“You’ve got to look ahead in this man’s game,” he emphasized at first conference, “or by jumbo you’re up crap creek without a paddle!”
Granted he spoke harshly, but in his tone was tough jaunty conviction and brutal know-how.
“He’s all right,” said one Vanity staffer after the session. “He speaks his mind, and devil take the hindmost!”
“Joe, he’s my kinda guy,” another was quick to agree. “... I mean what the hell, we’re all out for money—am I right, Joe?”
These regulars though, were more or less cut off from lab contact now, as Grand told them he wanted to “go it alone for a bit.”
“Just want to see how the land lies,” he said.
He worked tirelessly with his new chemists, himself clad in a great white smock, bustling about the lab, seeing to this test and that result.
“Back in harness!” he liked to say at conference (for it was his habit to go there wearing his smock), and it made the others feel a bit inadequate—spic and span as they were in their smart tweeds and clergy gray—while the new chief sat stained and pungent from the lab.
“You civies have a soft touch here,” Grand would tweak them—though of course they were only too eager now to go to the lab themselves.
“You know I wouldn’t mind a crack at the lab,” one of the senior exec’s would say with serious mien if he could get Grand aside.