Central Narrative:
Andrew Price is Director at Site-52, where research on "super-Safe," minor anomalies is conducted. He purchased a copy of Leaders Are Dicks at a yard sale, and found the advice very helpful in managing his underlings.
Site-52 has been cursed – the book makes the person at the top of the hierarchy on-Site into a "Dick," a sociopathic, megalomaniacal, asshole. With anomalous charisma. Price engineers a situation in which Site-52 is left without an Overseer, Ethics Council representative, or HR Director, and authority over the security forces and all Site personnel falls to him alone.
Over the course of the next three months without oversight, Price grows more irate and starts giving out unreasonable decrees - raises to researchers who perform the most anomaly tests per hour; employees live on-site permanently; insubordinates reassigned to the D-Class barracks; sleeping forbidden without Director approval; the only thing to eat in the cafeteria is raw beef.
The Foundation is alerted to the security breach when a starving, dehydrated, and generally battered Junior Researcher makes her way across the Nevada Desert to the perimeter of Area-14, and is arrested by patrolling security personnel.
Area-14 leadership interview the researcher, and surveil Site-52 from afar – it's turned into a gulag at this point. Foundation Staff determine that the book's text is not anomalous, only the object itself. Since the research coming out of 52 hasn't been any less effective, and the (horrible) advice in non-anomalous copies of the book seems to just be followed to the letter, they tentatively come to the conclusion that Price's goals aren't completely contrary to Foundation interests. Interview: tense conversation between the Foundation and Price, Price follows orders to completely evacuate the site. Interview: Seems like he's not a Dick anymore.
Testing ensues, effects discovered. The Foundation bean-counters figure that decommissioning and rebuilding 52 isn't cost-effective compared to a change in management, since it only held Safe items that aren't actively trying to get out. Thus, the current procedures: no bosses or Directors, everyone (on-site) has equal power.
Hook/Attention-Grabber: Holy "The Foundation is Fallible," Batman! An entire Site is jinxed, and the solution is surprising.
