Ben realized that he might not ever be David’s friend but at least they could work together and get things done. It wasn’t really a team, but they seemed to know how to stay out of each other’s way.
David’s constant muttering about how much his tools sucked and how the company didn’t know how to treat him was something that Ben picked up on, but he’d seen it before and it didn’t seem out of place in the sound business.
Ben was mistaken, however, in thinking that no one was noticing his work ethic.
He would have been even more motivated had he overheard Jack talking to Frank about their latest hire. “Yeah, Ben is the kind of kid we’re looking for,” Jack mentioned to Frank over a beer on a Friday after work. “He keeps his bench so clean you could eat off it.”
They chuckled about that idea, and then Jack asked, “So, what are we going to do with David?”
Both of them knew David didn’t have much of a future, but after a few months of employment, Ben had already shown he probably had what it took to advance. “I guess we’ll have to just do the right thing and get Ben working into systems with Jim. However David takes that, we can’t control it. But that’s the way the cookie crumbles.”
Jack and Frank had seen dozens, maybe hundreds of people come through their doors over the years, and could recognize when they had potential and when they didn’t.
Mostly it was about attitude – who “got it” and who didn’t. Who would let a young kid touch a quarter-million dollar mixing console if they couldn’t properly dress a rack?