Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill Ch. 01

Mrs. Jorgenson stood there a moment slowly looking me up and down. I felt almost like a specimen under a magnifying glass. "It must be my height," I thought. Then I heard her mutter, "About what I would have expected."

After a moment, she raised her eyes to mine and asked, "Where are you from, Miss Ochs?"

"Um, I'm from Tyler, Texas, Ma'am."

"Tyler? Well," she said, "no doubt you're glad to get out of that dusty little town."

Before I could think of anything to say, she turned to her husband. "Come, Kurt, I want to be sure to speak with your vice-president before he opens too many cans of Lone Star. Good day, Miss Ochs."

As she began to walk away, Mr. Jorgenson gave me a little smile and said, "Have a good time." Then he turned and followed Mrs. Jorgenson down the paved path.

As I walked stood there, I asked myself, "What was all that about?" To belittle someone's home town seemed rude to me, but perhaps people had a different way of expressing themselves in Houston. "And what did her mean that I was about what she would have expected? Did I do something to offend her?"

As I was pondering what had just happened, I was almost knocked over by the onrushing figure of Jerry Higgins. As I stumbled, he grabbed me and jerked me upright. I could smell the beer on his breath.

"Hey, Annie," he said too loudly, "I was hoping to find you. Listen, let me show you around this place. It's got lots of great rides, and wait'll you see the game arcade! Oh, yeah, and we've got to get you a beer, too."

Before I could catch my breath and begin to protest, he was dragging me along the walkway in the direction of the beer tent. Fortunately, when I looked in that direction, I saw Bill Hitchcock walking in our direction with two cans of beer in his hands.

"Buffalo Bill," I yelled almost desperately, "over here."

"Jerry, Annie Oakley!" he called back. "Hey, I was hoping to see you guys."

As he came up to us, Jerry sullenly let go of my arm. "Listen, you two go on. I'm going to get another beer." With that, he left, glaring at me over his shoulder.

"What was all that about," Bill asked me. Then, seeing the expression on my face, he asked concernedly, "Are you OK?"

"I think I am now," I replied, "but it was a little out of control for a moment there."

At Bill's prodding, I wound up telling him all about my conversation with Jerry over lunch in addition to my encounter today. "I don't want to offend Jerry, but I don't really know how to handle him," I admitted.

Bill looked at me with that little grin of his. "I wouldn't be too concerned if I were you, Annie Oakley. Jerry is a good guy, but he doesn't know how to approach the opposite sex. Add in a little too much beer and his lack of social graces really reveals itself. But don't worry: come Monday he'll show up with a hangover and a sheepish apology, you wait and see."

I was dubious, but Bill took my arm and began leading me in another direction. "Come on," he said, "I want you to meet Denise."

As we walked down the path, I guess he could see that I was still bothered by my run-in with Jerry. "Come on," he said, "don't worry about it. Besides, I'll bet you have guys hitting on you all the time."

"What? No!" I said in surprise. "Why would guys want to hit on me?"

He looked at me with an odd expression, but before he could say anything, he spotted his wife. "There she is," he said.

I looked where he was pointing and saw a woman who resembled the photo on Buffalo Bill's desk. She was wearing designer blue jeans that hugged her legs like a second skin and a white sleeveless blouse that she filled out nicely. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail which she wore through the opening of a baseball cap. To complete her look she was wearing big aviator sunglasses. Her outfit reminded me of a movie star trying to remain incognito. I could never pull off a look like that; I'm all elbows and knees.

As we got nearer, I saw that she was deep in conversation with a familiar figure. "Isn't that Mr. Jorgenson?" I asked.

Bill shook his head with a wry expression. "That's Denise, alright, always trying to help me move up the ladder. She's very ambitious."

As we drew nearer, Mr. Jorgenson must have seen us, because he stepped away from Denise and turned to leave. "Sorry," he said, "but I've got to catch up with Edith." With that he strode off.

"What was all that about?" Bill asked Denise.

"It never hurts to get in a good word with the boss," she said blandly. Then, before Bill could reply, she turned to me and looked me up and down the same way Edith Jorgenson had. "So, who's your friend?" she asked.

"This is Ann Ochs," Bill said. "She's the new member of our team I was telling you about."

"Oh, yes," Denise said, "now I remember." She removed her sunglasses and looked at me again. "Your jersey would look much better on you if it didn't have barbecue sauce all over it."

I looked down and gasped in horror. There on my shirt were several large red blotches where Jerry's hands had grabbed me. As I ineffectually swiped at the stains with a tissue, Denise turned to leave. "I need to see a friend, Bill. I'll catch up with you at the beer tent." Then she looked back to me and said perfunctorily, "Nice to meet you, Miss Ochs," and then walked away.

Bill was chagrinned. "I'm sorry," he said, "I don't know what's got into Denise. She's usually not that way." Then he looked at my face and saw the tears trickling down my cheeks. "Don't cry," he said uncomfortably. "Let me help you with your blouse."

He grabbed the napkin he was holding and started to dab at my shirt, but then thought better of it and handed the napkin to me. I wiped at my blouse ineffectually, then gave up. Instead, I turned and headed back toward the exit. "Don't go, Annie," Bill said helplessly.

"It's okay," I said with a sniffle, "I need to get home and get this in the laundry before it stains permanently. Anyway, I think I've had enough fun at the picnic for one day." With that I shambled off toward the entrance, my shoulders stooped over to try to hide the stains on my jersey, not to mention the tears in my eyes.

"What a terrible day!" I thought miserably as I started up my car. "My Astros jersey is probably ruined, everybody I met was rude or weird or unpleasant, and I don't know what I did wrong." Not for the first time I wondered if I'd made a mistake taking this job.

The Monday after the picnic, Buffalo Bill made a point of asking me to go out to lunch with him. After we'd placed our orders, it became clear why: he wanted to apologize again for what had happened at the picnic. I told him that I'd forgotten about it, but it soon became clear to me that he wanted to talk about his marriage.

"I think Denise may have been rude because she's having a hard time. First, she didn't want to leave Dallas, and now it's hard for her to deal with my traveling so often for work. We talked about it before I took the job, and I warned her that I'd have to be gone a lot in this job," he explained. "But at the time she was excited about my working for a big corporation and earning a bigger salary than what I could have found somewhere else. I guess she didn't think about the trade-offs back then."

He paused to take a big bite of his sandwich.

"But now she's lonely and unhappy about me being gone so often. It's been a little tense at times, and I think that must be why she was so rude to you at the picnic," he said.

"I'm sorry, Bill," I commiserated. "I can see how that would be difficult for both of you."

"If we can just make it through the next couple of years," he said, "I'll be able to save up enough to do what I really want: start up my own accounting firm back in Boulder."

"I've never been to Colorado," I told him, "but then I've never been anywhere outside Texas. What's it like?"

Bill got a faraway look in his eyes. "It's beautiful," he said in an almost reverent tone. "It's right at the foothills of the Rockies where the mountains meet the prairie. There are all sorts of outdoor activities, and even though the city is not that large, the university brings in a lot of special attractions. I'd love to move back there some day."

"It sounds wonderful," I told him sincerely. "How does Denise feel about it?"

His face lost a little of its enthusiasm. "She's more of a big city girl," he conceded. "But if I could get her to give it a try, I think she'd fall in love with it too."

Then he seemed to snap out of his reverie, and he looked at me again. "I didn't mean to get off track like that, but I did want to apologize for her and to let you know she's usually not like that."

I brushed it off, but having Buffalo Bill open up that way did make me feel a little better about my terrible weekend. I felt like he was becoming a friend, and I really needed one.

What they don't tell you about auditing in school is how lonely the job can be, at least for a field auditor. Over the next two months I probably spent at least four days out of every week away from home. That made it really hard to make friends or put down roots. If we were on the road the whole week, we were allowed to go home on weekends, but that really only gave us time to catch up on mail, pay bills and do the laundry. I probably had to throw out half a refrigerator's worth of food before I realized that it was better to buy very little and eat most meals out when I was home.

Then there's the business of not socializing with the people on site because you're supposed to be auditing their work. We usually got allotted a room off to ourselves to do our work, and only met with the locals in formal sessions. As a result, they generally regarded us with suspicion and even animosity.

All in all, it was a pretty lonely existence and it wasn't surprising to me that the turnover rate was so high, even though they paid us well.

The only saving grace was my fellow teammates. Buffalo Bill turned out to be a real pleasure to be around, and he and I became pals. He'd always crack me up with a joke or a funny expression when the work began to get too heavy, but I also found I could open up to him about my life and my feelings and he'd listen patiently and offer encouragement. I'd probably have run home to Tyler if it hadn't been for him.

Even Jerry turned out to be okay. The Monday after the picnic he'd been very apologetic for his behavior, even though I told him I'd already forgotten it ever happened. I think he was still interested in me because every now and then I'd catch him staring. But I just ignored it and nothing further happened.

Besides, he turned out to be very good with COG's automated accounting system. When a problem with the system arose, he seemed to know almost instinctively where to look. It only took a few situations like that to make Bill and me extremely glad Jerry was part of the team.

That left only Mr. Jorgenson; he continued to be an enigma to us. As the Senior Director it was his job to interface with local management. He'd meet with them to discuss the scope of our work, interact with them any time an issue or question arose, and convey the final results once the audit was complete.

His management style seemed strange and distant to me. After the initial meeting with local management, he'd gather us together and give us our assignments along with any special concerns or considerations. After that, we'd almost never see him during the day. But several times during each audit assignment, he'd summon one of us to his room in the evening to review our work. Sometimes he'd use those sessions to educate us on special situations we might encounter with the division we were auditing. Other times he'd review our work, pointing out any deficiencies. It felt as though we were taking a college course being taught by a particularly demanding professor.

Buffalo Bill, Jerry and I often talked about him, trying to figure him out. Although we saw him so rarely, he always seemed to know what we were doing. He never praised us for good work; he simply expected that we would meet his high standards. The truth is he that although he rarely ever raised his voice, he intimidated us. We respected him, but we also feared him.

The first time he called me to his room for one of his after-dinner reviews I was terrified. When I knocked on the door at the appointed time, he bade me enter. I walked over to the sofa where he was seated and stood before him, waiting while he reviewed whatever was on the laptop open on the coffee table. After several long minutes while I stood there trying not to quake in my shoes, he looked up at me without expression. "The quality of your work is acceptable, Miss Ochs. Your work rate is a bit low, but I attribute that to your newness on the job. However, I will expect improvement over time. Your interactions with the local accounting team have been positive, and you make a nice appearance."

"That's all for tonight, Miss Ochs. I'll contact you for our next review session in a few days."

With that, he went back to his laptop and I realized that I had been dismissed.

As I walked down the hall, I felt elated. I'd been expecting a dressing down; instead my work had actually pleased him. Then another thought struck me: "He even paid me a compliment on my appearance!" As I passed a mirror in the hall, I noticed that my face was beaming.

Of course, that didn't stop him the next time from reprimanding me for not strictly adhering to the COG graphic standards for my last presentation. After that session I returned to my room, smarting from his criticism yet determined to win his approval. I desperately wanted to prove that I could live up to his standards.

It was interesting to me to see how the other two reacted to Mr. Jorgenson. Jerry hated him because he was openly afraid of our boss. Jerry might be smart as a whip about our systems, but time and again Mr. Jorgenson would catch him in an error because the system wasn't able to accommodate the exceptions we invariably encountered. When that would happen, Mr. Jorgenson would take Jerry to task for the system's shortcomings, and Jerry bitterly resented that. He felt it wasn't his fault and he lived in dread of the next time it would happen.

Buffalo Bill treated the whole thing like some game. He kept score for each of us and awarded mock prizes for the fewest number of "gotchas" during an audit assignment. I think Mr. Jorgenson must have been aware of Bill's attitude, but Bill was never insolent and, quite frankly, made very few mistakes, so there was little that Mr. Jorgenson could do. I also think Bill's sense of humor and refusal to get caught up in Mr. Jorgenson's routine helped keep us all grounded. Even Jerry couldn't stay angry when Buffalo Bill would begin his imitation of Mr. Jorgenson, complete with Hitler salute and goose step.

But everything changed on our trip to West Virginia. Charleston was the headquarters for COG's shale oil operations, and even though the office wasn't that large, shale oil production was growing dramatically. Consequently, headquarters wanted to keep close tabs on the operation.

I'd never been to West Virginia before, but of course I'd never been anywhere outside Texas. Because West Virginia is so mountainous, I'd assumed that it would be cool, but Buffalo Bill warned me that summers there could be hot and humid. As a result, I checked the weather forecast and then left my normal pants suits at home and packed some summer dresses to wear. They were light-weight but still long enough to hide my legs. I really appreciated Bill's warning because the day we flew in to Yeager Airport, the temperature was ninety-three degrees.

Mr. Jorgenson had arrived the day before, and when we got to the COG office he called us together to give us our assignments. Up to then I'd been working exclusively with payables and receivables, so I was shocked when he assigned me to work on asset valuations. He must have noted the hesitation on my face because he singled me out.

"Miss Ochs, it's time to move you out of your comfort zone. You can't expect to focus solely on accounts payable and receivable all the time. You should be prepared. Didn't you review asset evaluation standards during your orientation? Is this going to be a problem?"

"Yes, sir – I mean, no sir," I stuttered. "I mean, yes sir, I did review asset evaluations, and no sir, it won't be a problem."

"Very well," he said brusquely. "Plan to bring your results to me tomorrow evening for review."

With that, he went on to cover the assignments for Jerry and Buffalo Bill. Then he dismissed us.

As we were riding back to the hotel, Buffalo Bill turned to me. "I don't know why Jorgenson is picking on you," he said, "I don't recall him changing up assignments like that before."

"Maybe he wasn't pleased with the way I handled my last assignment," I said pessimistically.

"Nah, that can't be it," Bill said. "I checked your work and it was perfect."

"You've been checking on my work?" I asked in surprise.

"Sure as shootin', Annie Oakley. I was just looking out for you," he said with a wink. Then his voice took on a more serious tone. "Just follow procedures carefully and double-check your work. You'll be fine."

I nodded. I was determined to win Mr. Jorgenson's respect, regardless of what he threw at me. As for Buffalo Bill's reviewing my work, I couldn't decide whether to be angry at his snooping or appreciative of his concern.

By the end of the next day I'd decided that my apprehension had been unwarranted. Everything seemed to be in order, and I'd had no trouble remembering the leasehold valuation procedure from our orientation. So I felt pretty confident when I knocked on Mr. Jorgenson's door that evening after dinner.

He said nothing when I entered; instead he continued to review whatever was on the screen of his laptop. Finally, he raised his eyes and stared at me as if I was a bug under a microscope. "Miss Ochs, are you completely incompetent?"

I staggered back as though he'd slapped me in the face.

He didn't pause. "Your work on the valuation of shale oil leases was completely wrong. You failed to follow our corporate accounting standard and your work output for the day has been a complete waste of my time. What do you have to say for yourself?"

I found it difficult to breathe. "This can't be happening," I thought.

"Sir, there must be some mistake -- I'm sure I did the calculations properly," I gasped, grasping at straws.

"Oh, really?" he said sarcastically. "Well, see for yourself."

With that he handed his laptop to me, and I saw that it was open to the online accounting standards for COG. There as clear as day were the procedures for handling oil and gas lease valuations, and they were significantly different from the way I had done them.

At that moment, all the old fears and insecurities I'd fought so hard to repress over the years came rushing back. "How could I have been so stupid? How could I have let Mr. Jorgenson down?"

I felt my throat constrict and tears trickled down my cheeks. I could do nothing but stare at the floor dumbfounded, unable to comprehend what had happened.

"You realize that I am obligated to report your shortcomings in your evaluation," he said coldly. "This will certainly affect your rating and your future with the company."

"Oh, no," I thought, "I'm going to be fired! How will I ever explain to my parents that I wasn't good enough, that I failed?"

"Isn't there anything I can do, Mr. Jorgenson?" I begged. "I can recalculate the values. I'll have it right by morning."

"That would hardly be sufficient," he said coldly. "Even if you correct your errors, I would need some reason to be confident you would not be so careless in the future. You would have to accept some punishment to show your commitment."