The Power of Silence

Ed was another person that I worked for at SAIC.  Ed was a Ph. D nuclear engineer from Tennessee. If I remember correctly he came from a hard scrabble upbringing.  He headed up a Sector of the company, and was on the board of directors. Very smart with great insight.

Within SAIC there were two groups that had health related business.  My area was smaller but the work related to services and research. The other group did IT work. In addition, we had a number of programs that had staff overseas. As a result we came across an opportunity to provide TRICARE staff in the OCONUS locations in Europe.  

We bid the opportunity and won.  When the other group heard about our win they went to corporate and said this was their business area not ours.  Well that was not true. They did not even know this opportunity existed. Of course, this turned into a bruha.

Both sides approached Corporate to get them to make a decision on who should own the work. They punted back to both Groups to work it out.

A call was set to discuss the issue one more time.  Ed and myself representing Health Services and the others representing Health IT.  As the call began I started again by reiterating the facts that we had marketed the opportunity, wrote the proposal, and won.  As I finished that statement Ed looked at me and put a finger to his mouth telling me to be quiet.

And quiet it was.  Ed was reading a Business Week magazine at my desk, I sat uncomfortably in silence, and who knows what the others were doing.  This went on for 20 minutes. Not a word said.

Finally, Dave said “fuck it, it's yours” and hung up.

Ed laid the magazine down, said nothing to me and walked back to his office.

Pat