The Company - First published September 2016 in Burn, Thrive, Burn

Publication details: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31427659-burn-thrive-burn

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THE COMPANY

By Nick Lachmund

PART ONE

Ben Sharpe was 22 when he finished his Commerce degree and entered the company’s graduate program. He was placed in the ‘Accounting’ department. His dad had always said that working for a big organisation opened a lot of doors and Ben figured that the promotions were likely to come quickly if he worked hard. He enjoyed the work and, at times, found it challenging. His colleagues were friendly enough and he attended the odd Friday night drinks with them. Ben was an inoffensive, albeit somewhat timid person and a good fit for the business. However, the promotions did not come easily for Ben.

Ben’s ability to manage budgets and cut costs became the thing of legend and many a manager took credit for his work as the years rolled by. Ben was always overlooked for job opportunities. Though overlooked, he refused to get despondent. In truth, the idea of managing staff intimidated him and he had no issue with repetition. After nearly nine years in the job, things were still going well for Ben. He eagerly awaited his ten year anniversary, so that he could take his long-service leave. Although he had nowhere he wanted to travel and no one to go with. Then the company hired a new Senior Consultant named Eric Frier.

Eric was a 42 year old man with many years’ experience in ‘the business’. His handshake was strong and Ben worked hard not to wince when they first met. Ben was not a tough guy. His five foot nine frame was barely filled in and he had, on occasion, been referred to as a ‘bean pole’, despite his lack of height. By comparison, Eric was an Adonis. He was six foot three and built like a rugby player. He had wide shoulders and a thick neck. He was traditionally good looking and his thick dark hair had tufts of grey that seemed to be there only to make him look more handsome. His appearance alone emasculated Ben. Ben instantly hated him.

“You’ve been here a long time I hear.” Eric said casually.

 “Yep.”

“How do you think the company’s going?”

“Pretty good. I think there’s a few areas that-”

“If you ask me,” Eric interrupted, “I think the company’s in a lot of trouble. It’s a good thing that they brought me in. I’ve got a few ideas to completely turn this whole thing around.”

Eric beamed at Ben for a few seconds before Ben weakly smiled in return. Ben had a bad feeling about Eric. He had been there long enough to see a number of consultants come and go. In his experience, the more self-assured and arrogant the consultant, the more the company backed their ideas. From Erica Garvey’s ‘Continuous Improvement Model’ in 2007 to Stephen Fielding’s ‘Staff Engagement Working Party’ of 2014, Ben had stood by and watched the company pour money and resources into ridiculous plans to improve their business. Most of which lead to little to no improvement in productivity or profit. Ben wasn’t sure what Eric was planning, but he had a feeling that he was likely to fare no better than his predecessors.

PART TWO

“We are going to try a different business model.” Morgan Harrington, the company’s CEO announced to the staff. Morgan was a 68 year old man that didn’t look a day over 90. When he smiled, the wrinkles on his bald head appeared like cracks in a footpath. “We’re hoping that this will improve productivity and the benefits will be felt by not only the company but also by all of you, the employees.”

The room was cramped as all sections were in attendance. Sitting in groups were Accounting, Human Resources, Finance, Sales, Public Relations, Legal and Administration. The three hundred-odd staff eagerly watched the stage upon which the corporate staff were seated. In the middle sat Eric. Ben thought he looked particularly smug. He smiled broadly and Ben figured that he was behind the restructure. The CEO invited Eric to elaborate on the changes.

“Hello everybody. Firstly, let me assure you that this plan is designed to help all of you.”

Ben let out an audible sigh that was noticed by a few of his colleagues. He transitioned the sigh into a yawn to try and disguise it. The people around him turned their attention back to the stage.

“We are looking to create a new Corporate Team that will have final say on major issues for the company. Each of your sections will be represented on the team and you decide who represents you. The team will have final say on high level acquisitions, content marketing and stakeholder engagement. By helping pick the team, you will all have a voice and the company will thrive.”

The people around Ben looked excited and whispered things like “wow” and “oh, good” to each other. Ben felt as if he was the only one that saw what was really happening. The plan sounded similar to Rupert Nixon’s ‘Best Practice’ plan in 2008. It involved the creation of a ‘Corporate Services’ team that turned out to be unnecessary and was quickly scrapped. The whole exercise cost the company a fortune and produced no results.

“We will have nominations for each section representative next month and elections the month after. We are confident that together we can improve the way we do business. The future looks bright for each and every one of us!”

Once the meeting was over everyone returned to their sections. Many of the people in Ben’s section weren’t productive that afternoon, though. They were leaning on partitions and gossiping over who would nominate for elections. The office was abuzz. Ben, however, continued to work fastidiously and ignore the chatter. He was working on a formula to keep expenses down on corporate assets that his manager would likely steal and take credit for. Someone interrupted Ben to ask who he thought would nominate. In response, he shrugged.

PART THREE

Ben married his university girlfriend almost two years after he started working for the company. Her name was Linda and she was a handsome woman who was ready to tell Ben exactly what he should do at any given point. Ben didn’t mind, though. He liked assertive women and was never confused about where he stood. However, this turned out to be a bad thing when they struggled to produce a child. Linda constantly told Ben that his sperm was no good and he began to withdraw. He stayed at work late most nights to avoid going home. After eighteen months of marriage, Linda moved out. Ben, whilst sad it was over, was relieved that he didn’t have to be the one to end the relationship.

Two contenders came forward in the accounting section as possible nominees. One was Martin Rydgedale, the oldest serving member of the team. Martin had been in accounting for 17 years and was much loved and respected among the team. The other was Eleanor Young, an early-thirties up-and-comer with a modern wardrobe and professional demeanour. She represented the new guard of the company, whereas Martin represented the traditional, family values of the company and had been around since the boys’ club days of the 1990s. Right from the onset, it appeared to Ben that it was going to be a ‘two horse race’ and one of the two would eventually get the win.

Martin emerged as a nominee within days of the meeting. He began his plan by speaking with older members of staff, one at a time. Ben noticed that he was constantly moving from pod to pod in the office and exchanging pleasantries with staff members. He carefully selected which pods he entered, avoiding the mostly young and female western wing of the office. He started in the eastern corner, sometimes referred to as the ‘vegie patch’ by the younger staff, which housed the oldest staff. He moved into the centre of the office, which was a true blend of young and old, male and female. He could often be heard starting sentences with ‘If I were elected…’ and his intentions were thinly veiled. Martin believed in repaying loyalty and the importance of strong leadership. Many of his talks were about increasing bonus pay for long serving staff and section managers.

The western wing clearly viewed Eleanor as a leader. The day following Eric’s announcement, Ben witnessed someone ask her if she would nominate. She shrugged and was coy on the idea, not writing it off but certainly not committing either. Within a few days, her momentum had grown and her coyness was gone. She started giving group talks on the western wing which would attract some from the centre section. Eleanor strongly believed in reward for hard work. Her speeches often touched on increases to performance pay across all levels and additional overtime allowances.

Meanwhile, Ben continued to keep his head down and do his work. He sat in the centre section, nearer the western wing than the vegie patch. He heard some of Eleanor’s speeches and thought she had some good points but he didn’t get involved. He decided that he would not participate in the restructure at all and, when the company realised its mistake, he had complete deniability. He tried to raise his concerns with a few managers but they looked at him in disbelief when he did. One manager told him that she could see no negatives in a business model where all of the staff have a say in affairs.

Nomination day came and went with no surprises. When Eric appeared in the office and asked for nominees, Eleanor moved first. A lot of people smiled and a few clapped lightly as she announced her nomination. Martin then stood and slowly approached Eric, even finding time to stop and shake a few hands during his twenty metre walk. His announcement as a nominee was met with another light spattering of applause. Eric looked incredibly pleased with himself as he announced that the accounting section had two nominees for the elections. The staff cheered and applauded loudly and excitedly, except for ‘Miserable Ben’ (as some of the office had started calling him). He ignored the process, sitting with his back to the crowd, working through a pile of A29s that needed processing. Ben hated processing A29s, but he enjoyed them more than watching Eric work the crowd.

A list of nominees was posted in the staff cafeteria the next day and the ‘caf’ was abuzz. Among the main topics of discussion were Renate Barrera’s lack of nomination in HR and Paul Kenney’s surprise nomination in Legal. When staff from other sections had payroll or leave entitlement questions they all knew to ring Renate, because she was the only one that knew what she was doing. Many assumed Renate would be the first nominee in her section. Paul Kenney had only been with the company a few months and he was openly arrogant but incredibly bright. Few believed he would put his name forward as a nominee. Some described him as a ‘dark horse’ in his section. These topics were discussed at length as Ben ate his chicken, cheese and lettuce sandwich without interrupting or participating. He regretted not asking for mayonnaise, as the sandwich was rather dry.

PART FOUR

Ben had only had one serious relationship since Linda. Rachael Mathieson started as a graduate in Accounting a few months after Linda moved out. Ben and Rachael instantly hit it off. Both were timid and had a passion for accounting practices. While Ben had never pursued an office romance, he had never been completely opposed to the idea of one. He knew that people often spoke badly of them but he really liked Rachael and he couldn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t pursue her. The relationship went well for the first year; right up until Rachael got promoted into a Section Manager position. Needless to say, Ben didn’t like having to report to Rachael. Even still, he didn’t end the relationship. Much like with Linda, he just withdrew until Rachael called it off. She told Ben that he needed to have more ambition. He shrugged. Soon after their breakup she left the company.

An interesting phenomenon occurred following the nominees being announced that nobody, not even Eric, could have predicted. Firstly, the nominees for all of the sections started to sit together at meetings and lunch breaks. They seemed somehow elevated from the rest of the staff. This was strange but the real phenomenon occurred when the collection of nominees started to break into smaller factions. During the discussions between the nominees, like minded individuals started to congregate and, in some cases they even arranged to meet outside of work hours to discuss strategies. The groups started to get bigger and soon most of the nominees had split into two groups. Accounting represented the split perfectly. Martin and six of the other nominees (mostly older males) met regularly to discuss election strategies. Eleanor and six of the other nominees (mostly younger with a balance of male/female) did the same. The remaining five candidates tended to stick to themselves.

Martin’s group was concerned with ensuring productivity was the highest it could be, with little thought to the effect on lower level staff. They wanted pay rises and ongoing retirement benefits for corporate staff and elected officials. They were most appealing to upper managers and corporate staff. Eleanor’s group was more concerned with the rights of the lower level staff. They made increased overtime payments and leave entitlements for all staff a priority for their campaign. They appealed to the lower level staff members which, in election terms, accounted for almost 40% of the voters. They had a better base than Martin’s group but they would struggle to win over the swinging voters. The swinging voters tended to be middle managers that wouldn’t feel the full benefits of Martin’s team’s policies but would feel some.

The remaining five candidates targeted individual ideas and groups in their sections making it clear that they only had the interest of their own section at heart. Some, most notably Julianne Kingston in PR, openly criticised the other candidates for joining the factions and not concentrating section’s needs. Her strategy was to create a list of PR specific election promises that her opponents could not match, as they went against the overall goals of their faction. Julianne’s popularity grew quickly and both Martin’s group and Eleanor’s group began to consider ways to defeat her. A number of confidential documents were leaked among the staff about Julianne’s surprisingly high bonuses over the previous years. To go along with this, a rumour was circulated about her having a relationship with a member of the corporate staff. Her integrity was in question and the stress eventually got to Julianne. She withdrew her nomination. The groups had won.

Every day, Ben would find new posters being put up around the office by the two groups. Martin’s team’s posters were no-nonsense designs with headshots of the candidates, yellow backgrounds and writing about them in Times New Roman font only. The nominees started wearing yellow ties and the staff started calling the group ‘The Yellows’. Eleanor’s group’s posters had pictures of the candidates that were more animated; a candidate sitting at a computer or shaking hands with staff members while the arms of their shirts were rolled up. The images added to their ‘working class’ image and they used fonts like Calibri and Arial to look fresher and newer than the Yellows. Their all-important background colour, which was selected by a four to three majority was purple. People started asking Ben if he was voting yellow or purple. He avoided their questions.

Each morning, Ben would notice more people wearing touches of yellow or purple around the office. He removed anything remotely resembling either colour from his workwear at home so as to not accidently support one of the groups. He was still in disbelief about how the restructure was occurring. The election and campaign process was distracting everybody from their work and output was at an all-time low. The corporate staff believed the drop in output would be more than made up for once the elected officials took their seats and the model was in place. They believed that they were on the brink of a business revolution that would spread to other corporations and they would be the benchmark. Ben thought they were dickheads.

PART FIVE

The buzz around the offices on Election Day was electric. Barely a phone call was answered or made in the morning leading up to the 10am opening of the polls. Ben continued to work. He didn’t attend the gatherings on the west or east side of the office as Martin and Eleanor made their final speeches. Both sides of the office applauded and cheered their nominee. At 10am, the office emptied quickly. Everybody, except Ben, was off to cast their vote. If voting wasn’t compulsory, Ben wouldn’t have left the office but eventually he made his way to the fourth floor, which was now serving as the makeshift electoral office.

Ben had to wait in line and declined the yellow and purple brochures that he was offered. He was sick of both groups and had no intention of voting properly. When he eventually had his name ticked off and entered the poll booth, rather than writing the traditional ‘1’ and ‘2’, he wrote an ‘F’ next to Martin’s name and a ‘U’ next to Eleanor’s. His childish act of defiance made him smile. It was his first smile at work for a while. He dropped his ballot card in the box on the way out of the room and returned to work. Very little was achieved in the afternoon as most of the staff continued to speculate about the results, which would be announced the next morning. Ben worked hard that afternoon, though.

The next morning the staff were back on level four. A silence befell the room as Eric took the microphone. Ben wasn’t really listening as he was thinking about what he should have for lunch. The previous day he had gone to a Vietnamese restaurant around the corner. He really enjoyed it, but was unsure if he should go two days in a row or if that was a bit much. His attention was grabbed as the result for Accounting was announced. Eleanor had won. Ben looked over at her, as she smiled broadly and shook hands with the people around her. She stood and waved to the masses. The other results were announced and all of the electees took the stage. Three were clearly in the yellows, three were in the purples and one wasn’t in either.

PART SIX

Ben knew that there were other jobs out there for him, but he felt a strange loyalty to the company. Then again, perhaps it was more about his laziness in applying for other jobs. He wasn’t sure. Perhaps it was his fear of having to make a choice. Or maybe his fear of rejection. In any event, he had almost never considered leaving. A veteran had told him just after he started that if the company got its hooks into him, he would never leave. The veteran was an angry old man that went out on stress leave not long after that conversation and never came back.

An office was set up on the ninth floor for the elected group to meet. Their first meeting would be in ten days and they would have a number of issues to discuss and decide upon. The one person elected that did not belong to either group was Francis Reynolds from Sales. Francis was an independent man and no one was surprised to see him not join one of the major groups. He had over 30 years’ experience with the company and had seen many different restructures and business models in his time. After the election, the groups came for him. He was bombarded by acts of kindness from the two groups. He received congratulation cards and visits from members of the two groups but he didn’t budge. Francis had no intention of siding with either group and knew the significance of his position. He had the balance of power on the Corporate Elect (as they were now called).

The first meeting of the Corporate Elect was to be held in front of a viewing gallery of employees. Eric thought this was essential, so as to allow the staff to watch their elected officials at work. A portion of the Accounting section were selected to join the gallery and, much to his disappointment, Ben’s team was included. He watched as the elected group took a seat around the long, mahogany table. Eric, who was to act as mediator for the group, sat at one end and began the proceedings.

The first topic of discussion was overtime allowance rates and the showboating immediately began. Eleanor was a guilty party as she stood and went into a grandstanding speech about the yellows not valuing the workers. Ben thought she looked comical as she increased her intensity as light cheers came from the viewing gallery. A yellow, Walter Huntington from Administration, gave a scathing rebuttal about how the purples seem to think that money grows on trees and have no concept of how the company must be run. Other parts of the viewing gallery applauded his efforts. Eric tried to keep things on task but it took an unnecessarily long time for votes to be taken. Three votes for the higher rate and four for the lower rate. Francis Reynolds’ vote was the decider.

A few more votes were taken and some even managed to get seven in favour. No major surprises were found in the results. Ben felt that all of the decisions could have been better decided by a board without group loyalties or fear of public opinion. The others around him seemed pleased, though. He heard someone say that they felt that they had a voice on the big decisions now. At this point Ben realised that this was not going to go away like the other stupid ideas that the company had tried. The people had been conned into believing in a flawed system. When Ben got back to his floor, he gave his manager his two weeks’ notice.

PART SEVEN

Eric conducted Ben’s exit interview personally. He was straight to the point when Ben sat across from him.

“Why are you leaving, Ben?” He asked.

Ben paused for a moment. He knew this was his chance to let it all out but he wasn’t sure if he should. He took a deep breath through his nose, held it for a few seconds and then released. Then he unleashed.

“I’ll tell you why. The Corporate Elect idea is ridiculous. You have a bunch of people making the biggest decisions for the company and they got there on popularity, rather than on qualifications. You’ve got two groups that vote in the interest of their own group only, and you’ve got one guy that has the balance of power. He might as well be there on his own. He could sit up there and make decisions each day and we’d get the same results. It doesn’t make any sense. The whole thing has been a giant distraction and waste of time. It’s no wonder productivity and profits are so low. It’s only going to get worse.”

A tense silence of about 15 seconds followed. Eric’s lips were pursed as if he wanted to reply but he couldn’t get the words out. Ben found his silence more unnerving than if he had been yelling at him.

“I’ll see you out.” Was all Eric said.

The two men walked to an exit. Ben stepped clear of the door and turned and looked at Eric. He looked mad and Ben couldn’t think of anything to say so he turned and continued the walk to his car. When he was out of earshot Eric began to close the door.

“Fucking communist.” Eric muttered as he slammed the door.