The Wrong Formula

The Wrong Formula

by: Daryl Barber

Clark adjusted his glasses. He was walking back to his office after a quick trip to the breakroom. This morning, he was almost late to work. There was a power outage in the neighborhood, and he woke up at seven instead of six-thirty. When he opened his eyes, he glanced over at the alarm clock. It read 12:00 AM. The red numbers and letters blinked on and off, reminding him of the stop lights in the middle of an intersection. Oh shit, he thought. I can’t afford to be late today. My presentation is at eight and if I miss the subway I won’t be there until eight thirty!

              Clark made it to the subway just in time. He walked through the door of Ace Chemical at seven fifty-five. Only five minutes to spare. He ran up the stairs to his office and plopped his backpack onto the floor.

              On his way to the presentation, he walked by Kelly’s office. Kelly was Clark’s best friend and confidante. She smiled and gave him a thumbs up sign. “Good luck today, Clark! I know you’ll do well with the presentation. It might even get you that big promotion you’ve been aiming for!”

              “Thanks, Kelly. It helps to know you’ll be there cheering me on,” Clark responded.

              The presentation went better than Clark expected. He presented the material on a new polymer that his group had been working on. They started the project a year ago. The goal was to make a polymer that would make engines more efficient in capturing carbon dioxide emissions. If this product caught on, it would give the electric car industry a run for its money.

              As Clark got closer to his office, he heard voices talking in the hallway. He hid behind the corner of the drink machine so that he could listen in. Carefully, he peeked around the edge of the machine and saw Kelly, John, James, and Sophia standing in a circle. They were all members of his research group.

              “I just don’t understand,” said Sophia, shaking her head. “Those calculations for the molecular formula were completed yesterday. I would have sworn that they were all correct.”

              “What was the problem with the formula?”, Kelly asked.

              “Clark entered the numbers for the calculations. He entered a six for the number of carbons, and it should have been four,” said Sophia. “That reduces the efficiency of carbon dioxide capture by about fifteen percent.”

              “We’ll just have to reach out to Engine Corps and tell them about the error,” said John without emotion. John was known for having all the personality of a rock. It was hard to believe that he had the intelligence to work at Ace.

              “But it may affect them approving our polymer for consumer use! This could spell disaster for Ace Chemical,” Kelly responded in a worried tone.

              “I know. The potential success of this formula has been talked about for several weeks in the news. We simply can’t afford this type of mistake,” said James in his matter-of-fact tone.

              “Well, there is no way Clark would have done this on purpose. I’m sure it was just a data error. I don’t think we should just throw him under the bus!”, Kelly said defensively.

              Good for Kelly, thought Clark. I can always count on her to come to my rescue.

              Clark couldn’t listen anymore. He would go down to the lab and look at the numbers. There was no way that he could have made such a big blunder.

              After running down three flights of stairs, Clark made it. He pushed open the door to the workspace and went inside. His computer was still on. It was open to the page with the calculations for energy efficiency. Sure enough, he had entered the number of carbons on the polymer unit as six.

              Let’s see, thought Clark. I’m going to change the number back to four and let the calculations run again. I want to be sure that it makes a difference of fifteen percent before we tell our boss what happened.

              A block appeared in the center of the screen. It said calculating, five percent….

              Slowly the box filled in blue as the percentage went from five percent to fifteen, then twenty-five, and fifty.

              Clark held his breath until the calculation block was all filled in at one hundred percent. The block disappeared and Clark could see the new calculations. He hit the print icon and waited for his pages from the printer.

              Clark flipped to the back page to see the calculation for energy efficiency. The calculation said eighty-five percent. The calculation with six carbons had calculated eighty-eight percent. Only three points difference instead of fifteen! That must mean that there was another error with the calculations. He would have to let the other members of the group know. Time to go back upstairs.

              This time, Clark took the elevator. He was sick of running up and down steps. His office was on the fourth floor, so the elevator ride wouldn’t take long.

              Ding was the sound the elevator made as the doors slid open. Clark peeked down into the hall to see if his friends were still there. Nope. They were gone now. Alright. He would go to Kelly’s office to see if she was at her desk.

              He said, “Hi, Kel”, as he poked his head around the doorway.

              Kelly was typing on her computer, and she jumped a little at the sound of his voice.

              “Hi Clark!”, she said. She seemed a bit nervous. Kelly didn’t know that Clark had overheard the conversation twenty minutes before.

              “I have a surprise for you, Kelly,” Clark said with a smile.

              “Really? What could you possibly surprise me with…a dinner date?” she asked.

              “No, nothing like that,” he answered. “I heard you guys talking about the formula for our polymer. So, I decided to go downstairs and take another look at the calculations. Looks like the margin of error wasn’t as big as you all thought. I recalculated with the correct number of carbons. It only makes a difference of three percent!

              “Oh, that’s wonderful news!”, Kelly exclaimed, jumping out of her chair.

              “We should get the group together and tell them. We just need to see if another error was made. Then, if there was, we can let our boss Mr. Turner know about this minor glitch. Hopefully, this small difference won’t matter to Engine Corps. I can’t imagine that they would back out over something this minor.”    

              Kelly dialed the number to Sophia’s extension.

              “Hi, Sophia. Kelly here. Could you round up the members of our group and come up to my office?”

              In five minutes, all the members of the group were assembled. Clark explained about the difference in the calculations. He asked to see a copy of yesterday’s printouts so that they could compare.

              Sure enough, there was one minor difference in the numbers.

              The rate of volume conversion entered was one and a half liters per hour, but the standard rate of conversion was fifteen liters per hour. Someone had accidentally entered a decimal where there shouldn’t have been one.

              “I entered that value!”, exclaimed Sophia. “It must have defaulted back to the original value when Clark recalculated the values today. What a relief!”

              “But this means we should still get the sale to Engine Corps!” Clark exclaimed.

              “Yes. Maybe we’ll all get a big raise for this one!”, said Sophia excitedly.

              They all gave each other high fives and did a big group hug. Then, Clark made his way to Mr. Turner’s office at the end of the hall. He couldn’t wait to share the news.