You can’t tear yourself away from that job for 10 minutes!” she began. “For god’s sake, my brother is dead, Shondra and the boys need us to help them get through it and you’re worried about a job!” Meagan’s voice had gone to a different decibel level. Warren understood that part of it was about the shock of her brother’s death and the other was more about what had been eating her up for years, but especially over the last several weeks.

“Fine! You come, make your little appearance and we’ll figure a way to get through this without you!” Meagan finished. Before Warren could respond, she had clicked off the phone.

“Damnit!” Warren exclaimed to the empty room.

The Beginning

2006-05-30T15:26:00.000-07:00

Warren sat at his desk looking over his spreadsheets for the third time. He was sure that he had not missed anything and that his analysis was appropriate. A slight grin eased across his face as he allowed himself some satisfaction for his diligent work.

Just outside of his office he could hear Janae packing up her laptop preparing for her pre-weekend extravaganza. Janae was young, only twenty three, and had been working for the company for less than a year. She was tall and slender with long dark hair. Her eyes were an almost surreal icy blue that seemed as if they were cut from an artic, late morning sky.

Warren was amazed at how the professional landscape had changed. In his early career he had a closet full of dark suits and white shirts with conservative red and blue ties hanging close by. Over the years, casual fridays had yielded to business casual summers and now succeeded by permanent business casual. For people like Warren, business casual had meant laundered khakis, Kenneth Cole leather soled shoes, a solid color Ralph Lauren or Tommy Hilfiger button-up shirt and a blazer. In Janae's case, business casual meant "no jeans or sneakers."

Janae peeked in Warren's office accompanied by a slight tap on the door.
"I'm off for the evening, unless you need something from me." she said.
Her body language and the fact that she had already packed up her laptop were both indicators that this was simply a courtesy and she had no intention of staying another minute.

Warren looked up at her gave a slight smile and said "No, I don't need anything. Have a good night. See you tomorrow."

With that, Janae was gone. Warren could hear her flip-flops dragging across the hallway carpet as she strode towards the elevator bank. For an instant, his mind lingered on her physical attributes. There was no doubt that Janae was attractive, but it was her skirts, low cut blouses and sandals that made her more sexy than she ought to be. Plus, she had the intellectual denominator working for her. The intellectual denominator was a concept Warren and his college buddies had come up with to describe women who, in normal circumstances, would be rated sixes and sevens but because the women around them were mostly unattractive, had actually appeared more like eights and nines. It just seemed like the really attractive women had better things to do with their time than worry about corporate careers.

Warren looked back at his spreadsheets. His light brown eyes slightly covered by his suddenly heavy eyelids. It had been nearly four weeks since Jan Anderssen had first given the directive to find a solution. Warren had spent nearly every waking hour since then thinking of a way to satisfy Jan. The effort was taking its toll on him just a few days from the meeting with the executive level members. His mind drifted slightly as he pondered all the potential challenges he and his team faced. Had he done enough analysis on competitive response, he thought. It was the capabilities of the competitors that had Warren the most concerned. It was nearly impossible to tell, with certainty, how prepared the industry was for this potential paridigm shift. Of course there were many articles written, and several forums at the annual conferences that hinted at the potential, but the realities were thought to still be as far as a decade away.

Warren's attention was brought back by the sound of his office phone. He recognized the caller ID as the cell phone number of his wife, meagan. He sat at his desk not wanting to answer the phone. He and Meagan argued quite a bit, especially recently since his work had demanded so much more of his time. This was, no doubt, another chastising waiting to happen.

The Suicide Note

The Beginning