Days 59 and 60 – Writing Exercise

…

“Hate is a strong word,” I said, adopting a soothing, placatory tone.

The air in the room was fairly thick with emotion, and understandably so.  HR had just issued an edict which, to me, was utterly stupid.

“Try detest,” said another.

“Or abhor,” from yet another, a voice down the back of the room, one I instantly recognised, but kept my surprise to myself.

As I said, the mood of the room was understandable.  They were being punished because of one person’s actions. 

The crux of the matter, employees who had previously been given a five-minute leeway to get to and from the company cafeteria now had to absorb that time into the mandated half hour set for lunch, and fifteen minutes for morning and afternoon tea.

And, of course, everyone liked to push the envelope, and that extra five minutes had turned into ten, and then, at times, fifteen.  That management would eventually react was expected.

It was not expected that they had silently implemented it to begin with, put surveillance equipment in and then logged everyone breaking the rules, and then used that evidence to fire one employee.

That in itself was a violation, but times were tough, and decisions had to be made.  They issued a memo to everyone highlighting the net loss to the company in productivity, and it was staggering.

But…

It was not the fact that they had fired someone, but who they fired.

I’d heard on the grapevine that a group of employees were gathering to plan retaliatory action.  Not a good idea given that management had recently changed and the son, not the father, was now running what he called a white elephant.

He was wrong; it was just using outdated machinery and methodology, simply because there weren’t sufficient profits to reinvest, but he had a plan.

I’d sat in on the transition committee headed by the new CEO and came away with a very bad feeling.  So did most of the board members, but they were older men still clinging to the old ways, and very much attached to their paychecks.

My job:  I had to sell the plan, if and when it was completed.

And quell any intermediate spot fires.

The working hours were the first, and willful time wasting was the top of the agenda.

Then, “We all know what’s going on here.”

Yes, some would, and the voice that made that statement, Harry Bones, a man who joined the company the same day I did.

We both had dreams back then, when the company was riding the crest of popularity and prosperity.

He went into the production department, and I took administration.  The other notable recruit, Joseph Brooks, the man who was now CEO.

But back in those days in College there was no distinction; he was just one of the boys.  He only changed when his father decided to give him power, and that mean side we knew lurked beneath that affable surface started coming out.

“And what’s that, Harry?

“He invented those rules so he could get rid of a problem he created.”

And there it was.  I was surprised that his daughter Rowena would accept a role in a company she openly disparaged as toxic, let alone work for Joseph Brooks as his personal assistant, only to become his girlfriend, which for a while seemed to work.

Of course, no one in the company knew of the romantic relationship, except perhaps those in the executive, and her NDA forbade discussion of the details of her dismissal.  And adhering to that NDA, she couldn’t tell her father, so he just made the assumption that someone had to be an example, and it was the agitator’s daughter.

The reality was that neither could stay in their positions, and one had to go.  It was a pity it was her, but in situations like that, the lesser employee always loses.  All it did was embitter the agitator.

“That’s one interpretation, Harry.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.  You are up there in the ivory tower, you see everything.”

“Not everything, Harry.”

“You’re not that stupid, Jack.  He’s coming for all of us.  Word on the floor is that they’re replacing us with robots.”

It was true they were looking at that option.  The thing was, the initial investment was beyond their means, and I was there when the CFO got the call from the bank turning down the loan.

But then he knew that was going to happen.

There was a murmur rippling through the crowd at the mention of robots. 

The previous year, we had tendered to build those same robots and didn’t get the tender.  If we had got it, we wouldn’t be here now.

I was expecting ten or so hard-line agitators to turn up to the session, and four hundred had downed tools when they learned about the session.  I had to move the session to the cafeteria.

The executive heard there was a rumour of a strike, and asked me, as the employee liaison manager, to find out what was going on.

The fact that they didn’t realise that sacking employees on trumped up excuses because the boss’s son couldn’t manage a simple relationship, or worse, thought he could play with the affections of employees, the very definition of sexualising garnishment, beggared belief.

Legal understood the ramifications and had instituted a remedy, but HR was still stuck in the 1950s, which said a lot about our management.

I was trying to put out a forest fire with a garden hose.  Whatever I was going to suggest, that would be the equivalent of throwing petrol on that same fire.

“OK.”  I tried wresting control of the meeting and getting back on track.

“What are you going to do?  This used to be an amazing place to work.”

“The best.  My father worked here, and his father before him.”

“It was a great place, you wanted to come to work, you wanted to be part of it, you weren’t part of the success.”

“You worked hard and the company looked after you.  Where has that gone?”

That was easy.  We sat on our hands while the rest of the world moved on.  Instead, I said, “Where overseas companies that can make products cheaper are.  We once had a monopoly; now we’re just one of fifty competing in a smaller market.  Times are tough.  Everyone is feeling it.  They have avoided lay-offs, but if this place keeps going the way it is…”

It was true, but something else was also true.

The voice from the back of the room:  “And yet there’s plenty for the bosses to have their overseas holidays, live in multi-million dollar estates, and have a different car for each day of the week.  We can barely afford to put food on the table.”

It was a headline that made the papers once a month.  The cost of living is the great divide between the wealthy and the workers.

I could argue that in the beginning, it was their money and their labour that created the jobs they had, and were still providing against the odds, but that didn’t fit their optics.  But that person was also right.  I’d done the comparison.  Giving the employees that extra few minutes didn’t come close to the executive expenditure.  It’s why there were no profits, and how the board could deny promised raises, the negotiators had agreed to tie raises to profits.

It had been a strange, if not unbelievable, outcome where the negotiators had gone in hard and in the end surrendered with a whimper.

“I don’t believe you, or them.”

A roar of approval from the assembly.  Harry had become their spokesman.

“Tell them to restore the original break conditions, or there will be a strike, and there’ll be a lot more on the table.”

He stood, glared at me, and walked off, taking the others with him.

Bar one.

Rowena.

“How did you get in here?  No, don’t tell me.  The less I know, the better.  What happened between you and Joey?”

The once-upon-a-time nickname we created for the now CEO back in school days was used only out of his hearing.

“I wouldn’t bend to his will.  I’m not that type of girl.  But I should have known.  We all knew what he was like, and I fell for the charisma.  My bad.”

“But sacking you.  That was wrong.”

“Legal said as much.  A job back, same salary and conditions or a settlement.  It’s shitty he gets away with being an ass, but the money is eyewatering.”

“What did your dad say?”

“I didn’t tell him.  You of all people would understand why.  But now I’m free, I want to take up your offer.”

It was accompanied by a whimsical smile, one I knew from long ago and at a time when I was hopelessly in love with her, and all she did was ignore me.

“What makes you think it still stands?”

I remember making it, almost too drunk to care, and definitely in no condition to be anything but completely honest.  That was when I told her how I felt, believing that she liked me.  I asked her if she would like to have a trial relationship.  She laughed at me.

The hangover wasn’t the worst part of waking up the next morning.

“You did nothing wrong, Jack, but you took me by surprise, and I wasn’t ready for it.  Then I went on to make a huge mistake, and I’ve had more than enough regrets over the years.  Why are you still single?”

Did she really need an answer to that question?

“Oh.  Then what say you?”

I shook my head.  There was only one answer.  “When does this trial start?”

She smiled.  “Now.”

…

I could have said my arrival on the executive level was interesting in the total lack of reaction, but it was more measured than I expected.

Even wary.

That was because none of the executives knew how to handle a version of them that was at least 30 years younger than the youngest of them.

I was not the enemy, but equally, they didn’t think I was in their class of maturity and respectability.

Of course, if you had seen the members at their exclusive parties, and word respectability would have been left at the door, and replaced with others like drunkenness and debauchery.

All funded by the company and hidden in the accounts, by the creative accountant titled the Chief Financial Officer. 

The secrets I knew and could do nothing about.

Every time I sat at the board table and looked around at what this city called its most revered and respected citizens, I had to work very hard not to laugh.

But, on the other side of that, they managed to keep their benefits, and still kept over 4,000 of the townsfolk employed.  A single small percentage parish would wreck that, as projections had shown them at the last board meeting.

The next would be crunch time.  The workers were going to revolt, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

Still…

The Chief Administrative Officer was a dour but practical man, and was the one responsible for my position.  If all went well, he had said about a year before Joey took the crown, I would succeed him.

Under old management rules, that was true.  Under new management rules, that was not necessarily the case.  I would now have to apply for the job when it came up.

It was the bad part of the good news bad news Monday briefing.

Now, it was my turn.

I knocked on his door and went in.  He was standing at the window looking down on the car park and gardens where the Christmas party was held each year.

When he turned, he had an odd, unfathomable expression.  “How was the meeting?”

“The expected ten turned into four hundred.”

“Harry?”

“As you predicted, the ring leader.  It’s not without reason, though.  We can use the lack of profits only so far.  What they don’t realise is that there is a clause in the last agreement that gives the union the right to investigate why there are no profits, if they believe there is bad management.”

I’d found it when I was asked to read through and analyse exactly what was in it.  A junior council in the department had been looking at the staff contracts and found something else, which set off alarm bells.

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

“Until the first round of lay-offs.  The CFO had said quite categorically that something had to go.  Staff or management perks.”

He slumped into his chair, as it groaned under his weight.  He had been in the company for nearly 50 years, and it was approaching retirement day.

“We had a good run, but now the Chinese have taken it away.  We watched it happen.”

“It was inevitable.  Their costs are lower, even with shipping.  Tariffs aren’t going to save a sinking ship.  Does Joseph know?”

“What do you think?”

“Still pretending he’s the captain of the Titanic.  Full steam ahead?”

The one thing Joey was not was financially gifted.  He failed economics and didn’t understand rudimentary accounting.  He was an ideas man, a fearless leader, a man among men.  He told me so himself.  His father said he would find his way.

He shrugged.

“What do you believe is going to happen?”

“A strike.”

“No way you can talk them out of it?”

“Without telling them the truth, no.  And if we do tell them the truth, there will be a lynching.  More than one, possibly.”

“Then put in a report and call an extraordinary board meeting for tomorrow.”

…

The company was not a public company with lots of shareholders who had to be paid dividends. It was owned by Joseph and his family, all of whom had made a lot of money from it and squandered it just as quickly.

Joseph’s father had seen the tide turning too late, and had spent a lot of his fortune keeping the business going.  He knew the value of it to the town and its people and had rewarded loyalty and hard work.  Joseph didn’t understand those sentiments and was more interested in living the high life than managing the business.

He was a fly in fly out leave it to the experts kind of guy.  It only worked if the company made money and cut corners rather than investing and diversifying, as he had been told the first day he acceded the throne, it was quite possible the ship would not be about to founder on that hidden reef.

The board meeting was notable for:

The CFO reported that in three months, the positive bank balance would turn negative and would stay there.

He also tendered his resignation.

The CIO tendered a report that said the computer systems had to be replaced because the software company that provided the manufacturing systems were about to cease supporting our version, and basically said if we didn’t upgrade, they would not be responsible for the problems.

And the new version needed far better systems to run on.  The quoted upgrade was eye-watering.

HR reported that they believed a strike was imminent, but there was no way they could afford pay rises without sacrificing at least a third of the employees.  And that meant shutting down parts of the operation.

The head of Production said that without the new software the might as well close the plant.  What other ideas he had he put back in his folder.

I could see Joseph, after each report, getting more and more discouraged, perhaps wondering how his father had managed to dump the mess in his lap and escape to a well-earned retirement, in a place I noted didn’t have an extradition treaty.

I noticed before the meeting started that Joseph was talking privately with Legal, the CFO, and two board members, personal friends of the family.

He had a red file.  To me, red was a bad omen.

After all the damning reports, Joseph looked around the table.  He had not commented, nor had he looked worried.  Perhaps he had found a private investor who wanted a share in the sinking ship though I could not fathom why they would.

Unless they converted the site to make munitions, what had happened during the Second World War.  It wasn’t that hard to retool.

I had seen a report in a financial magazine about the retooling of car factories to build armoured tanks and aircraft frames.  My father had once told me that the country only flourished when there was a world war raging.

“In the face of what is going to be a losing battle, I think the way forward it the sell.  I have an offer.  It’s not startling, nor is it generous.  It’s time to walk away.”

His new PA came in on cue and handed each one a folder, the terms of the sale.  All of them would get a full payout.  The employees, next to nothing.

I hadn’t seen that coming.  No one else would either.  A private family-owned company didn’t have to advertise, so no one would know until it was too late.  And yes, the new company would be hiring.  Not the whole 4,000, but some of them.

I just managed to catch the last thing Joseph said, holding up a glass. 

“To the end of an era.”

That was the moment the workers arrived, and all hell broke loose.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026