Business World

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Sep 30, 1998

The big question -- with perks

NEW YORK (AP) -- The job interview has evolved into an often unique encounter that can vary widely from one company to another. Inc. magazine asked chief executives of small companies what kind of questions they ask applicants. The head of Fiberlink, an Internet consultant in Pennsylvania, asks prospective employees what was the biggest mistake they've made so far. The CEO of Great American Events in Arizona, tired of offering jobs to people only to have them accept a position with someone else, asks candidates whether they're close to taking a job with another firm. And the president of Conigliaro Industries in Massachusetts has to ask a very different kind of question, "What were you in for?" He hires prisoners and convicts to work in his recycling-services firm.

Horror extracts a price

SEATTLE (NYT) -- Stephen King, the world's best-selling novelist, is trying to rebuild his reputation with his 35th novel, Bag of Bones. Scribner, his new publisher, is convinced that King is back from the nearly pronounced dead, with a robust 1.46 million copies in its first printing of the novel. Bag of Bones may well repay the optimism of its author and its publisher, who agreed to a highly unusual contract where King received only a $2 million advance for the novel but will split the profits 50-50.

A quarter century of phenomenal popular success at the writing trade seems to have left King remarkably unaffected. He may have 300 million copies of his books in print and an estimated annual salary of $40 million, but the 51-year-old resident of Bangor, Maine, still is a blue-jeans guy in a button-down world. But all this money earned from blood and guts and ghosts also caused King some pangs of conscience. "There's a part of me that is attracted to violent fiction, that really likes that violent chaotic behavior," he admitted. "There is an anti-social guy inside me, but there's also a very moral guy."

This back-and-forth battle for the author's soul came to a head over a novel called Rage, finished when King was barely out of his teens, a novel filled with the fear and loathing rampant during those raging hormone years. The plot of Rage once seemed a far-fetched figment of King's vivid imagination, but it went on to become all- too-familiar in the headlines: A high school student shoots his teacher and holds his classmates hostage.

And, to King's real horror, some of the real students involved in real school murders turned out to have read Rage, may even have been inspired by the story. "I do think the book had a certain involvement in things that happened, although it was never my intent to cause any kid to go out and shoot anybody," King stressed. "But I also think -- and I'm real firm about this -- it did not cause anybody to do that. In other words, I don't think there are good kids who read Rage and turn into bad kids, violent, homicidal kids who want to shoot everybody.

"But I do think that certain materials, books, films, can act as accelerants, in the same way that an arsonist can use accelerants to make a fire burn faster. And I don't want to be any part of that. So I withdrew the book from publication. I can't change what's already out there, but there will be no future printings and it will disappear from the shelves."

Keeping everyone a Pepper

ORLANDO, Fla. (Bloomberg) -- Cadbury Schweppes' Dr Pepper bottlers will meet later this week in Orlando as the No. 3 soft-drink maker tries to continue the strong sales for its top soda. The London-based company is expected to show bottlers almost a dozen new commercials for the brand, including spots aimed at the Hispanic market.

While Cadbury's 7 UP brand has seen sales decline this year, Dr Pepper has been the star. Its sales are up 9 percent in groceries, drugstores and other retailers through Aug. 16, according to Information Resources, which tracks consumer buying patterns. Cadbury wants to maintain that strong growth as rivals Coca-Cola and PepsiCo look to capture more of the industry's sales.

"Dr Pepper is the only Cadbury brand against which Coke and Pepsi really have to compete," said Tom Pirko, president of Bevmark, a New York-based beverage consulting firm. The cherry-flavored soda provides more than 40 percent of Cadbury's U.S. beverage sales and a large share of its domestic profits. So it's vital that the company keep Dr Pepper's sales from slowing.

It's Dilbert -- live

NEW YORK (AP) -- Poking fun at the office is what Scott Adams does best. But the creator of Dilbert knows well that his satire would sag if he didn't ever reach out from behind his own desk. So armed with an overhead projector and clad in a corporate-looking shirt and tie, the cartoonist ascended a New York cabaret stage Monday night to give what was billed as his first live show for fans.

It wasn't exactly stand-up comedy. A mishmash of self-deprecating remembrances, thoughts on humor and one-liners, the one-hour show drew heavily on cartoons flashed on a screen right out of a conference room. But the audience of 450 fans -- many of whom had wondered beforehand whether he'd be funny in person -- howled and hooted with laughter.