Scenes From Provincial Life - J. M. Coetzee [114]
‘After lengthy reflection,’ he writes at last, ‘I have reached the conclusion that my future does not lie with IBM. In terms of my contract I therefore wish to tender one month’s notice.’
He signs the letter, seals it, addresses it to Dr B. L. McIver, Manager, Programming Division, and drops it discreetly in the tray marked INTERNAL. No one in the office gives him a glance. He takes his seat again.
Until three o’clock, when the mail is next collected, there is time for second thoughts, time to slip the letter out of the tray and tear it up. Once the letter is delivered, however, the die will be cast. By tomorrow the news will have spread through the building: one of McIver’s people, one of the programmers on the second floor, the South African, has resigned. No one will want to be seen speaking to him. He will be sent to Coventry. That is how it is at IBM. No false sentiment. He will be marked as a quitter, a loser, unclean.
At three o’clock the woman comes around for the mail. He bends over his papers, his heart thumping.
Half an hour later he is summoned to McIver’s office. McIver is in a cold fury. ‘What is this?’ he says, indicating the letter that lies open on his desk.
‘I have decided to resign.’
‘Why?’
He had guessed McIver would take it badly. McIver is the one who interviewed him for the job, who accepted and approved him, who swallowed the story that he was just an ordinary bloke from the colonies planning a career in computers. McIver has his own bosses, to whom he will have to explain his mistake.
McIver is a tall man. He dresses sleekly, speaks with an Oxford accent. He has no interest in programming as a science or skill or craft or whatever it is. He is simply a manager. That is what he is good at: allotting tasks to people, managing their time, driving them, getting his money’s worth out of them.
‘Why?’ says McIver again, impatiently.
‘I don’t find working for IBM very satisfying at a human level. I don’t find it fulfilling.’
‘Go on.’
‘I was hoping for something more.’
‘And what may that be?’
‘I was hoping for friendships.’
‘You find the atmosphere unfriendly?’
‘No, not unfriendly, not at all. People have been very kind. But being friendly is not the same thing as friendship.’
He had hoped the letter would be allowed to be his last word. But that hope was naïve. He should have realized they would receive it as nothing but the first shot in a war.
‘What else? If there is something else on your mind, this is your chance to bring it out.’
‘Nothing else.’
‘Nothing else. I see. You are missing friendships. You haven’t found friends.’
‘Yes, that’s right. I’m not blaming anyone. The fault is probably my own.’
‘And for that you want to resign.’
‘Yes.’
Now that the words are out they sound stupid, and they are stupid. He is being manoeuvred into saying stupid things. But he should have expected that. That is how they will make him pay for rejecting them and the job they have given him, a job with IBM, the market leader. Like a beginner in chess, pushed into corners and mated in ten moves, in eight moves, in seven moves. A lesson in domination. Well, let them do it. Let them play their moves, and let him play his stupid, easily foreseen, easily countered return moves, until they are bored with the game and let him go.
With a brusque gesture McIver terminates the interview. That, for the moment, is that. He is free to return to his desk. For once there is not even the obligation to work late. He can leave the building at five, win the evening for himself.
The next morning, through McIver’s secretary – McIver himself sweeps past him, not returning his greeting – he is instructed to report without delay to IBM Head Office in the City, to the Personnel Department.
The man in Personnel who hears his case has clearly had recounted to him his complaint about the friendships IBM has failed to supply. A