The Knowledge Stone (37 page)

There were a few papers to sign and a form for an ID card to fill out. Then Margarite asked Marie to take Jana to HR – this turned out to be “Human Resources” – where she was photographed and received one of these wonderful plastic-covered ID cards on a chain. She was surprised to see it was the same colour as Marie’s card. When she queried this, she was absolutely delighted when Marie replied: ‘My ID is the same as yours because you’re the same grade as me.’

‘I thought you were someone really important,’ Jana gasped.

‘Wish I was!’ smiled Marie.

On returning to the DC General Office, Margarite took Jana to a small desk. ‘This is your desk, Jana. This is where you will work; here’s the key to the drawer. I will give you the work you need to do every day. If you have any queries, come and see me, although you can also ask any of the other staff here. You’re all the same grade in here but sometimes staff are given special positions of responsibility, as you will soon find out. For the time being, I’d like you to read the contents of these folders, which will show you the structure of DC and how it fits with the rest of the organisation. These are things you need to know in order to do your job well.’

Jana sat at “her” desk, in that peculiar spirit of euphoria and strangeness that all new employees experience, reading and re-reading the first page of the first document in the folder. Just at the moment, she felt she had lost the ability to read! She read the words, understood them and then lost their meaning as her mind cartwheeled to a different plane of thought: ‘I must stop this, I must concentrate,’ she thought, fortunately with a certain degree of amusement. Jana knew that the strangeness and the euphoria would soon wear off. ‘This is a bit like my first day at school. I thought I’d finished with such experiences.’

Meanwhile, her colleagues came over to introduce themselves. They seemed very nice, all offering their help if she needed to know about anything. Jana began to feel much more relaxed and settled down seriously to read.

Six months passed. Jana had now become something of an old hand. She knew her way about and she found she could cope with the tasks that Margarite gave her without too much effort. However, she was always careful and meticulous in everything that she did. This was recognised by Margarite and she began to trust Jana with some of the more tricky document assemblies. Every time, Jana completed the work with no problem. Margarite was delighted to see her latest staff member make such good progress and she made sure that Julian knew her views about the girl.

Periodically, Julian himself would assemble a document pack for the most senior people in the firm. He was always very careful to have his work checked by Margarite. At these times, she often found mistakes and omissions in the packs; usually, because she loved Julian, she would just rectify the errors and return the pack to him, assuring him that all was correct. Occasionally, she mentioned an omission to him if the error was particularly serious. At such times, Julian would listen to her gravely and then deny that the error had been his, insisting that someone else must have been responsible. He usually suggested Margarite
herself
was responsible: ‘You must have lost the sheet,’ he would say, looking at her affectionately, ‘you know “nobody’s perfect!” You tell us that often enough.’ Having said this, Julian would refuse to speak any more about the matter but, of course, they both knew where the truth lay.

One morning, Margarite woke with the symptoms of a dreadful cold and felt very ill. It was decided that she should stay at the flat and spend the day in bed. The previous day, Julian had received a request for a senior staff document pack. ‘This is very important, Julian, we’d really appreciate if you would handle it yourself.’

In his usual, casual, slapdash way, he had assembled the pack ready to give to Margarite the following day. Now, as soon as Julian arrived at his office and saw the pack, he panicked. Margarite was off sick – she was not here to check his pack! What would he do? Distinctly wild-eyed, he considered the options. He could send it out unchecked but he knew that was too dangerous. Anyway, it was against DC Rules. A large notice on the wall trumpeted:

“ALL DOCUMENT PACKS MUST BE INDEPENDENTLY CHECKED.”

Suddenly, Julian had a solution. ‘Margarite is always telling me how good that girl Jana is – I’ll get her to check it.’

Jana was surprised and pleased to be asked to check HDC’s pack. ‘Of course, Sir, I’ll do it right away. I’ll have it done within two hours.’

The girl made a start right away. She did not expect to find any errors – after all, he was HDC, wasn’t he? However, her face was soon wreathed in concern as she spotted error after error. The Schedule was wrong. The dates were wrong. The cross-checking was wrong and some of the documents referred to other contracts. Jana was at a loss. What should she do? In the end, she felt she could not embarrass HDC by pointing out all these errors to him, so she decided to rectify them herself. It took her some time but, just before the two-hour deadline, she had printed a new corrected Schedule and re-assembled the pack meticulously.

A gentle knock at HDC’s door. Jana entering shyly and presenting the pack to Julian: ‘Here you are, Sir, everything is ready for your final check.’

‘Thank you, Jana.’ Julian was feeling expansive, ‘are you sure everything is correct?’

‘Yes, Sir, but it still needs your final check.’

‘Leave it there on the desk, Jana, I’ll get around to it later. I’m busy with something else now. Could you ask someone to bring me a coffee?’

‘Yes, Sir. I’ll do it right away.’ Shortly after, Jana appeared again with a steaming cup of coffee which she put down carefully on the desk. Julian, absorbed in some work pretence at his computer terminal, ignored her.

After the girl had left the room, Julian returned to his desk and newspaper and stretched luxuriously in his revolving chair, spinning it around until one arm struck the edge of his desk.

‘Damn!’ he said as some coffee was spilled from the cup. Most of the spillage went into the saucer but some large drops splashed on to the open document pack. Julian sprang to his feet and tried to mop the liquid from the paper before it stained it – a vain attempt, of course. The all-important Schedule was now marked with several ugly brown stains.

‘Damn,’ he said again, wondering what to do. Then, a solution: ‘I know – I can print out another Schedule from my computer file.’ The Schedule – Julian’s first error-filled attempt – was duly printed out, signed by Julian as checked (of course it wasn’t) and incorporated into the pack. Jana’s corrected Schedule was crumpled and tossed into the waste paper bin. The document pack was sent off to the Senior Legal Team.

The next morning, Margarite was sufficiently recovered to come to work. The morning was routine and the General Office was filled with the usual buzz of activity. After lunch, everyone was taken aback when a white-faced Julian appeared. He marched into Margarite’s office and slammed the door behind him.

‘Whatever is wrong, Julian?’

‘Yesterday, I had to raise a Document Pack for the Senior Legal Team,’ Julian grated, ‘you weren’t here so I had to use your wonderful girl Jana to check my pack. I’ve just heard from the Team. Everything went wrong. The Schedule was rubbish and they couldn’t complete the deal. They’re thinking of raising a Formal Complaint against the Department.’

‘Oh, Julian, I’m so sorry everything went wrong. Let me talk to the girl and try to find out what happened; I’ll report to you as soon as I can.’ Julian left without a word and stalked out of the General Office.

‘Jana,’ Margarite called, ‘can you come in please?’ The woman and the girl were closeted together for some time. The question was asked and the story was told. Margarite was not surprised to hear that there had been many errors in the pack that Julian had assembled.

Jana was extremely upset to hear that errors in the pack had been the cause of the failure of an important negotiation. ‘I’m sure everything was right when I gave it to him,’ she wailed, deeply distressed, ‘I was really careful. I checked it all again and again. You know how careful I am.’

‘Jana, did you change the Schedule?’

‘Yes I did. I had to raise a new one. There were so many mistakes …’ The girl’s voice tailed off.

‘Do you have a copy of the schedule you produced?’

‘Yes,’ Jana sobbed, ‘just a minute … I’ll go and get it. It’s in a folder on my desk.’

Margarite cast an expert eye over the schedule. Everything looked to be in order: ‘I don’t see any problem with this,’ she said, ‘leave this with me. Dry your eyes. I have to go and see HDC.’

Julian and Margarite were together in his office. The offending document pack was on the desk. One glance at the top sheet told Margarite that the pack schedule was different from the one in her hand. Furthermore, the pack version was clearly wrong. ‘Julian, this is the schedule she gave you. It’s correct.’ She looked at him quizzically. ‘What happened?’

The man’s face went pale: ‘I don’t know,’ he stammered, ‘I really don’t know …’ Then he brightened: ‘She must have given me the wrong one. That’s it! She must have done a new one and then given me the old one. She’s to blame for this. I’ll tell the Senior Legal Team we have had a full investigation and a member of the staff has been reprimanded. Then, hopefully, they won’t raise a complaint against me … er … I mean, the Department.’

Margarite looked at him coldly: ‘Julian, it wasn’t her fault, it was yours …’

‘Nonsense,’ he cried, ‘she is to blame and she will be reprimanded.’

The reprimand was duly delivered to a shocked and tearful Jana. Margarite was sure she knew what had really happened but her love and loyalty meant that she had to take Julian’s side. Even so, she tried to soften the blow for Jana.

‘Jana, I know you did your very best and that the work you did was good. Sometimes, life in big firms like ours gets very complicated and people get wrongly blamed. But you saved the Department from an Official Compliant.’

However, Jana was inconsolable: ‘Margarite, I didn’t do it. I didn’t make a mistake and I didn’t deserve to be reprimanded.’

Margarite took the girl in her arms: ‘Hush, now. I know you’re a good and reliable worker and I’ll always trust you.’

Now it was months later, early afternoon. A grim-faced Julian stood in the centre of the General Office. Margarite stood behind him. All the staff were there, sitting at their desks. The room was completely quiet, no coughing, no shuffling. Everyone had been transfixed by his words: ‘There has been a catastrophe. The Senior Partner’s Document Pack was incomplete. There was no Formal Contract in the pack. Because of this, the Firm is in default and the mistake will cost a considerable amount of money. Tens of thousands of euro.’

After a long pause, he continued: ‘Someone in DC has caused this error.’ There was another pause while Julian looked directly into each face in the room. Finally, he said: ‘I have already searched my room thoroughly and the Formal Contract sheet is not there. Now, we, all of us, will search this room – starting NOW!’ The last word was a whiplash of sound.

It took ten minutes to find it, standing vertically in thick dust behind a filing cabinet – the filing cabinet nearest to Jana’s desk. It was discovered when one of the young men (Alex) strained at the heavy cabinet and was able to slide it a little way from the wall. Now Julian stood silently, holding the stiff sheet of paper with one finger and thumb while once again looking at each of his staff in turn. Finally, he turned on his heel and walked out of the room, growling: ‘Margarite, come with me, please.’

Two armless upright chairs were set in front of Julian’s desk, about a metre apart. He indicated that Jana should sit on one of them. He then reopened the office door and set the “DO NOT DISTURB” sign before returning to sit on the other chair, turning it so that it was at right angles to hers. (Julian had been impressed by an article he had read about staff contact techniques; an important recommendation was: “Do not speak to your staff across a desk. This is negative and suggests aggressive confrontation.”) Nevertheless, his face was grave and unfriendly as he looked at the trembling girl: ‘I take it you know why you are here?’

‘Yes, Sir.’ A tiny whisper.

‘You were the Base Coordinator yesterday, is that right?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Can you explain to me how the Formal Contract Document came to be behind the filing cabinet nearest your desk?’

‘No, Sir.’ The girl’s voice was filled with hopelessness. A lengthening pause. Then: ‘Sir, I am sure the Contract was in the Pack when I delivered it to you. It was just below the Schedule and I can remember seeing the margins of the paper.’ At last, a slightly more spirited voice.

He sighed deeply, then he spoke in a harsh voice, his eyes boring into hers: ‘Listen, Young Lady, if the Formal Contract sheet had been there it would have gone with the Pack to the Senior Partner and the Firm would have signed the contract with the client. And we would not be in this mess. You see that, don’t you?’

Numb, she did not reply. ‘Don’t you?’ His voice loud and sharp. The girl jumped in fright.

‘Yes, Sir.’ The man sighed again. Now he spoke in clipped tones. ‘You give me no choice. I will refer you to HR for immediate dismissal.’

The girl was frozen in horror and then she started to weep bitterly: ‘Please don’t,’ she sobbed, ‘please give me another chance.’ Then, after a pause: ‘Please, Sir, could you not discipline me yourself?’

The man smiled sardonically: ‘You mean I should smack your wrist and say you’re a naughty girl? I’m sorry but I don’t think I can do that. It’s not so long ago that I had to reprimand you for another mistake, is it? You were warned then about the next time.’ The man sat back in his seat, indicating that the situation was hopeless and that the interview was drawing to a close.

The girl sat completely still, a small fragile creature, large eyes locked to his but now unseeing. Behind those eyes, her thoughts were a raging torrent, conceiving and rejecting a myriad of hopeless courses of action. Suddenly, her memory of lovingly-read Bible stories provided a joyful solution. She would offer herself as a sacrifice. She would accept the penance and he would then grant her mercy!