And even as he hinted at research for another new product already under way, adverse reports about the soft-set began coming in by the carload. For what this Grand Guy in his work with the new chemists had contrived was a potion that did not soften the hair, after all, but on the contrary, made it all stiff and wiry.
As the reports flooded in, along with an avalanche of lawsuits, staffers at the conference table grew restive.
“Well, can’t win ’em all,” said Grand with a good loser’s chuckle. “Common Zen savvy tells us as much,” and he was content to dismiss the product’s failure with this, eager now to get started on something new; but as it became ever more apparent that their million-dollar planning had gone so terribly wrong, the staffers got panicky.
“We do our best,” said Grand, shaking his head stoically. “No man can say more.”
It appeared though that one of the senior execs, a white-haired man of about forty-two, might actually jump out the window.
Grand, who held the initiative throughout most of the conferences, quietly led the man back to the table, and summed up in this way:
“Talk is cheap, gentlemen, and since I’m not one personally to favor tired phrases, I think I’ll spare you the grand old maxim about ‘spilt milk,’ but I do want to say this: Show me the man who looks back—and I’ll show you: a first-rate imbecile!”
This brought conference around, and under Grand’s good guidance, they ignored the raging anathema without and looked to the future.
“Our M.R. people have come up with something,” said Grand, “—that’s what we pay them for—well, they’ve come up with a couple of consumer principles we can kick around here at conference: one, the insatiate craving of the public for an absolute; and two, the modern failure of monotheism—that is to say, the failure of the notion that any absolute can be presented as one separate thing.”
Grand paused to touch his fingers together before him, shooting sharply evaluative looks at several staffers nearest before he continued: