Company - Max Barry [50]
Jones says, “That's one of the worst things I've ever heard.”
She holds out a glass of brown liquid over ice and he takes it. “There's nothing wrong with enjoying life. In the end, what else can you do?” She raises her glass and takes a gulp.
He sits beside her. “Well, I don't want to get too radical, but what about helping other people? Leaving the world a better place?”
Eve coughs explosively. She puts her glass on the table, which takes two attempts, and digs in her bag for a tissue. She dabs at her eyes. “Jesus, you nearly killed me.” She takes a deep breath. “Whoo. Okay. Tell me how you justify buying a new pair of shoes.”
“What?”
“When there are starving people in Africa, what kind of person spends two hundred bucks on shoes? See, once you buy into that paradigm, it's a bottomless pit. You can never feel good about yourself while there's anybody in the world poor or hungry, which there always is, Jones, and has been since the dawn of time, so you feel guilty and hypocritical all the time. I'm consistent. I admit I don't care. You want me to reassure you that Alpha is ethical, but I'm not going to do it, because ethics is bullshit. It's the spin we put on our lives to justify what we do. I say, be big enough to live without rationalizations.”
Jones sips at his drink. It's Scotch, and heats him all the way down. “Just because I believe in ethics doesn't mean I have to be Mother Teresa. There's a middle ground.”
“Ah, the famous middle ground.” He gets the feeling that Eve is enjoying this, but then, if he's honest, so is he. “Jones, you're one of those people who's never had to make a decision between ethics and results. You went to college and learned that companies with satisfied employees tend to be more profitable, and you went, ‘Oh good.' Because that let you off the hook; you didn't have to decide what you'd do if it was a choice between one or the other. You won't work for a tobacco or gun manufacturer because those are bad companies; you'll only work for good ones, helping them to improve customer satisfaction and produce better products and—oh hey!—just by coincidence, those things increase company profits and get you promoted. Well, you're in the real world now, and soon enough you'll realize that sometimes you do have to choose between morals and results, that companies do it every day, even the ones you thought were good—and it's the managers who choose results who get the promotions. You'll fret about this for a few days or months or maybe even years until finally, one day, you'll decide you need to make the tough decisions because this is business, and that's what everyone else is doing. But because you feel guilty about having a six-figure salary and a current-year car, you'll sponsor a child in the Sudan and give ten bucks a year to the United Way and you're still being ethical most of the time—that is, when it doesn't get in the way of doing your job—and just because you lied a little or stole a little or took a job at a company that makes money off the backs of fourteen-year-old factory workers in Indonesia doesn't mean you're not a good person. But you'll stop bringing up the subject of ethics. That, Jones, is the middle ground.”
There's a knock at the door.
“Come!” Eve calls. She looks back at Jones. “You should thank me. I just saved you years of wrestling with your conscience.”
“You are unbelievable. It's like you're evil.”
A man enters wheeling a mobile hanging rack of plastic-encased clothes. She rises from the sofa, inspects the rack, and seems pleased with what she sees. The porter is dismissed, looking happy and dazed, but Jones can't tell whether this is because of Eve's tip or just Eve. Or maybe the porter is not dazed at all; maybe that's Jones projecting. “Come here,” she says.
He gets up and looks at the rack. “You said to