Tales of the Absurd
By: DL
(Copyright 2007 by the Author)

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...
dl@tickiestories.us
 

2

Strange Bedfellows

If you've read my story or the introduction to these tales you will be aware of the fact that 'My Friend' is in fact a thinly-veiled ironical allusion to the Production Director of the company, who is far from being any friend of mine! Our mutual antipathy stems from several facts: the fact that I'm smarter than he is being the easiest to explain.

But back in 1984, the main reason for it was that when the company started, Ivan [The Boss] had been very 'hands on'; but as it flourished and grew, he was less able to be so. My Friend is one of those ever-present corporate animals, the Empire-builder! And he resented the fact that I had managed to survive his colonial expansionism: being chosen to ride herd on Sally and the company's large capital investment meant that I continued to enjoy direct access to The Boss whereas everyone else – including Rick – had found themselves absorbed into My Friend's empire.

Thus as we moved into our sixth year of corporate existence, the ruling management group consisted of Ivan, myself and My Friend – and it bothered him even then that because of the importance of the network, I was almost by default his equal and didn't have to defer to him. I was well aware of My Friend's animosity and the fact that he lost no chance to show me in a bad light whenever he could. To say that we had an uneasy relationship would be very much an understatement: it was more like armed neutrality.

It didn't help matters that whilst both he and I could see that our respective crafts were heading for industrial extinction – as I type both graphic artists [My Friend] and proof-readers [myself] have indeed fallen by the wayside in the printing industry – but I had a lifeline to survival, in the network which represented our corporate future!

So, having spelt out the dynamic that governed the relationship between My Friend and I [or lack of it, LOL], to today's tale.

One of the things that we'd found in our corporate life thus far was the difficulty of coping with success. The Boss and the chairman had set out to create a company that enjoyed a reputation for excellence. And we'd succeeded beyond a shadow of a doubt; but success brought more work and with it the concomitant problems that go with an ever-growing workload [Ivan was incapable of turning work away!]

We'd managed to provide a service that the publishing industry soon accepted as being above the norm and that they were prepared to pay a premium price for. And therein lay the seat of our problem – well, that and Ivan's inability to say 'No' to another job even if we were sinking fast under an avalanche of work!

Thus we'd soon found that the volume of work meant we couldn't manage to get it all done to coincide with our daily delivery service to London [home of the majority of the British publishing industry]. In an effort to stop lateness affecting our reputation for excellence we added another van driver and ran two vans a day to London. Unfortunately the volume of work kept increasing and we were perpetually holding the second van back later and later to try and get more work on it.

This tactic soon enough led to us screwing up – the van was so late leaving that nothing got delivered as all the offices had shut before he got there! Ivan called a meeting of the ruling triumvirate [and also included Liz] to discuss the situation. Despite thrashing the problem over, we didn't really get anywhere – what no one could concede was a formula for deciding when the van really had to leave [there was always just one more job that absolutely had to go!]

Soon enough we'd screwed it badly enough again for Ivan to be in a really foul mood – we'd managed three straight days with the van so late leaving that less than half the work got delivered [and what pushed him over the edge was the very uptight conversation with a client whose job should have been delivered on the Tuesday but was amongst those that didn't make it – and it also failed to be delivered on Wednesday!]

Following the irate and bad-tempered call from our client, Ivan called Stephen and I at home [it was late afternoon] and told us both about his phone call and that he would be in early tomorrow [Thursday] and he wanted to see us both at 9.00 a.m. sharp in the boardroom. To say that he was in a bad mood would not be untrue: we compared notes later [itself unusual enough to be worth noting!] and agreed that neither of us had ever got so many bad vibes before!

Anyway, after Ivan's call to us, My Friend did the unthinkable: he called me and suggested we'd better meet back at work for an emergency pow-wow. I, like him, felt that we were both headed for a major bollicking on the morrow and thus we agreed in the interests of our separate desires for self-preservation to mutually suspend hostilities and work together to secure our joint survival!

Consequently after supper that evening I returned to work and instead of getting on with my mountain of work [yes, I was over-worked back then as well]; I joined My Friend in the boardroom for a pre-emptive strategy session. This was necessary because Ivan's abrupt summons had neglected to take any account of our van times [10:00 and 14:00], and both of us would be up to our eyeballs trying to get everything done for them. In an ideal world we should have tactfully [LOL] made Ivan aware that bollicking us in those precious hours whilst we tried to get everything squared away for the vans might be counterproductive. Once our little session was convened, we briefly discussed calling Ivan and rescheduling our appointment: neither of us wanted any part of that chore, such had been his manner when summoning us.

And, as previously noted above about there usually being complications, there was an added little twist! On Thursday we were supposed to be delivering a set of proofs for an embargoed [i.e. it was confidential] VIP job, which had to be there for 9:00 a.m. [apparently the publisher's Managing and Commissioning Editors – two very big cheeses! – were meeting the VIP author on his brief in-transit flit through the country!]

It had originally been our plan to get the job done and away on an early van [moving the 10:00 a.m. one forward] at 7:00 a.m. In view of the unexpected meeting that Ivan had now scheduled and which neither of us had the balls to try moving, we decided that we'd take no chances and would get it finished up that evening and picked up by our retained emergency bike courier company for a very early start and guaranteed pre-9:00 a.m. delivery. We reviewed the other work due for despatch and agreed between us what was possible and what was probably unattainable; and we agreed to direct our efforts to achieving a smooth achievement of the newly re-prioritised despatch list.

We parted – unusually for us – amicably, and went our separate ways to put the Master Plan into operation. We had no problem with getting the VIP job done, proofed, packed and had the bike company collect the package. My Friend and I both made sure that the biker had indeed been carefully briefed on the importance of the parcel being delivered before 9:00 a.m. the following day by his despatch. We even managed between us to ensure that the great majority of the scheduled work for the vans the next day was done before we both left at just gone 4:00 a.m. on Thursday morning.

We both headed off, for a brief [LOL, and fitful] sleep and both of us were back at work by 8:30 a.m. later that morning. We both got coffees and adjourned to the production office to bring Liz up to speed on the calamities of yesterday's failed deliveries, today's revised despatch list and Ivan's summons for a 9:00 a.m. meeting with us both in the boardroom.

Liz, it has to be said, was more than a little surprised to see us both walk into the office together, both grasping cups of coffee! She was unhappy when My Friend outlined the failed deliveries from yesterday, and incensed when he revealed the revised priority list he and I had agreed on last night. Fortunately for us, Liz's wrath was suspended when My Friend managed to interrupt her angry tirade of protest about the new list of deliveries long enough to reveal that the reason we were both there was that we'd been summoned to a 9:00 a.m. meeting with Ivan in the boardroom.

The fact that Ivan had called such a meeting – let alone for such a time – was enough to suspend Liz's outraged hostility to our meddling with the scheduled deliveries. She sat and listened as we each patiently explained the manner of the summons and Ivan's general demeanour whilst delivering it. By the time we had both recounted all the gory details – and it seemed as if we'd both been equally abused by Ivan during our respective calls – Liz's objections and protests had been shelved: she agreed with us that from a corporate perspective it looked as if Armageddon was about to happen!

All three of us went back to my office to check on how the remaining things for the day were going and were consequently in position to observe Ivan's Jaguar arrive at an unprecedented 8:50 a.m. Such was our shock at seeing it actually appear, that none of us went to the window to watch Ivan exit his car and enter the building [none of us wanted to be observed by him, watching out for him].

Anyway, My Friend and I recognising that it looked like there wasn't going to be any last-minute reprieve, straightened ourselves up and headed for the ground floor and our rendezvous with an unwonted camaraderie: hence the title of this tale! We went to The Boss's office, and found him grim-facedly unpacking his briefcase; he looked up as we stood in his doorway and simply waved us in. Both of us noted the absence of any form of greeting – unusual from a man who was usually punctiliously polite.

And here, my friends [lol, note the lack of capitalisation!], was when fate finally decided that we needed a break. Ivan hadn't sat down behind his desk, although he'd poured himself a glass of Buxton Mineral Water after waving us into his office, and thus we dutifully remained standing as well. We were unaware that the first thing Ivan had done upon entering his office was to phone Liz and tell her that she was to ensure that he wasn't disturbed under any circumstances until he advised her otherwise [sounds simple enough doesn't it, but wait!]

Anyway, what would have happened next we'll never know, because before The Boss could indicate that we should adjourn to the boardroom [the most likely option] the phone started to ring. Ivan glared at it furiously, and both My Friend and I noted his far from normal state of mind as evidenced by his glare as we exchanged glances: it wasn't looking good. Ivan, having found that glaring at the phone had no effect, picked it up and viciously slammed it straight back down again.

He started to speak to us – well, he managed to look at us and open his mouth, LOL! – as the phone started ringing once more. An irate Ivan snarled "Oh damn it!" as he snatched up the phone and snarled at the voice on the other end, "I told Liz that I wasn't to be disturbed, now get lost!" before replacing the phone and looking once more at us. I'm pretty sure that My Friend was by now as anxious as I was; things really looked like exceeding our worst expectations!

Again the phone rang before Ivan could get any words out, "Doesn't any one understand what DO NOT DISTURB bloody well means!," Ivan practically screamed down the phone before once more replacing it. He was now breathing heavily and very suffused; I wouldn't have liked to take his blood pressure right at that moment!

Again the phone rang, and we both [I'm fairly sure] noticed the way Ivan tensed and looked prior to snatching it up. We both heard Liz scream at Ivan as he lifted the receiver to his ear "Damn well listen before slamming the phone down!" Ivan couldn't have been off hearing it; and must have realised from her tone and volume that something was up! He DID listen this time and Liz obviously explained what the problem was: she later told us what had been going on – Teresa, the Group Production Director of one of the UK's largest publishers [for whom our VIP job this morning was being typeset] had phoned on the dot of 9:00 a.m.

Now, this might not sound strange to anyone reading this rambling narrative, but trust me when I say that to all of us, Ivan included, this was TROUBLE beyond a shadow of a doubt! [And the reason for our certainty was simply that generally you couldn't make contact with publishers much before 10:30 a.m. – simply because they never got in that early!]

Anyway, My Friend and I stood anxiously in front of the desk, watching him obviously receive a pithy explanation from Liz, and I'm sure we both noted the change in his demeanour as she spoke: his face lost its suffused look and it was replaced by a ghastly kind of pallor! He nodded and said OK, and we realised that he must have agreed to Liz putting someone through to him. Given the brief little entr'acte we'd just witnessed, neither of us was sure this was going to be good [although in some ways, it was very good LOL!] but nothing any of us could have imagined came close to what now transpired!

There was a silence and then The Boss literally jumped as a very unladylike – but obviously female [though, forgive me saying this, Teresa was a very butch lesbian!] – voice screamed a tirade of obscenities at Ivan [it was so loud that he had to hold the receiver at arm's length from his ear] and we had absolutely no trouble in clearly hearing this stream of invective that to use a trite old metaphor 'would have made a longshoreman blush!'

It was very funny – though believe me when I say that I definitely wasn't laughing! – watching Ivan try and hold the phone close enough to be able to interrupt the tirade with "But, Teresa" without being deafened by said tirade! After two or three attempts at doing this subtly, Ivan finally snapped and did something I'd never known him to do before [or since come to that]: he screamed at the top of his voice at the receiver held at arm's length in front of him "LISTEN TO ME!" and was rewarded by an abrupt cessation of the diatribe emanating full volume from it.

There was a stunned silence in the room. Ivan recovered himself first, and in a loud voice [and not trusting the receiver anywhere near his ear!] he said, "Please can you tell me exactly what the problem is?" there was a moment's respite and then Teresa's unmistakably angry voice yelled [well, the volume level if not normal conversational, had diminished more than a few decibels!] "Where the hell's that damned set of proofs you bloody well promised would be here by courier this morning!" [I have omitted out of delicacy the closing descriptive epithet of her remark, LOL: it was definitely very unladylike!]

The Boss was obviously flummoxed by her demand, but My Friend – to give him due credit – had astutely grasped the seat of the problem and he moved over to Ivan's desk and picked up Ivan's other phone without asking permission and dialled Liz's number. As she answered he moved away from Ivan's desk as far as the cord would allow and said: "Can you quickly check with the Couriers that that damned parcel was delivered this morning and where and when – Teresa's going ape about it!" he hung up, and I could see from the grateful look that appeared in Ivan's eyes that he was right on the money. Ivan had meanwhile managed to calm Teresa down to a reasonable level by now –he only had to hold the phone about six inches from his ear, LOL! – and he was anxiously explaining that he was absolutely positive it had been delivered as promised, and his staff were checking even as they spoke, if she would just wait for a few minutes!

The news that someone was obviously anxious enough to be looking into matters seemed to further calm Teresa down and after a couple of sentences that had reverted to an almost normal conversational level – Ivan had to say, "I'm sorry I didn't quite catch that!" LOL – Ivan's other phone rang. My Friend stepped forward and quickly answered it, listened and said, "You're sure about that?" and obviously having received an affirmative, said "OK, thanks!" and hung up, looking at Ivan, and waiting for an opportunity to speak. Ivan managed to say "Hang on Teresa, I may have some news!" and putting his hand over the mouthpiece said "Well?"

My Friend explained that he had got Liz to check with the Courier company and they had radioed the biker and established that it had been delivered at the publisher's main door at just gone 8:00 a.m. and that the commissionaire who actually unlocked the door had signed for it! Ivan took his hand away from the phone and made yet another mistake! "Teresa, the courier delivered it to your …" was all he managed before a full throttle Teresa screamed down the line "Don't you dare bloody well lie to me, no parcel was delivered by courier, I've bloody well checked!" it has to be said that whilst undeniably loud –Ivan winced at first as he was unfortunately holding the receiver to his ear – it at least lacked the stream of profanity that she'd started with!

Ivan was trying once more to interrupt Teresa's monologue about suppliers who couldn't be trusted to get anything right [LOL], and when he finally succeeded in attracting her attention, said "I'm sorry, I should have explained that what I meant by courier was that we were so anxious to ensure nothing went wrong that we had a motorcycle courier company deliver that parcel separately early this morning." We heard a reduced level Teresa say, "So you're saying that it was biked here, not couriered [LOL], wait a minute, oh there's a large box on my desk!" and there was a bang as the receiver was slammed down!

Ivan collapsed into his chair, looking haggard and after resting for a couple of minutes, reached for his glass of water, drinking greedily before turning to My Friend and I to say "Well, what's gone wrong now? What do you two want?" His tone of voice was subdued, but in any event, unspeakingly My Friend and I reached common ground as we both replied "Nothing!" and getting no reaction from Ivan we both departed, breathing a simultaneous sigh of relief as we turned away down the executive corridor, with My Friend muttering, sotto voce as we passed the boardroom "That was a bloody close encounter!" to which I could only nod my head! Ivan had been so shell-shocked that he'd managed another first: he hadn't even flinched when it became obvious that we'd sanctioned spending over £200 on having the package delivered without any reference to him!

Thus we were spared Ivan's wrath as he totally forgot both the fact that he'd made a special effort to arrive early and much more importantly [as both My Friend and I agreed] why he had done so!

As no negative feedback was received, we decided to post another – so now you know; if you want it to stop, you have to let us know!

 

 

Posted: 09/07/07