Character Analysis
Jack Green is Slocum's boss. Slocum is afraid of him, and he's afraid of Slocum. At age fifty-six, he, like most, has been with the company for more than thirty years. We wonder how many plaques he has on his office wall.
According to Slocum, Green has longed from the beginning to become vice-president of the company. He's never succeeded, and he never will. He continues to strive for it and scheme, sometimes out of sheer desperation, but he can't admit to himself that he already failed long ago. Womp womp.
Green is quite clever with office politics, but his fatal mistake, according to Slocum, is believing in himself more than he believes in the company.
What Slocum hates most about Green is that he doesn't allow him to speak at the annual company convention. Each year, Slocum prepares his speech, and each year Slocum tells him he won't be speaking, simply because he's in a position to do so. Sheesh.
Slocum describes how Green seems to want everyone to both adore and fear him, and he'd rather make a bad impression than no impression at all. As Slocum notes, "He creates tension, terror, and uneasiness in an organization that values harmony, dreads disagreements, conceals failure, and disguises conflict and personal dislike" (2.86). Dude's notorious for being frank, but he sometimes comes off as just too abrasive for comfort.
He's also not a particularly nice guy in general. People are rarely fired in this company, but Green fires at least two or three people every year, making no effort to conceal his actions. And while like most men in the office, he engages in extramarital affairs, Green's fling with Mildred, a young divorced girl in his department, is characterized by the fact that he constantly jumps between acknowledging her and ignoring her.
Before Slocum learns of his promotion from Arthur Baron, he's a bit paranoid. He thinks, "Green's got the whammy on me" (2.98)—but Green confesses to Slocum that he thinks the company wants to fire him. It's ultimately Slocum who gets promoted to Kagle's old job and Green who's moved down to Slocum's. In these new roles, Slocum is no longer at the whim of Green and can finally deliver his cherished three-minute speech at the annual company convention.
Way to win big, Slocum. We guess.