It could be a long, anxious summer.
No, I’m not referring to the World Cup, though no doubt the tournament
will throw the usual heart-stopping moments at us. We’ll be led up the
garden path of hope once more, but will end up collapsing in the fetid
compost heap of failure, just short of those roses. It’s the English
way.
No, it was something that happened the other day. Tuesday of this week.
We had a couple of our silvery-tongued American bosses over to address
the troops. Give us a bit of encouragement. Or so I thought.
The Sales Supremo began by asking: “Who knows what ‘pontificate’
means…..?” No one else seemed keen to volunteer an answer, so I
half-raised my hand. “Er, well, to express your opinions in a rather
pompous manner”, I said.
The SS looked at me quizzically. He repeated: “Pompous…? Pompous?”
Then he shook his head slowly as if feeling rather sorry for me. “I
don’t think so, Andy. Well I sure hope not, because I have been
described as pontificating now and then. No. No, it means to talk a
lot, to be somewhat long-winded. Well today, I am not going to
pontificate.”
He droned on for a few moments, generating a series of bizarre
sentences, each more extraordinary than the one that went before. One
was so wild that I had to write it down. “Like a bat out of the
Dickens, the wave washed over us in Q1…”
Let’s try that one again, in case you missed it. “Like a
bat out of the Dickens, the wave washed over us in Q1”.
What could this mean? I resolved to contact John Prescott to seek a
translation. This daydream was interrupted by something altogether more
comprehensible. “For these reasons, we are here today to announce that
we will be making some redundancies here in the UK. I’ll now hand you
over to the Director of HR who will explain more”.
She probably did explain more, but I doubt if any of us heard much of
what she said. Something about 4 or 5 people leaving (out of a team of
12), and individual meetings to be held after lunch.
The meeting finished; we returned to our desks. The first thing I did
was to click on my link for the Merriam-Webster
Online Dictionary, and tapped in p-o-n-t-i-f-i-c-a-t-e.
It said: To speak or express opinions in a pompous or
dogmatic way.
Pompous, yes. I was right. Stick that in yer Yankee pipe and smoke it.
Lunchtime dragged over 2 or 3 hours as our small team broke into groups
of two or three. Some in the kitchen, some in the lobby, some outside.
The women dabbed their eyes; the men stared at their shoes. We swapped
around from time to time. Sometimes one of us would go off to stand
alone somewhere. The conversations and the thoughts were recycled a
hundred times. “I’m bound to go”. “No, no, they’ll definitely want you
to stay. It’s me who’s the obvious candidate.” I
could think of a good reason for keeping everyone, including myself,
and a good reason for getting rid of them. Including myself.
Eventually, at around 2 o’clock, the meetings began. The first
candidate for the gallows emerged with a faint smile. The second
appeared at last, but ran off up the corridor, weeping.
My turn came.
We sat facing each other alongside a table. This is de rigeur
these days for managers who want to be thought approachable.
She began to speak in that luxuriant New England lilt. I can recall
little of what was said, though a few sentences in, she got to the
point: “You’ll be wanting to know exactly what this means for you, so
let me tell you now. [PAUSE] Your name has been chosen to go on the
provisional list for those who are to be made redundant.”
Through the window behind her, I watch two baby rabbits playing in the
sunlit flower bed. Above them, the eucalyptus tree shivers in the
gentle breeze.
