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The problem during these conferences was that there were always telephone calls from important people—such as Mrs. Elaine Naylor, or the secretary of defense—for the commanding general. General Naylor always took calls from these two, but some of the calls were from less important people and could wait.
Sergeant Major Suggins usually made that decision and informed the caller that General Naylor was in conference and would return the call as soon as he could. But sometimes Sergeant Major Suggins didn’t feel confident in telling, for example, the assistant secretary of defense for manpower or someone calling from the White House that he was just going to have to wait to talk to the boss.
In that case, there were two options. He could enter Naylor ’s office, or the co
nference room, and go to the general and quietly tell him that he had a call from so-and-so, and did he wish to take it?
The moment the sergeant major entered the conference room, or the office, whoever had the floor at the moment in the conference would stop—often in midsentence—and politely wait for the sergeant major and the general to finish.
This wasted time, of course, and prolonged the conference.
The second option—which Naylor originally thought showed great promise—was a telephone on his desk and the conference table, which had a flashing red button instead of a bell. That had been a failure, too, as the instant the button began to flash whoever was speaking stopped talking, in the reasonable presumption that if the general’s phone flashed, the call had to be more important than whatever he was saying at the moment.
From the beginning, the use of the laptop to announce calls had been a success. Naylor always caught, out of the corner of his eye, activity on the laptop’s screen. He then dropped his eyes to it and read, for example:
MRS N??????
Or:
SEC BEIDERMAN???
Or:
GEN HARDHEAD
Whereupon he would put his fingers on the keyboard and type:
BRT
Which meant “Be Right There,” and, further, meant that he would stand up, say, “Excuse me for a moment, gentlemen, ” and go into a small soundproof cubicle, which held a chair, a desk, and a secure telephone, and converse with his wife or the secretary of defense.
Or, in the case of General Hardhead, for example, he would quickly type:
NN. 1 HR
Which stood for “Not Now. Have Him Call Back in an Hour.”
Or:
FOWDWIIP
Which stood for “Find Out What, and Deal With It If Possible. ”
General Naylor found he could get and receive messages in this manner without causing whoever had the floor to stop in midsentence and wait.
But then, starting with Mrs. Naylor, he began to get messages directly from those in his inner circle, rather than via Sergeant Major Suggins, those who were very privy to the great secret of Naylor’s e-mail screen name.
There would be a muted beep, he would drop his eyes to the screen and see that Mrs. Naylor was inquiring:
CAN YOU PICK UP TWO DOZEN EGGS AND SOME RYE BREAD AT THE COMMISSARY??
To which, without causing the conference to come to a complete stop, he could reply:
SURE
The next development—which he thought was probably inevitable—was the realization that since he was connected to the Internet, his personal e-mail was thus available.
The purpose of the conferences was to make sure everybody knew what everybody else was thinking, had done, or was planning to do. Very often General Naylor knew what most of the conferees were going to say when they stood up. Listening to something he already knew—or at least assigning his full attention to it—was a waste of time. Time that could be better spent reading what, for example, his sons thought would interest him.
