Unbeatable: The Legend of Vincent Scott – Chapter 6: Breaking Points and Battle Lines

Heading into 2009, Vincent Scott promised himself one thing: he would be cool, calm, and collected. No more emotional roller coasters. No more wasted effort on people who didn’t reciprocate. He had finally made peace with the truth: whatever lingering illusions he’d harbored about love, loyalty, and lasting connections were just that—illusions. His heart still bore the scars of the past, especially the long and winding saga with Autumn Westwood and the revolving door of others who made big promises but were only out for themselves.

While his personal life frayed at the seams, Vincent found renewed purpose in the grind of work.

So when January rolled around, Vincent was already armed with a plan. He unveiled a new dialing strategy to Keith and Mark: tackle the coldest leads first.

“Let’s put ourselves behind the 8-ball on purpose and then let them loose on the best leads when they are hungriest. They’ll tear them apart,” Vincent told them.

Keith was skeptical. Vincent insisted. They made a deal: if he hit objective, the schedule would stand—and Keith would owe him a monthly phone call declaring him a genius.

Vincent didn’t just hit objective. He crushed it. Months at 130% became the new standard. Keith, ever reluctant, made the calls—some late, some reluctant—but they were made. Vincent relished them all.

Then came the customer research team, a group that had floundered under Haley Jones and struggled to meet even 70% of their objective. Facing dissolution, Vincent stepped in, offered to take them under his wing. Haley protested, claiming Vincent was nothing but a gunslinger. But the moment he took over, they exceeded 114% in month one, 140% in month two.

He didn’t come in swinging changes. He listened. Sat at their desks. Asked for their feedback. Incorporated their input. That was leadership.

On January 14, with the team wallowing at 47% of goal, Vincent gathered everyone for a stand-up.

“Today is the first day of the rest of our month,” he proclaimed. Then, with a flourish, he let a stack of papers fly into the air. “Let’s not dwell on what didn’t happen. Let’s focus on what’s still possible.”

And with Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” blasting through the office as he pranced around with a boombox to the delight of the floor, the sales team roared back to life. They posted 312% to daily objective that day even on subpar quality leads. That was Vincent’s magic.

But the victories came with a price. The politics. The gaslighting. The hypocrisy. Vincent’s results were undeniable, but so was the animosity he faced from those in power. His name was whispered in rumors—often outlandish, always untrue. He was denied credit, denied accolades, and watched in disbelief as MVP awards went to others with lesser impact.

With the news out in the open that he had fathered a child with a former employee, even though they were not in the same hierarchy, and he had occasionally dated other co-workers against his better judgement, people took potshots to slander his name when they could. Vincent was not disciplined enough yet to just let it slide.

Behind closed doors, Keith would throw him scraps of praise. “You’re the smartest guy I’ve met in 27 years.” But in public? Silence. Worse than silence: deflection.

The months wore on. The strain bled into his bones. At night, with vodka in hand, Vincent questioned if he belonged in Corporate America at all. He couldn’t turn a blind eye to incompetence. He couldn’t stomach watching his reps suffer from clerical errors and mismanagement while leadership turned a deaf ear. He couldn’t fake indifference. He wasn’t built that way.

And then came the gut punches: the snubs, the lies, the power plays. Autumn, revealing she was serious with her new flame. The endless battles with Keith. The anonymous attacks and HR complaints manufactured by bitter rivals like Scott Kinsey when Vincent would stand up to their defunct clerical process that cost his reps sales commissions.

But still, Vincent stood.

In one defining moment, he wrote a department-wide email addressing the rampant commission errors. He demanded accountability, vowing to investigate every complaint personally. The sales floor erupted in applause. He was summoned to Keith’s office for insubordination.

“What the #@$! did you just do?” Keith snarled.

Vincent didn’t flinch. He laid out his reasoning with cool, calm logic. He wrapped the reprimand around his finger like a seasoned pitcher curving a strike. The goal wasn’t to make enemies. It was to force change.

The floor cheered. The managers rallied. Vincent had drawn a line in the sand.

As summer turned to fall, he endured even more slings and arrows. He was betrayed again and again by those who saw him not as an asset but a threat. They tried to erase him, undermine him, silence him.

But Vincent wouldn’t be silenced.

He hit goal. Every. Single. Month. And not by a little bit.

When June’s morale dipped, he hit 120%. When July came, he broke the department record again. Even as Keith plotted against him. Even as he was made to fire his friend Chad under false pretenses. Even as clerks continued to fumble contracts and clerical manager Scott Kinsey scoffed at accountability. Even as HR, in a kangaroo court, tried to rebuke him for calling out underperformance with the word “damn.”

Even then, Vincent held the line.

He faced every meeting with steely eyes. Every slight with a steel spine. And when he walked out of that HR call, told he would not be punished and that the managers had overwhelmingly backed him, he knew: they could talk about him. They could try to break him. But they couldn’t replace him.

And then, the resistance.

It began as whispers in corners. Nervous glances exchanged over coffee machines and cryptic side conversations between exhausted managers who had grown too weary of smiling through clenched teeth. But to Vincent Scott, the silence before the storm was deafening. The reckoning was coming. And finally, a day he had quietly longed for had arrived.

The managers that reported to Vincent informed him they were finally plotting to overthrow Keith Dickhauser.

The first domino had been Clyde Barton. Long a target of Keith’s misplaced scrutiny and passive-aggressive assaults, Clyde had taken more abuse than most.

His numbers were always strong—his team generated 20 to 30 more sales than anyone else’s month after month. But that was never enough. Keith fixated on Clyde’s contract issues, accusing him of negligence, weaponizing out-of-context chargeback data, and even attempting to suspend him. And when Clyde stood up for his team, for himself, Keith retaliated.

Clyde was done playing defense. And he wasn’t alone.

Fueled by rage and a deep-seated loyalty to his team, Clyde began building a quiet rebellion. He started talking to those who had reason to hate the tyrant in charge. Gina Baker, George Flaker, even the usually guarded Randall Darwin and Helen Johnson. Each had their own scars. Racially motivated reprimands, gender discrimination, dismissals of valid ideas, and a general atmosphere of intimidation. The fire spread quickly.

Vincent, of course, could not be seen anywhere near the charge. His history with Keith—and with HR—made that too dangerous. But everyone knew: Vincent was the key. He had the receipts. Documents. Emails. Voicemails. Firsthand accounts of document falsification and manipulation of legal paperwork. If what Clyde had dubbed the Brotherhood was going to succeed, Vincent’s information would be the sword they wielded.

The plan grew in whispers and sideways glances. Meetings over breakfast, beers at the bar, side huddles in Vincent’s office behind a closed door. The network of resisters expanded, excluding only those deemed unsafe or loyal to Keith—like ultra-corporate Dean Yamnitz, newcomer Cathy Schumer, Steve Zimmerman, or Mark Rogers’ best friend, Adam Sandberg. The old guard—Danny Boyd, Betty Cross, Scott Kinsey—remained in Keith’s pocket and would not be trusted.

September ended with bitter frustration. Vincent’s team, despite everything, still hit 110% of their target, but it was the worst performance of the year. Keith’s meddling and incompetence had cost them: forcing them to dial and redial paltry leads because of his internal political affiliations and what overwhelmingly appeared as an attempt to tank the business a bit and pay out less commissions.

Vincent had dutifully submitted over fifty commission and clerical complaints directly to Keith, Kinsey, and Danny Boyd—all ignored. In silent defiance, Vincent began forwarding them to Terry Fontana, the Chief Union Steward. If management wouldn’t act, maybe the union would.

October brought fury and fatigue. Vincent doubled his usual coaching workload, conducting four monitoring sessions daily. He cracked down on reps gaming the system, called out laziness in open forums, and delivered raw, honest feedback with a passion that bordered on desperation.

And yet, Keith continued his sabotage.

He launched irrelevant direct mail campaigns, scheduled unnecessary product retraining that pulled sales reps off the phones for considerable amounts of time with zero ROI, and threw managers into non-revenue-generating corporate projects. At every turn, he seemed determined to tank their results. Why? Was there a benefit to paying far less commissions and making more gravy on the margins he was after?

Vincent fought to stay composed, forced to “sell” his managers on the importance of the distractions even as he knew it was all madness. And they knew he knew.

The tipping point came when Keith scheduled mandatory training for the second quartile reps during the week Vincent planned to roll out the warmest leads—the most profitable of the year. Despite all of Vincent’s warnings, Keith forged ahead. Then came the voicemail.

Vincent had called Keith to plead his case. Keith didn’t answer. Hours later, a voicemail landed:

“Vincent, this training is not an option. I don’t give a #!@$ if the managers think they need it or not. $@!# them. They don’t know what the %$#! they’re doing anyway. I don’t care what leads we’re calling. Have a schedule ready to roll out tomorrow.”

Vincent played the voicemail for the Brotherhood. That was it. The final straw. The managers, if they still harbored any hesitation, were now all in. Keith Dickhauser had to go.

October closed at 124% of goal. Vincent’s team had survived, but not unscathed. The scars were mounting.

Meanwhile, a strange twist emerged. Autum Westwood—now in the job market for something more lucrative—was being offered a job back in the department by none other than Keith, who acted like he was doing Vincent a favor. Vincent was skeptical, rightfully so. But Keith, perhaps to curry favor or to destabilize Vincent’s focus, hired her anyway as part of the clerical staff.

Vincent’s focus, however, was razor-sharp.

He pushed forward with November, eliminating low-end products from their offer strategy, granting sales reps closed time to resolve issues, and launching a comparative report showing inbound versus outbound team results. The delta was staggering. Vincent lobbied to finally gain access to the downtown inbound team as it was clear that they were nowhere near their potential.

When he did gain some access to that team, it became immediately clear what the issue was: zero accountability, zero coaching. They acted like they were elite when they were lazy. Vincent implemented changes within days. He installed call recorders, re-trained managers, and introduced real-time coaching. In his presence, the team performed. In his absence, they faltered.

The Brotherhood saw this as their window.

With Keith and Mark downtown one day, Clyde and Jimmy Sander, two of Vincent’s managers, made anonymous ethics calls from Vincent’s office. Their testimonies were damning, detailing years of harassment, falsified documents, racism, sexism, and retaliatory behavior.

The dominoes began to fall fast. One by one, investigators reached out to managers. Vincent knew his call was coming and he had to make the decision to play safe and side with Dickhauser, or risk it all for what was right.

And when the call came—from Agnes Landry who headed HR—he unleashed four years of pent-up anguish. Emails, voicemails, incidents, manipulation, abuse. It all came pouring out.

Agnes asked him what he thought the result should be.

“This department is worth saving,” Vincent said. “But not with Keith. I won’t tell you to fire him. Maybe he has value elsewhere. But if he stays here, we are doomed. He has to be removed. And while I’m not saying this to be self-serving, I believe the team would tell you I’m the only logical replacement. Regardless, I’ll serve however I’m needed.”

Those loyal to Keith told him the calls were going around, which put Vincent in a pickle.

Still, Vincent maintained his poker face. He hadn’t received the call yet, he told Keith. Just a routine check-in, he said.

And as Autumn started working around Vincent again, they began seeing each other more frequently and spending time with their daughter as a family.

November 2009 stormed forward. Sales boomed. Confidence swelled. And the rumors, thanks to Agnes’s best friend Helen, whispered of Keith’s imminent reassignment. A staff job. A harmless post. Powerless. The Brotherhood had won.

The Department of Sales would not fall. Not on Vincent’s watch.

And the name Keith Dickhauser would soon be nothing more than a cautionary tale whispered in hallways. The Brotherhood had risen. And they were told they had prevailed.