hts in his face. We had experienced the scene before, and we knew it could be unnerving. On the other hand, we had also given him five pages of questions that were likely to come up. Admittedly, where he got his long-distance service was not one of them. Thankfully, at about that point, the waiter brought the wine list. The Olde Mill Inn's dining room appeared nowhere in Wine Specta- tor's list of fine wine cellars. But Walter fancied himself an oenophile, and he discovered a vintage that was to his liking. When the bottle was brought to him and uncorked, he swirled a sample in his wine glass, expertly took in its bouquet, sipped, and ran it over his palate. "That's really exceptional," he said. Then he told the waiter-a kid who was just trying to work his way through college-"You really ought to try it." The waiter demurred, but Walter insisted, pouring some into an empty glass. "Go on. Feel empowered," he said. Again, the waiter-now becoming embarrassed-said he really couldn't. It was against house policy to drink on the job. "Your only policy should be to please the customer," Walter said. Then, while the poor waiter tried to pour the rest of the wine SO Tough Calls that he could escape, Walter began a lecture on customer relations, employee empowerment, and winning organizations. While all this was going on, Adele Ambrose, AT&T's media rela- tions vice president, was working her cell phone to get a handle on the tone of the next day's stories. Ambrose had been the steady, reassur- ing voice of AT&T through the turmoil of the previous year. Bringing a dogged intensity to representing the company, Am- brose took the negative media personally. A slight woman, just a little over five feet tall, she has a full-throated horselaugh that can erupt unexpectedly, then be quickly brushed away with a flutter of hands. The reporters she dealt with trusted her as they would a colleague. They knew that she would never mislead them and would always be accessible, even if it meant carrying cell phone, pager, and laptop to the