All nineteen, in person, one at a time, over two days, which took him about nine hours, and which the human resources consultant advised against on efficiency grounds.

One of them was a dispatcher named Marisol Quintanilla, who had been there nineteen years and who was the second person Vance Global ever hired after Arthur and Julian themselves.

She was rehired fourteen months later.

Eleven of the nineteen were.

I met her once, at a company thing in the summer after, and she knew exactly who I was and I braced for it.

And what she said was: “You’re the one with the house in Boston.”