Company - Max Barry [24]
A snap decision is made: everyone laid off is to be immediately rehired. They are to get the network running again as a matter of urgency. Then, once a proper outsourcing plan is in place, they can be terminated again.
Senior Management relaxes. Crisis over! The order is passed to Human Resources for implementation. But here it strikes a snag. Human Resources' files are all on the network. Without them, it has no idea how to contact the ex-employees. It doesn't even know who they were. The call goes out, echoing plaintively around the building: Does anybody remember who we used to employ in IT? But no one does. Zephyr departments barely mingle at the best of times; those odd, T-shirt-wearing IT employees were actively avoided. There is only one person in the building who could supply the information Senior Management needs: Gretel in reception with her piece of paper. But nobody asks her.
In East Berlin, Holly carefully touches up her nails. She wonders if she could sneak off to the gym for a while; she's not doing anything useful here. She twists around in her seat to see the wall clock, and is surprised to discover that Megan is standing right behind her. Holly sits with her back to Megan, so she never sees her coming.
“Sorry,” Megan says. “Sydney asked if you could summarize the reps' sales reports onto a page for her. She needs it by twelve.”
Holly leans to one side. The wall clock says eleven thirty-five. Holly would bet a lot of money that Sydney has known about this task for several days. To Holly, it seems that Sydney's main job is to transform routine tasks into urgent ones by concealing their existence until the last possible moment. “Okay. Thanks.”
Megan moves off. Holly flicks through the reports. Part of her whines: Why doesn't Sydney just ask the reps for shorter reports in the first place? But she firmly represses this. It is the sort of question she would have asked three years ago, when she was as fresh as Jones. Understanding of such things would, she imagined at the time, be accompanied by the gaining of rungs on the corporate ladder and the purchasing of ever-finer shoes and shirts. Today Holly has neither rungs nor comprehension. Instead she's got a permanent frown line, a reputation for being unsociable, and a growing addiction to the gymnasium. She loves the gym's simple, immutable rules: if you run, your butt will tighten. If you lift, your arms will tone. It is so different from her life in Training Sales.
She slogs through the summary and is heading for the PRINT button when Jones and Freddy return from their expedition. She sits up. “Well?”
Freddy shakes his head. “Network's out everywhere. So it's just an IT problem, thank God. What are you doing?”
“The usual. Wasting my life.”
Freddy drops into his chair. Jones looks around. “Maybe now's a good time to speak to Sydney.”
“Gahh,” Freddy says. To Holly: “Jones is obsessed with finding out the company's true purpose.”
“Oh. I worked that out for you, Jones. It's a big psychological experiment into how much pain and suffering human beings can tolerate before they quit.” She turns to Freddy. “Which reminds me. You know how people have been complaining to management about work-life balance? Well, they've agreed to hold an all-staff meeting about it next Monday. At 7:30 A.M.”
Freddy starts laughing. He wipes his eyes. “Which would be worse, do you think: that this kind of stuff is deliberate, or they're just clueless?”
Holly shakes her head. “I think maybe Wendell was lucky. Did you hear he got a job at Assiduous?”
Jones jumps. “Who told you that?”
“One of the girls at the gym. Why?”
“Don't you find