She stiffened slightly and stood up. "Listen, Mr. Frank Whitemarsh! Privately you're not a bad guy. You even had potentialities. But you're a hell of a failure as a boss and the less I see of you, the happier I'll be. Good-bye!" And she was gone. Whitemarsh resumed his contemplation of the Earth with less interest.
The results of the examination might have been foretold. The intelligent and professionally alert junior chemists retained enough fundamentals to do well. The majority failed the questions on laboratory technique. Consequently Whitemarsh enlisted the aid of the older men to conduct a series of refresher lectures to bring up to date the scientific knowledge of those who failed. The Laboratorians were delighted with the spectacle presented by these lectures, and loved going home at night while erstwhile bosses sat listening to Dr. Sturtevant discuss "The Theory of Washing Precipitates", or to hear Dr. Whitemarsh talk on "Balancing the Redox equation." The Laboratorians' happiness lasted until one day in October.
That was the day that Lo Presti retired. The old man was given a small space ship by the Corporation and a space-time chronometer by the Laboratorians. Then he sorrowfully said farewell. The next day the Laboratorians were absorbed into Research.
Somebody had to plan for janitor service, figure where to place time cards, design new proficiency ratings and decide on such complex matters as where the Laboratorians were to hang their coats. All these services had been provided for by the miner's shop organization. Whitemarsh stayed late at night for a week arranging the new payroll plan and raising the salaries somewhat.
All this was handled, if not without incidents, at least without violence. Even the janitors and secretaries were now part of a team. All but Miss Chester. She had stopped speaking to Whitemarsh in the halls and had been seen in the company of a younger (and Whitemarsh felt) better looking physicist.
Then Whitemarsh dropped his second bombshell. The junior chemists were ordered to rate the Laboratorians for proficiency! Fresh from six months' study under such taskmasters as Whitemarsh and Kercheval, the chastened scientists were now able to interpret the antics of their tormentors of yesterday. An old tradition had fallen and the howls extended back to the Front Office on Earth.
For a change, Miss Chester did not object. She was evidently past all comment. She merely wrote out a list of the faults and virtues of all her assistants, rated them all Excellent and went back to her research.
But Rocco was tried and found incapable of running titrations. Harry Crowe was found to be weighing incorrectly, Zachary had been fixing his calculations for the last ten years and even faithful Bruno had been found to be adding 15 to all of his Iodine numbers in order to pass the specs easier.
It suddenly occurred to every one that all the laboratory's reports were based on incorrect data. All work stopped for a week until the scientists found what their assistants had been trying to do all along. And the results were a bit terrifying. When Kercheval found that an incorrectly calibrated reflectometer had negated five years of his pet project, he tore up his notebooks, flung them on the floor and stalked into Whitemarsh's office.