Secret Instructions for Josephine McNair

JOSEPHINE MCNAIR (Navigational Systems) (Secret Instructions) You are off to see the Division Chief, Terry Hardel, after staying up all night talking with Joe. You are absolutely furious. Neither your present Group Manager nor Hardel has had the courtesy to call you in or talk with you. In fact, Hardel probably would not have seen you except that you simply insisted. Obviously you've known all along that your marriage might get in the way of a promotion for either you or Joe. You've known that Navigational Systems has an antinepotism policy with respect to supervision. And since theoretical physicists normally do not become managers in engineering firms, you always knew it would be Joe who would get promoted, if it happened to either of you. In fact you and Joe had even explored this point with your present Group Manager, when you got married. He had said: 1) "No one had ever been promoted to head a Group at Navigational Systems under age 38." (You are 33 but Joe is only 30); 2) If a promotion came along, "You'd probably both know, a year or so ahead, and could plan for it;" 3) "Don't worry about it!" You in fact are angriest about the question of timing. A year would have been a good period to continue work on your present research problem and it was what you'd been planning on, under the present work plan. You would love to be able to continue your computer simulations, rework the theoretical predictions and iterate back and forth between theory and simulation for a year. At the very least, you need six weeks to conclude your present work and write it up. (Each complete simulation and analysis takes about a month, and you'd like two weeks to write, so six weeks is an absolute minimum.) You would be outraged to have to turn your work over to someone else immediately, just at the point when you have nearly finished getting the whole thing up and running for the first time. In fact,....ten weeks would be enormously better, so you could test your work twice. And each month after that means a lot to you, since each month means another run. JOSEPHINE MCNAIR (Navigational Systems) Joe's view is—why not just leave Navigational Systems? Each of you could get another job tomorrow. Promotions will come wherever he goes. He loves you. He thinks you've both been treated like objects. The heck with it. He says, get as much time as you can. If it's long enough, then good, he'll take the promotion. If the move has to be "tomorrow," you'll both quit, giving six weeks notice. In fact, if anything makes you mad, Joe will refuse the promotion; you will finish up in six weeks and you'll both go anyway, to a company that treats you better. Six weeks would be an ok turn-around time for him, too, he says. Joe's points made you feel good. On the other hand you know he'd love this promotion at age 30 (!) He's loved the work, he's fascinated by research administration, he likes writing proposals and he is really interested in air traffic control. You want to be as loyal to him as he is to you. Neither of you wishes to leave Navigational Systems for any other reason. But on the other hand, Hardel has been an absolute jerk. Why hadn't Terry talked with you months ago? Why hadn't Terry called you both in? But still, there's Joe, who can't wait to take on a bigger challenge. How can you stand in his way?... How long will Hardel give you? Josephine: Please stay in role. Do not agree with any plan you personally would not agree to.