Ed Boylan watched the final round of the Masters golf tournament at his home in Keller with distracting unease. His boss was in town from New Jersey for Boylan's annual performance review, scheduled for the next morning, and Boylan knew it would be less than stellar. The 49-year-old regional director for the pharmaceutical company Eisai Inc. had missed his sales targets.
Yet as he watched the final holes play out, Boylan could take comfort in the fact that pretty much everyone in his firm was in the same predicament. Eisai's bellwether drug, the groundbreaking Alzheimer's medication Aricept, faced increasing competition in the marketplace, and few of his colleagues were making their numbers. Boylan had been with the company for 13 years, had been one of Eisai's top producers, was a retired Army officer with an MBA, and was revered by most of the 82 employees who reported to him.
If anyone could survive a bad review ...
But on that Monday morning, when Boylan sat down in his Irving office, a terse e-mail from his supervisor greeted him.
"Meet us in the breakfast area of the Hilton Garden Inn at 10 o'clock," it said.
Us?
The Hilton was literally across the parking lot from his building. Why didn't his supervisor just come to his office? Boylan thought he knew. As his mind started to swirl, he called Linda, his high school sweetheart, wife of 26 years and mother of his two children.
"Something is not right," he said. "I think I'm about to lose my job."
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