Oliphant Timber Bleakheart sat quietly in his office. It was the first Monday of February. Outside, the North Carolina sun barely shone on the Bleakheart Forest. It struggled to heat the frigid air. A slight wind rustled the sun capped trees. It was an austere winter day. Inside, the air was even frostier. The financial results Bleakheart was looking at chilled his heart like an icicle stabbing into its core. Timber Bleakheart was descended from Zachary Heart who had started the company just after the Civil War. The town that grew around the company became known as Heartville. It was now a bustling city. His daughter had married Emanuel Bleak. After a short time as a hyphenated name Bleak-Heart, it became Bleakheart; and the name of the company became Bleakheart. Timber was the latest and last to head the firm.

Bleakheart had just returned from an extensive business and sales trip. He was carefully studying the details of the operating statement for December and its impact on the final profit figures for last year. The numbers were not good. It had been a bad year. It had started well but had gone downhill in a rush as the economy deteriorated. For the first time in his tenure as President, the company was showing a loss in operating profit—and it was a significant loss.

At 43, Timber was at the prime of his power and capability. His body was lean and hard. His six foot plus frame did not carry a single ounce of fat. The hours and hours he spent bicycling kept him trim and strong. His features were angular, sharp, and attractive to many women, despite the absence of hair on his head. But Bleakheart was a confirmed bachelor, too demanding to share his life with anyone inferior to him—and everyone was inferior. He was difficult, used to having his own way no matter what the cost to others. Even though he was one of the wealthiest men in the country, and the world, his office was nondescript, perhaps shabby and cheap. It was small; the furniture was old, second or third hand, with bare walls. Nothing indicated his importance in the world or in the company he ran—and owned. To say the least, Bleakheart was a miser.

While he sat without apparent emotion, inwardly he was livid with rage. It took every ounce of his rigid self discipline to keep from shouting and throwing things. That was not his way. He was really a man without emotion. When he saw a problem, he didn’t bother to solve it—he just smashed it. He didn’t waste time finding a solution or considering alternatives. He just bulldozed it away. He had just met with his chief accountant and learned that the operating loss for the year—one hundred million dollars—was about equal to the vacation time off the past Christmas. He never knew that Christmas vacation cost him so much, even though it had been explained to him that last year was a special year with Christmas and New Year’s Day on Thursdays. This had increased the vacation time, and the cost, since Friday in both weeks became a virtual day off. So what! The costs would always be at least half last year’s.

The figure was staggering. The cost was nothing but pure profit. From his point of view, his pocket had been picked to the tune of one hundred million dollars. It was his money. He checked the figures in the reports. Then he went over it again and again in his mind. He had 100,000 employees. The cost per day for each person, taking into account direct salary and fringe benefits, was $250. For every paid day off, the cost for his work force totaled $25 million. Last year with Christmas and New Year’s Day both on a Thursday, Friday became a virtual holiday—for one reason or another nobody really worked, and many didn’t even show up. It became two four-day weekends. The cost totaled the hundred million figure he had been given, and which he had just confirmed with his own rapid calculation. He always knew the Christmas vacation time was costly, but he never knew how costly until now.

Bleakheart owned the Bleakheart Timber Company with far-flung timber, pulp, paper, and furniture manufacturing operations. He had inherited it from his father and built it up to the profitable powerhouse it was today. He could have made it even bigger if he had been able to retire his father even sooner than he had. The old fool was too soft on people. He would continually spout nonsense about the obligation for fair play. Bah! Fair play meant he had to stay on top. He was 35th in the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest people in the country, and his target was to be number one. He was well on the way, climbing each year. This past year should have put him up by at least five places, but the loss for the year would probably drop him a few places. Damn. He had worked so hard! Even in this terrible recession year, he was at full production. That was because his integrated and high efficiency operations had put his competition out of business. Bleakheart ran a monopoly—normally a very profitable one—and he fully intended to keep it that way. He would make sure that he always had plenty of help from the government. He had been very liberal in donations, especially to that windbag, Senator Christian. He had also spread goodwill among the community and the business interests. It had been returned manifold but the outside world looked on him as a benevolent supporter of good causes. Ha! The only good cause he really supported was his very own pocketbook.