George Maharis

[Tdarcos]

From the book, Don't Break the Merger

Chapter 6
Deposition of George Maharis

-----“Hi. I'm William Black.”
-----“Nice to meet you.”
-----“Let's see, you're George Maharis, correct?”
-----“Yes.”
-----“Okay, for the record, you are aware that this interview is being recorded, and you consent to the recording.”
-----“I do.”
-----“I'm one of the interviewers for Entemann Enterprises. What I want to do is ask you a few questions about your job, what you do, what you've been working on, that sort of thing. Now, I want you to understand something. If we buy this company we're going to be spending over a billion and a half dollars. So, realize that nothing I'm going to ask you is a 'gotcha' question. What we are concerned about is, with us spending this kind of money, we want to make sure the company is healthy, that we know of concerns we have to deal with, there are no surprises of things that are expected to ship but in reality they won't, that we have product that customers will want to buy, that sort of thing. Understand?”
-----“Yeah.”
-----“First, the videographer is also commissioned as a notary public for the State of Winnemac and will swear you in, then I'll start. This page here has exactly what he wants you to say. Where the blank is, you state your name. So go ahead, turn and face him, raise your right hand, and read what this paper says, either the upper or the lower block.”
-----“'I, George Maharis, do solemnly affirm, under penalty of perjury, that the statements I will make in this interview, are, to the best of my knowledge and belief, to be true, correct, and complete.”
-----“My name is William Black, B-l-a-c-k, I'm an interviewer for Entemann Enterprises. Please state your name. Spell your last name, and state your title.
-----“George Maharis. M-a-h-a-r-i-s. My title is communications engineer.”
-----“Okay, tell me a little about yourself, how old you are, marital status, where you were born, what you do outside of work, that sort of thing.”
-----“I'm 33, single, I was born in Aurora, Colorado, it's a suburb of Denver. When I'm not busy with work I sometimes socialize. I don't do much social media but occasionally I'll get into conversations on interesting subjects. More-or-less ordinary guy.”
-----“Where was your last assignment before you worked here and what did you do?”
-----“I was a communications specialist with Zenith National Bank. I got hired by them to solve a problem they were having. They wanted to find a way to reduce the time necessary to process an ATM transaction, especially paying cash. So, I made some purchases of new network equipment, rewrote and reflashed the memory in the routing equipment, made changes to the ATM software to do better prediction of customer demands, and increased the speed of a transaction. By the time I got finished, I'd cut the time from when the customer pushed one of the Fast Cash buttons until the money is dispensed to one second. Zenith National Bank was able to advertise that it had the world's fastest ATMs, that you almost get your money before you even ask for it. I personally cut 4½ seconds off the original time it took for the machine to start dispensing cash.”
-----“Wow. Okay, what made you come over here?”
-----“They were having problems with the new ultra-high-speed switch and router. By changing the design, adding more auxiliary processors, and rewriting some of the processing software, plus a change in how the signal is fed to the optical processor, I cracked the latest bottleneck. In continuous burst mode, one way it can do 90 gigabytes per second. Roughly 720 gigabits. This is at least twice as fast as anyone else out there now. We're calling it the 'Soft-90' because it will do a soft 90 gigabytes per second burst one way, and a hard 65 gigabytes with dual fiber for two-way traffic. Even in two-way mode it's 50% faster than anything our competitors are offering. At least at this price point. The next faster one costs about twice what ours will.”
-----“Now, are you aware of any problems at the company regarding ability to ship promised product, like, is the sales department making promises that the engineering people can't keep?”
-----“They always do that. But I spoke to one of the sales people, and I told him to pass it around to all the other direct sales people that what is in the specifications is what we can deliver. If a customer has an interest in something then they can write it up, and I'll look at it, but don't promise the customers anything. First rule is we have to be able to ship on time and nice features that will be too complicated, that we don't have the time to implement right now, or in some cases, are impossible to do with the technology will be rejected. If you have a reputation of never overpromising when you can offer them something really great, sometimes you can just knock their socks off.”
-----“Have you heard any rumors of anything that might be a problem, even if you think they're wrong or unfounded?”
-----“No, I can't think of any.”
-----“Do you mind if I ask something personal?”
-----George thought (“I hope this guy isn't gay and likes me, he's not my type.”) Out loud, he said, “No, I don't mind.”
-----“So, what about you, George, what are you going to do with your option money if the merger goes through?”
-----“I haven't been here one year yet, I wasn't eligible to receive any options.”
-----“Damn, that's too bad.”
-----“I wasn't really that worried. As part of my contract I took a smaller salary in exchange for royalties on the stuff I design. Even if the merger didn't go through, the new company would still have to pay me for what they sold. If the Soft-90 does as well as I expect, I could conceivably see over $3,000,000 over the next two or three years. If not, there is a $50,000 buyout clause. The new company has to pay me at least $50,000 and must assign all rights to all patents back to me, although they still have the automatic license if they change their mind later. Plus, I will still make a decent salary as a hardware engineer. And if you guys don't buy the company, and it ends up being liquidated, I have an open invitation to go back to Zenith National Bank.”
-----“Well, that's good to hear. Anyway, back to business. I believe your boss said there was something important about the new switch?”
-----“We have good news. We have confirmations from Verizon, Comcast, Cox, AT&T, Time Warner, Bellsouth, Pacific Bell, Charter Communications, Frontier, Google Fiber, and Qwest that they all will be able to provide IPv6 connectivity direct to regular internet customers so we can now tell customers they can get direct access to any connection using IPv6 natively, so if their equipment supports IPv6 it can be pass-through routed on all of those networks, and if it doesn't, our device will provide a DHCP lease of an IPv4 address to their device and convert it either into an IPv6 port if they don't have multiple addresses, or it will direct translate to and from an IPv6 address.”
-----“And maybe you can explain that to me in plain ol' Galveston English?”
-----“If you have a computer, a phone, or a tablet, and you connect via Wi-Fi, if your device supports IPv6, the router will give it an appropriate IPv6 address. If it only supports IPv4, it will give it both an IPv4 address and IPv6 address, and translate if needed.”

-----Later, after more questions, they released George, who went back to his office. He thought the deposition was a bit unnerving, but what happened next was much worse.

[Tdarcos]

From the book, Don't Break the Merger

Chapter 7
Alzo Sprach Leann

_____George was in his office when he heard the sound of doom. Actually, it was his girlfriend Leann – or more likely ex-girlfriend, he wasn't quite sure – looking for him, simply saying, loudly, “Where is George Maharis?” and giving those who didn't answer a death glare of tremendous proportions, the kind that if it had been effective, would have done to them what the Ark of the Covenant did to the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark, i.e. caused their faces to melt and their skulls to explode. George walked out of his office to where he saw her. She saw him too, and said, “There you are, you son of a bitch!” as she stormed down the corridor like a woman on a mission. Which, essentially, she was.
_____“What brings you here, Leann?”
_____“You cheating bastard! You fucked my sister!“ He nodded his head. “You fucked my sister on my bed!”
_____He nodded his head. “Look, Leann, everyone around us except you and me knew our relationship was over. I think it was pretty much obvious that our relationship was not working. We'd more-or-less drifted apart. It was your sister who pointed it out to me. So, she came to see me and told me she was interested. So if you're asking me if it's true, the answer to both is yes.”
_____His calm, rational and low-key response to her comments infuriated her further. She didn't expect him to just casually admit it as if there was nothing wrong, she had wanted him to be unhappy she found out, and beg to be forgiven, so she could punish him by walking away. But, that wasn't going to work, so she looked for something to use to hurt him. She noticed the phone next to her which had a sticker on it, “For Public Address system, press 72.” So, she pressed one of the line buttons, pressed the Speakerphone button, and when she heard the dial tone, she punched in 72. There was a squeak as the PA system kicked in.
_____“Listen everybody, My boyfriend... no, my EX boyfriend George Maharis, fucked my sister in my house on my bed, and I want everyone here to know it! Now are you going to try to deny it?”
_____George walked over to her, then spoke to the phone. “For the benefit of everyone here, I'll say something, so people won't spread rumors or talk behind my back. Yes, Leann, I fucked your twin sister Libby in your house, on your bed. On top of your $5,000 bedspread.”
_____The sound that emanated from Leann might have been referred to as a scream. Some felt it was more like the death cry of the universe. It was said the noise was so strong that it cracked fillings, shattered windows, and overturned cars in the parking lot, similar to the nuclear blast Linda Hamilton sees in The Terminator. In fact, from that moment on, whenever the Consolidated Water District, Nadir County, or Winnemac Power Corporation did any road repairs or digging near the building that cause vibrations or noise, people would say that they thought Leann had been around.
_____She regained her composure enough to say, “My prized hand-made quilt? That was an heirloom! It's been in our family for generations!”
_____“Yes, and now some of those generations of your family have been in it. Of course, you'd probably need a black light to see them. Oh, by the way, your twin sister and I screwed on your couch, the chairs, and on the rug in the living room. We also had sex on the toilet, the sink and in the shower. Oh, and you might want to clean your kitchen table a couple extra times. She wanted to do it on the table, I said I didn't think it would take our weight, she said it was from the days of quality furniture, it's built like iron. She was right. Of course, she probably wouldn't have come to see me if she hadn't discovered you went off for a weekend with her boyfriend.”
_____She turned white, realizing she no longer had the moral high ground, spun around and left. George hung up the phone and went back to work. Or tried to, then realizing he had to do something about his situation. He made come calls and arranged to have everything done two days latter, before everything went south. If it hadn't already.

[Tdarcos]

From the book, Don't Break the Merger

Chapter 8
George moves out

_____Realizing his relationship with his girlfriend was over, George took a wheeled flat cart, a stack of empty totes, a friend to operate a camera, and a deputy sheriff he had requested, over to Leann's house. While she wasn't there, he went to get his stuff. He decided for the benefit of the body cam he was wearing as well as the one the deputy was also wearing, and the camera his friend was holding, recording him, to announce what he was doing. He told his friend to start, and he turned his body cam on. “With me is Deputy Pike of the Nadir County Sheriff's Department. He is here to ensure that I have only taken the things that are mine and nothing that is not, and that if Leann returns she does not stop me taking what is legitimately mine. The officer will stop me if I attempt to take anything which appears to be something of a feminine nature or does not appear reasonably to be mine. He will also stop me if I state anything untrue on this video. Recording this video is Davis Johnson, who will follow me from room-to-room to record my actions.
_____“I will now unlock the front door. We will now go in and close and lock the door behind us. Now, first, officer, let's go over to Leann's bedroom. I'm going to open these drawers. Now, these contain all her jewelry and such. There does not appear to be any men's jewelry in these drawers. At this time I have closed all the drawers. And I have not removed anything from them. I will clap my hands,” he does so, “to show I have nothing in them.
_____“Now let me go over to the closet. Going through all the items, there do not appear to be anything which appears to be men's clothing in my size. Going through these clothes drawers, it also appears there are no items of men's clothing. Let me close the door to the room. Now, we'll go to my room.”
_____Unlocking the door, he pulls the wheeled cart over to the door. Removing the bins, he brings one up on the bed. He loads the bin with socks and underwear, marks it, then closes it and places it on the cart. He fills two more bins with men's shirts. He then fills another bin with pants, belts and suspenders. In yet another bin, he places his suits, ties, coats, and the minor amounts of jewelry such as tie tacs and cufflinks. He had enough room to toss in his sheets, pillows and the one quilt. He then shut down and disconnected his computers into the component parts, putting external devices and cables in a tub, putting the system units, printers and monitors on the cart. He stacked the empty bins together, putting the lids inside. Leaving the door open and unlocked, he made one more check that he had cleaned out his room, as he would not be returning. He left all his house keys on the kitchen table, room keys and front and back door keys. He then wheeled the cart outside, and after making one last check of the living room, he pulled the front door closed, locking it.
_____Apparently either an alarm or a neighbor contacted Leann, as she came flying in on her broomstick, err I mean in her automobile, barely missing rear-ending the sheriff's patrol car by inches. Leann was pissed, because she hadn't been able to break into his room and shred his clothes or smash his computers. Davis turns the camera to record her. She again was on the warpath, saying to the deputy sheriff, who had to restrain her to stop her from attacking George, “Stop him, he's stealing my stuff!”
_____“Ma'am, I watched him, he only took items from the room he had a key for. He even checked that there was nothing of his in the room he said was yours. If you have a problem, that's a civil matter, you would need to sue him.”
_____“You need to arrest him, he owes me money!”
_____George is smart enough not to disagree with her, he kept on loading tubs into his minivan, while the deputy stopped her. “Ma'am, if you think he owes you money, again, that's a civil matter, you have to sue him.”
_____Leann decides to try to get to George from the other side, and the officer stops her. “Ma'am, I can't allow you to come within six feet of him, and if you keep trying I will be forced to arrest you.” George gets to the last bin, puts the empty bins on the rear seat, pulls the handle off the cart, splitting it into the component parts, a handle and a wheeled platform. He stows these in the back and closes the rear hatch door. She now decides to stop him from leaving, by sitting down in front of his minivan. George looked down at her. “Leann, this is pointless. If you don't get up and out of my way, this deputy will pick you up and drag you. If you fight him, that's assaulting a police officer. Deputy Pike, that is a felony, is it not?”
_____“Yes, sir, and prosecutors tend to dislike people who attack law enforcement officers who are just doing their jobs, and they express it by asking for harsh sentences. Ma'am, I really don't want to have to force you, but if I have to, I will. If you simply get up and step away from his vehicle, the both of us can leave, and be out of your hair.” Leann decides to comply, and gets out of the way. “As soon as you've driven off I'll go back to my car.” Davis gets in. George starts up his van, puts it in gear, and turns left.
_____As he drives off, Davis, in the passenger seat, turns off his camera, then says to him, “Are you sure her name isn't Karen?”