Company - Max Barry [55]
This causes alarmed murmurs. “How can that be?” protests the man to his right. “That's what it was like before the last consolidation. We cut most of that 80 percent!”
“Oh, it's an all-new 80 percent,” the VP reassures him.
That clinches it: clearly the company must continue to cut until those percentages come down. A motion is proposed expressing support for Klausman's decision, and unanimously passed. If there's one thing Senior Management knows, it's how to pass a motion.
That accomplished, Senior Management takes a break. Phew! They take the opportunity to check their voice mail or order coffees from their PAs. And as they do, they quietly and almost unconsciously coalesce into separate camps. Just in confidence, each camp whispers, these consolidations are only going to work if their own departments absorb several others. Heads nod. They sketch a quick strategic vision of the new company, in which most departments are trimmed down or eliminated, except their own, which grow huge and bloated. Yes! Heartbeats quicken. Understandings are forged. Each camp glows with warm, united purpose.
But as Senior Management resumes its seats in the boardroom, each camp realizes the others have formed camps, too. Brows lower. Everyone sees what is going on: certain members are trying to take advantage of the reorganization to inflate their own responsibilities. This accusation—at first concealed, then not so concealed, finally completely naked—lands with a slap on the rich oak table. The camps passionately deny it. It's not as if they get a pay raise for looking after more people! (Which is true. It was once the case, but not after what has become known as the Seven Secretaries Incident.) A larger department only means more work!
And this is true, too. To the non-manager, it might actually seem that Senior Management is prepared to selflessly take on more work for the good of the company. But this is why non-managers are not managers. You don't reach the upper echelons of Zephyr Holdings by shirking responsibility. You get there by grabbing as much of it as you can, forcing it down, and screaming for more. Senior Management craves responsibility in the same way that blind, bedraggled birds stretch open their beaks for regurgitated worms: from instinct. It is what they do. It is who they are. So, Senior Management realizes, as it looks around the table and sees nothing but hard, hungry stares, it is going to be a long day.
Elizabeth pushes her way out the bathroom door. It is ten o'clock and her third visit today. She has vomited once, quietly, and, if the pattern holds, a second incident will present itself in roughly twenty minutes. In the meantime she weaves her way back to West Berlin. Elizabeth can't spend the whole day on the bathroom tiles, hugging the toilet bowl. (Nor can she spend the day, somewhat more demurely, bent over a sink. What if Sydney saw her? Or Holly? Holly already suspects too much. Holly probably already knows, without quite realizing it. Elizabeth is not showing, not yet, but her breasts are ballooning and she is falling-down tired. The other day she actually fell asleep for a few seconds in a Training Sales meeting and when she opened her eyes Holly was watching her.)
She has started dreaming of ribbons. Blue, green, red; the kind little girls use to tie back their hair. Or, more precisely, the kind that mothers use to tie back the hair of their daughters. For some reason Elizabeth cannot get this image out of her head: herself and a little girl, and Elizabeth doing her hair. Since the network went down, this is what Elizabeth has been doing instead of work. It is a foolish and dangerous daydream, but she cannot shake it.
Her voice-mail light is blinking. It's not the all-staffer: she's listened to that one