Zenobia: The Curious Book of Business: A Tale of Triumph Over Yes-Men, Cynics, Hedgers, and Other Corporate Killjoys by Matthew Emmens & Beth Kephart

Author:Matthew Emmens & Beth Kephart
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Published: 2008-01-20T18:30:00+00:00

“I told you she’d make it,” Nod said, with all the confidence of a man who actually believed what he now was saying.

“Make it where? To some old broken ladder?” It was Snort again, Moira just knew it. She heard Stomper and also Vert: “Girl’s gone absolutely nowhere worth going.” “When will they learn? Or will they?”

Then, from Bolt:“We are off script. We are off time. We are supposed to be working.”

Moira was breathless and flushed and her hair was a mess. She was shocked, but then she shouldn’t have been. If she was going to have an impact on others, then she had better eradicate, once and for all, this feeling of being surprised by herself.

Moira took a hard look at her next challenge while she waited for her heart to calm. She looked at the lobby and the ceiling, at the hecklers and the enthusiasts, at the doubters and the believers, and thought about the nature of her mission and the uncertainty of the outcome. The ladder to which she now clung was even more warped and misshapen than she’d thought it would be when she’d first appraised it from a distance. Entire rungs were missing at unfortunate intervals, and in many places the wood was so bowed that the overall effect was that of a poorly written letter. There would be no straightforward going on this. She’d need to make careful leaps and steady stretches. In some instances, she’d have to operate blind.

Onward, she urged herself. Because people are watching. Because she had something to prove—not just to whomever was watching but to herself as well. She had wanted an adventure, but was she up to this? She had believed herself cured of her fear of the dark, but dark comes in a thousand different shades, and this was something new.

Little by little she began to make her way. In some places, she had to walk the rungs with her hands, as if performing a monkey-bar routine. In other instances, she found herself crawling laterally, parallel to the atrium floor too far below. Where the ladder snaked, she snaked with it. Where it went up straight, she planted her feet and stretched. Sometimes she had to lean backwards and grab at supports she could not see, and this—well, this was dangerous—and increasingly, warmingly, some people in the crowd saw her through. The more Moira looked as if she might succeed, the more she was joined in her quest.

“A little to your left,” Moira would hear someone call out to her. “No, a bit too far. Go right again.” From the corner of one eye, she would see somebody waving. She would see furrowed brows on people leaning over the rail and squinting as if staring into the sun.

“Keep your chin up,” she’d hear. Or “You’re making progress. You are extremely brave. Take a little breather. There’s a rough patch up ahead.”

As tired as her overly extended limbs had grown, as tough as all the going was, as

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