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Pete strode down the hall, greeting everyone he saw by name. Hello there,
Cliff. How s your wife?
Could be any day, Pete.
Get some sleep now before
your son s born. Art Rossman s wife just had twins. Now whenever anyone
mentions the word sleep he gets a lump in his throat.
Cliff Garret, ATI s chief of shipping, laughed and walked to the shipping room
with a bounce in his step. It was nice that the boss remembered he was about
to become a dad.
Then Pete saw Alec McCarthy, the staff art designer, turning the hall corner.
How s the new packaging on the airline reservation software?
I think you ll really like it. I have the sketches in my office.
Let s go take a look. By the way, Alec, happy birthday. I know it s tomorrow,
but in case I don t see you....
Pete was changing. Among his colleagues at ATI, he took on an entirely
different personality and demeanor. He felt comfortable and secure with his
coworkers; holding meetings and interacting with them wasn t quite like being
in the zone, but pretty close. They were all part of the same team now,
working toward common goals. He relished the camaraderie.
JAMES L. HALPERIN
106
Having memorized dozens of books on business and personnel motivation, Pete s
self-confidence with staff was apparent. Although painfully shy with
outsiders, he felt at ease inside ATI s walls. It was his fortress, his
sustenance, his comfort, his true home. He looked forward to every day at work
and dreaded the weekends, when almost all ATI employees were home with their
families.
Marjorie Ann Tilly, with every reason for self-satisfaction, addressed about
200 members of the press.
This superb software system should achieve 100-percent market penetration of
every private prison, boot camp, and mandatory drug rehabilitation center in
America within three years. It will be impossible for an operator without
RehabTest to compete against companies with it. We re offering RehabTest risk-
free for the first year and they d be foolish not to take us up on it.
Whatley had pushed for the risk-free part that would set the tone for all of
ATI s marketing strategies.
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Scoggins had also argued in favor of the strategy. Make it tough for them to
say no. Once they can t live without our product, we can raise prices every
year.
Eventually software becomes the most valuable component of any information- or
service-based industry. It s only a matter of time before our pricing can
reflect that.
Tilly had set the deadline for ATI s first release to coincide with Pete s
birthday. RehabTest was a complex project even by ATI standards, but Tilly s
group got it onto the shelves in less than a year, creating revenue and
proving that
ATI could meet its deadlines. Only 11 months earlier, at an open meeting with
most of ATI s 75 employees, Tilly had publicly assured Pete, This company
will not issue vaporware. If I announce a product deadline, we ll deliver
the package by that date. This one s going to be your eighteenth birthday
present.
With personnel director Gene Hildegrand s blessing, Tilly even persuaded
Dr. Alphonso Carter to provide initial criteria for RehabTest. Still chief
psychologist at Massachusetts State Prison, Carter was comfortable there; he
loved his work and did not want to move his family to a new place. She had
cajoled, guilted, and finally sweet-talked him. Dr. Carter, this project can
leverage your work. Nothing you could possibly do over the next year will be
more important than what we could accomplish here. We need the best criminal
psychologist we can find, and that s you.
THE TRUTH MACHINE
107
Carter took an eight-month leave of absence from Massachusetts State
Prison, where he had first interviewed Daniel Anthony Reece. Carter mused over
the irony that his earlier failure climaxed in his greatest opportunity to
advance his field. He may have failed Pete once, but he wouldn t fail him
again.
For over a month, he dictated every important fact and theory he could think
of, every nuance of evaluating prisoners for criminal potential. Knowing the
software would automatically test his theories and eventually reject any
unsound ones, he postulated, It seems to me that emotional intelligence is
the most important aspect to measure. Most violent crimes are unplanned,
stemming from underdeveloped impulse control and lack of self-restraint. A
person who understands his or her own feelings can deal with them more
successfully and thus refrain from future violence.
He reeled off similar concepts, one after the other. During rehabilitation,
measure each convict s attitude as you would judge that of a student. Is he
applying himself to his studies? Does he retain knowledge like someone who
intends to use it to improve his life, or is he just using short-term, rote
memorization to go through the motions?
You can never tell if people are cured of their inner rage by appearance or
by what they say. But you can often tell by patterns of behavior, especially
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