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Howard Roark sat in a metal framed, gray-upholstered chair outside of Peter Keating's corner office on the second floor of Merck's four-story office building in Central City, Maple State. With an upbeat appearance that cloaked nervous tension, Howard tapped the chair's black arm as he waited for a 3.30 appointment. The window revealed a gray sky and heavy traffic on the Maple State Expressway, with a vista of suburban office buildings behind the traffic jam. Peter was a district sales manager, a position Merck termed "business manager". Peter was about to present Howard with his 2004 annual performance review. In spite of Howard's easygoing appearance and what he believed to be the best sales performance in Merck's Maple State district, he expected an overall performance rating of "RI", requires improvement, or even worse, "NA", performance not acceptable.
Peter Keating reminded Howard of Alec Baldwin because of a suspiciously intense pep talk that Peter once gave his team that reminded him of Alec Baldwin's speech in James Foley's and David Mamet's 1992 film classic Glengarry Glen Ross . Peter was about six feet tall with black hair. Howard was 5[variant prime]8'' with blond hair. Although kept secret from the sales force, Howard knew that Peter's compensation as business manager amounted to about $140,000 per year with bonus, while Howard's amounted to about $70,000.
Merck's sales division used a virtual office approach. The Maple State district, for which Howard and Peter worked, used the Central City office facility for important meetings like performance appraisals. Otherwise, Merck's Maple State sales people and managers worked on their routes from their homes and cars, maintaining contact through cellular phones and e-mail. They rarely met in person. Most of the sales force's time was spent visiting physicians, hospitals and other medical facilities. Merck's Maple State sales force consisted of 36 sales people, 12 of whom reported to Peter, the business manager. Peter, in turn, reported to a senior business manager in the corporate office, Ellsworth Toohey. The 12 were divided into four teams of three sales people each. The teams were supposed to cooperate in generating and servicing accounts. Most of the sales people's pay was in the form of base pay, with merit raises reflecting team performance. In addition, sales...