All eyes were on the people in the control room and the world held its breath.
The only way to prevent the massive meteorite from obliterating the city was to pulverize it in space. Today’s launch was the result of several months of planning. A row of a dozen technicians sat before their banks of screens. In front of them, at the end of the room, a giant display was being continually fed with technical data. The Project Director, having recently flown in from an important last minute meeting with the Prime Minister, entered the room and took up his position behind the technicians. He switched on his microphone and spoke into it.
“Did the missile launch on time?”
There was no immediate answer. Then a nervous sounding technician number five said, “Not exactly, sir.”
“What do you mean, not exactly?”
“We were about three minutes off, sir.”
“About?”
Number five checks his screen and says, “Three minutes and seventeen seconds, sir.”
A heavy sigh from the director. “Very well. Were the trajectory adjustments made?”
“I think they were, yes, sir.”
“You think?”
“Well, I didn’t make them, sir.”
“Well, who did?”
“Number two, sir.”
The director peered around. “Where is number two?”
“He went to the toilet, sir.”
After a long silence, the director said, “OK, but I need to verify his numbers as soon as he returns.”
The room went very quiet for several minutes before the director spoke again.
“I think someone should go and check on him.”
Number eight said, “I’ll go sir.”
“Thank you, number eight.”
As the technician left the room the director looked around again. He noticed that two chairs were empty. He asked, “Where is number one?”
Nobody answered.
“Number three, where is number one?”
“Sorry, sir. I’m not sure, sir.”
“But you were right there, you must have seen him leave!”
“Well, yes, I did, sir.”
“Well?”
Number three took a long breath and said, “He had a phone call, sir.
The director shook his head. “For goodness sake! What sort of phone call?”
“I don’t really know, sir. All I know is he said it was urgent and it was from his auntie, sir.”
Just then, number eight re-entered the room unaccompanied and sat down, saying nothing.
The director glared at the back of number eight’s head for a full minute. Finally, he said, “Well, number eight, did you find him?”
“No, sir.”
“No? You didn’t find him?”
“No, sir. He’s gone, sir?”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“Sorry, I don’t know, sir. He’s just gone.”
At this point the director put his head in his hands. He was filled with despair at the obvious conclusion that this entire impending disaster could well have been avoided if the Human Resources Department had run a far more rigorous personnel selection process.
