Side Story: Lifetime Value (Patreon)

Erica Lucas was having a good day until her messenger pinged.

A four-word message from Simon Cleeves: “Please join this meeting,” and a Hangouts link.

Sighing, she ran a quick comb through her hair, checked that there was nothing embarrassing in the background, and joined the call.

Her screen lit up with the image of Simon Cleeves, the head of Morganstern Executive Search Solutions. And, unfortunately, there was also Betty Garfield.

Garfield was the Chief Human Resources Officer of DCW Partners, a major PR firm across the length and breadth of the UK. DCW fixed public relations disasters for major British corporations, including some of the biggest names in the aerospace, defence, petrochemicals, utilities and infrastructure sector – the kind of industries that only got in the news when they screwed up big time.

As a result, DCW hired dozens of people every month. People who had the talent, maturity, and skill to deal with a chaotic situation, talk sense into corporate executives with massive egos and a tunnel vision limited to their own industry, and moderate perceptions so that their clients didn’t deal with excessive blowback.

Such people were not easy to find. Morganstern screened hundreds of candidates every week, winnowing out the best suited and sending their profiles to DCW for interviews. For every candidate that DCW saw, MES had usually interviewed and rejected six beforehand.

Garfield rarely got involved in conversations with recruiters like Erica directly, which meant this was not good news.

Simon’s first words confirmed that. “Erica, Ms. Garfield had some questions about the candidate Eloise Chen.”

“Questions, hell,” snapped Garfield. “I want to know why the candidate walked.”

Erica forced herself to smile. “Ma’am. Chen indicated that she wasn’t confident following through after the interview process.”

“She was rude to Sandy! Is that the quality of candidate that passes your screening?”

Erica swallowed. “Ma’am, we don’t have access to the recordings, so I don’t know what happened between Sandy Carter and Eloise during their interview.”

Garfield frowned. “Fine. I’ll pull up the clip so you can see the exact behaviour the candidate displayed.”

The screen split, and a recording began to play. In it, Erica could see both Sandy and Eloise during the interview.

“Let’s skip to the relevant part, shall we?” Garfield did something and the recording shot forward, two minutes, then four, and finally reached a point at which it slowed down again.

“… so, we want people who are looking to make a long-term investment in their careers, and grow with the firm. How do you see that fitting in with your career plans?” Sandy was asking.

Eloise responded, “Well, as you can see from my resume, Sandy, I’ve spent four years with my last employer, and during that time I consistently rated an ‘Exceptional’ or ‘Outstanding’ in my ratings. I love my job, and if it wasn’t for the fact that KGF is shutting down, I’d probably continue there. So if you have a good career growth path, then I see DCW as a place I can settle into long-term.”

“That’s good. We like people who are committed to growing with us.”

“Assuming you can meet my salary expectations, of course,” Erica continued with a smile on her face.

“We offer competitive salaries, though I think you’ll find that the learning you gain from working with DCW is worth more in the long term.”

“On that note, I did notice that you haven’t mentioned the salary range for this role.”

Sandy’s smile became fixed. “As a policy, we don’t disclose salary ranges.”

“That’s fine, but could you let me know what I might be expecting in this role?”

“It’s not really appropriate to ask for a number at this stage of the process.”

“I see.” Eloise took a deep breath. “I respectfully disagree. Since I’m currently also considering other opportunities, I need to know that your offer will be competitive with those. That approach saves time for the both of us.”

“The opportunities DCW can offer you are much more than a single number can capture.”

“I’m looking for something in the range of £45,000 per year with benefits.”

Sandy pursed her lips disapprovingly. “Your last drawn pay was £25,000. Isn’t that a bit unrealistic?”

Eloise stood up. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Carter.” She turned and walked out.

The video stopped.

Garfield was scowling. “That was one of the rudest candidates I’ve ever seen. Is this the result of your vaunted screening process?”

“Ma’am,” Erica chose her words carefully, “we chose Chen based on the fact that she meets every single qualification you’ve asked for in your brief. She is also the top candidate in terms of potential.”

“With that attitude?”

“As you asked, ma’am, we focused on competence and skills. She has handled complex PR assignments before.” With her off hand, Erica swiftly typed out a message to Simon – 8.5M. “In line with DCW policy, we don’t disclose salary ranges to candidates.”

“She’s working for a failing firm. She should be grateful to get a job.”

Simon cut in. “The market’s a lot tougher nowadays, Betty. It’s not like when we were starting out – candidates are more upfront about what they want. They have less patience with offers that don’t meet their expectations.”

“She’s asking for eighty per cent above what she currently makes!”

“Betty, the seventy-fifth percentile for this role is £41,200. I’m confident we could have negotiated her down to that – and you’ve already said you want only the best ten per cent of candidates.” Simon smiled. “That does mean we’ll get some very smart, highly paid people.”

“There’s no way she’ll get that kind of a jump.”

Simon pursed his lips. “I should mention we called in a consult on her case.”

“A … consult?”

“We asked Lifetime Value for a projection of how much this person would earn over the course of her career. She came back with £8.5 million.”

Garfield’s eyes went wide. “That can’t be right.”

“Lifetime Value’s projections have outperformed even the best machine learning algorithms.”

“I’ve said it before – an ultra can’t figure out how much someone will earn over their working lives.”

“She’s successfully predicted at least forty successful entrepreneurs. Boards consult her for CEO compensation.” Simon held up his hands. “I’m not asking you to believe in her, Betty, but even if her powers aren’t as good as she says they are – can you deny that she may simply be one hell of a psychologist?”

Garfield hummed. “There is that. I’m not paying you for her time, though.”

“Consider it a freebie for a valued client. Think over it, and if you want to reconsider Chen, let us know.”

“On the off chance that I actually consider this… is it likely she’ll come back?”

Simon grinned. “She was one of KGF’s top account managers. She knows PR disasters happen. Just don’t have her report to Carter.”

“Let me think about it.” Garfield dropped off the call.

Hanging up, Erica breathed a sigh of relief. One more client crisis, successfully handled.

A low beep sounded.

Erica winced. That was her inventech smartphone – the one that had cost £25,000 in return for being untraceable, undetectable, unhackable and immune to virtually every major form of espionage software. A small price to pay for an ultra’s privacy.

Unfortunately, it was also very, very easy to misplace.

Fortunately, this time it was only buried under the coverlet, and not sandwiched between the sofa and the wall (the most common place, unfortunately). Or in the bathroom. Or stuck in the toaster tray like that one time – she still had no idea how that had happened.

Simon’ face lit up the video as she answered. “I keep telling you, send these messages on your ultra phone. Not your work phone. What if someone connected the two?”

“It wasn’t handy,” pleaded Erica. “I’ll remember next time.”

“Fine, but please remember, Erica. I’d hate to have you exposed over something as small as an irate client.”

“Thanks, Simon – I’ll be more careful.”

“Anyway, good call. I hadn’t seen the recording myself, you know – Betty just launched into an attack on how rude the candidates we send them are. When she talked about Eloise, I knew I needed to get you in.”

Erica snorted. “A ‘consult’ with Lifetime Value, huh?”

“Technically I did get one. Never said when, did I?”

“You’re so sharp, you’re going to cut yourself one of these days.”

“Why thank you, Erica.” Simon beamed. “How’s the other gig going?”

“You tell me. You got me to start the whole gig business, set up the contacts… I should be paying you a commission.”

“I’m happy where I am, thank you. As one of Lifetime Value’s many, many small customers, I don’t have an ultra-sized target on my forehead.”

“Speaking of which,” Erica hummed. “I got called in on a weird consult a few weeks ago.”

“I’ve told you not to take those adult industry gigs, you know.”

“Hey, telling someone who wants to get into that line of work if they’re going to do well – or not – is a social service.”

“Can’t argue but it still gets you into unexpected places.”

“I’m an ultra, I’ll be fine. It wasn’t that, anyway.”

“Then how was it weird?”

“It was government. I ended up signing a lot of nondisclosure agreements for something that seemed a little strange.”

“Aren’t you violating the NDA by telling me this?”

“I know, but… I need to talk to someone about this. It just feels … off, you know?”

“What did they ask you to do that was so strange?”

“They made me interview a bunch of people and give estimates.”

“So basically your normal gig. What’s so secret about that?”

“Well…” Erica swallowed. “Almost half of them have values under a hundred thousand pounds.”

Simon frowned. “Over their entire working lives? Were these retirees or something?”

Erica shook her head. “Normal, health people in their thirties and forties. At twenty k per year for twenty years, their numbers should have been closer to  £400,000 or more.”

“Maybe they’re going to be terminally unemployed?”

“It’s more than that,” Erica shook her head. “Even a massive recession wouldn’t push the numbers down that low for that long. There’s only one real possibility.”

“What would that be?”

“Simon… I think that most of those people are going to die. There’s something coming up in their future which is likely to kill them.”

“Ouch,” Simon winced. “Any idea what?”

“Not that kind of precog. I did leave a note with the government folks pointing out an unusually high death rate is the likely explanation.”

“And their reaction?”

“They said ‘Thank you’. Almost as if they were expecting it.”

Simon frowned. “Anything common to them all?”

“Not really – just typical Londoners.”

“Then maybe you should take a holiday, Erica. Work from somewhere other than London for a while.”

“Thanks, Simon. What about you?”

“I think I’ll take the kids to Glasgow for a bit. Let’s hope it all works out.”