"And when my scores slip," said Jonathan, trying to generate some fellow feeling, "I expect the same thing will happen to me. "
"I hope so," said Simon.
Right, counseling mode. Jonathan remembered his training. Unfortunately, so did Simon — they had been on the same courses.
"Are you angry, would you like to talk?" said Jonathan, remembering: keep steady eye contact, or rather contact with the forehead or bridge of the nose, which is less threatening. Lean backwards so less aggression, but echo body language.
Simon smiled slightly and started to pick his nose, very messily, and look at the result. He held the result up towards Jonathan as if to say echo this.
Jonathan nodded as if in agreement. "It's only natural that you should feel some resentment, but it might be more constructive if you expressed it verbally. You know, say what you feel, blow off some steam. If not to me, then to someone, the Welfare Officer perhaps. "
"I don't need to blow off steam," said Simon and stood up and walked to the door.
Procedures were not being followed; discipline was important.
"Simon, you haven't taken your letter. "
Simon stood at the door for a moment. "It's not my letter. It's not written for me, it's addressed to Personnel so they can stop paying me. "
Boy, thought Jonathan, if you were still being marked, you'd be in trouble, buddy.
"You forget," said Simon his blue eyes gray and flinty, "I used to work in Accounts. " He picked up the letter, paused, and wiped his finger on it. Then he left the room.
Jonathan sat at the table, trembling with rage. Fuck counseling, he wanted to haul off and slug the guy. He took a deep breath, just like in the handling stress course, then stood up and left the meeting room, remembering to change the sign on the door. VACANT it said.
Back in his own office, he checked his score. It was bad form to check your scores too often; it showed insecurity, but Jonathan couldn't help himself. He verballed to the computer.
"Performance feedback, Dayplan Item One. "
His mark was higher than he had thought it would be: 7. 2, well over a five and edging towards a 7. 5 for a pretty tough situation. But it was not the high score the Team needed.
It was 8:42. Three minutes ahead of schedule.
"Dayplan complete," he verballed, and his day was laid out before him on the screen.
8:30 Simon Hasley (actioned)
8:45 Dayplan confirmed and in tray
8:50 Sally meeting prep 9:00 Sally meeting
9:30 Sales meeting William
10:00 Dead space for the unexpected.
It was important that work was seen to be prioritized, that nothing stayed on the desk, or queued up on the machine. It all had to be handled in the right order. The computer worked that out for you from the priority rating you gave each item, gave you optimum work times and the corporate cost, and if you did not object, those were your targets for the first half of the day.
Right. In-tray. There was a management report on purchasing. Jonathan did not purchase, but he needed to know the new procedures his Finance Officer was supposed to follow. So make that a priority eight, book in a reading for it next week, and ask for the machine to prepare a performance. Next was a memo with spreadsheet from Admin. Admin acted as a kind of prophylactic against Accounts, giving early warning of what would strike Accounts as below par performance. Jonathan's heart sank. Late invoices. Holy shit, not again, an average of twelve days?
Thanks a lot, George, thanks a fucking lot. Shit, piss, fuck, I'll cut off that god-damned asshole's head and stick it up his own greased asshole.
Ho-boy, Jonathan, that's anger. Channel it, use it. Right, we got ourselves a priority one here, schedule it in Dead Space. Jonathan slammed his way into George's network terminal. Which at 8:47 in the morning was not switched on.
PRIORITY 1
George, we have a serious issue to discuss. Can you come to my office at 10:00 am today, Thursday 17th. Please come with figures on speed of invoicing.
J Rosson, III 723, nc 11723JR.
There goes our cash flow down the fucking tube. And interest payments to the Centre. Great.
There was a fretful knocking at his door. Jonathan could guess who it was. Two minutes was all the time he had.
In came Harriet, gray hair flying. What you might call an individual. Jonathan swiveled, knowing his body language showed no surprise or alarm. His greeting was warm, friendly, in control. So far, so good.
"Hello, Harriet, good to see you, but I'm afraid I'm up against it this morning. I expect you've heard about Simon. "
"Yes, I have actually," said Harriet, eyes bright, smile wide. She was preparing to sit down.
No, my door is not always open. Don't mess with my time management, lady. "I'd love to talk to you about it when I can give you some time. How about 10:10 this morning?"
"This will only take a minute. " Harriet was still smiling. A tough old bird.
"I doubt that very much. It's an important issue, and I'd like to talk to you about it properly. " With a flourish, he keyed her into his Dayplan. "there we go. 10:10. See you then?"
Harriet accepted defeat with good grace. "Lovely," she said. "I'll look forward to that. " She even gave him a sweet little wave as she left.
Poor old cow is scared, thought Jonathan. Well, there are no plans to get rid of her, so that should be a fairly easy session.
Next. Up came a report on a new initiative in timekeeping, a hobby horse of Jonathan's. Was a priority one justified just because he was interested in it? He decided to downgrade it, show he was keeping a sense of proportion, that he was a team player. He gave it a two and booked it in for Friday.
He was behind schedule. Thanks, Harriet. Next was a note of praise for a job well done from that crawler Jason. The guy even writes memos to apologize for not writing memos. Jonathan wastebinned it with a grin. Next was a welfare report on the Team's resident schizophrenic. Jonathan was sure the poor guy had been hired just to give them a bit of an obstacle to show jump. The Welfare Officer was asking him to counsel the man to reduce his smoking in the office. But. He was to remember that the stress of giving up smoking could trigger another schizophrenic episode.
Oh come on, this really must be a monitoring exercise. Jonathan thought a moment. He should therefore show that he knew it was an exercise and not take it too seriously. So, he delegated. He dumped the whole report off his own screen and into the Dayplan of his Supporting Officer.
And so, 8:55. Five minutes to prep for Sally. Jeez, thought Jonathan. I hope I'm not showing. Not showing fear. Which meant, of course, that he was.
Simply, Sally was one of the big boys. She was the same grade as Jonathan, a 1. 1 on a level D, but she was younger, whiplash quick, utterly charming, and she always won. Jonathan knew her scores were infinitely better than his own.
Sally had been naughty. Her Division and his Team had to cooperate on projects that were both above and below the line. Without telling him, she had called a meeting on his own grade 2s, flattered them no end, and then got the poor lambs to agree, just as a point of procedure, that all joint projects would be registered with her Division. This would cost his Team about three hundred thousand a year in turnover.
Jonathan had countered with a report on procedures, reminding all concerned that such decisions needed to be made at Divisional level, and suggesting a more thorough procedural review. Sally had countered with enthusiastic agreement, deadly, but said a joint presentation on procedures might eliminate misunderstanding. The difference between discussion and presentation was the difference between procedures up for grabs, and procedures already set and agreed.
When Jonathan pointed this out at a Divisional Liaison, Sally had said "Awwww!" as if he were a hurt, suspicious child. She had even started to counsel him — in front of management! Jonathan had never felt so angry, so outmaneuvered. Now his Team had noticed pieces of artwork they should have controlled going elsewhere and wanted him to do something about it. Too late, guys. Bloody Harry, his boss, was too dim to see what had happened, or too feeble to fight. Harry had agreed to the presentation.