For Jermoluk's part, he says he does not recall the incident. ''Am I guilty of getting drunk a few times?'' he asks. ''Sure. Probably inappropriately at times?

For Jermoluk's part, he says he does not recall the incident. ''Am I guilty of getting drunk a few times?'' he asks. ''Sure. Probably inappropriately at times? Yeah. Did I party hard? Sure.'' But he also adds: ''Was I leading a wild life? No. I was working too hard, man.'' Even Jermoluk's critics say this never impaired his job performance, but such overindulgence by the company's No.2 rattled some employees' confidence. ''People aren't used to seeing the president get drunk,'' says a former executive. It's funny to think this was pretty common during the first dot com boom and bust years. I had an executive at Best Buy tell me a few years back about how the bust changed a lot of attitudes with how executives should act in front of the company employees.