Frank finally got a pay increase after the company ran out of excuses for not giving one. They had used the Argentinean collapse, Russian debt crisis, September 11th, Enron, Worldcom and the spectacular bursting of the dot com bubble as a reason for not paying their staff the market rates already. All these events coincidently happened towards the end of the year when salary increases were being decided.
But this particular year the world was quiet. While the mandarins in New York were scrambling around for excuses to cut costs, they were hampered by the CEO telling all who would listen that times had never been better and that the company was awash with cash. Unfortunately for the mandarins, the CEO’s complex bonus arrangement was dependent on a high share price. He pulled $100m the previous year but the board had rather cruelly decided that most of it would be in share options. These were only going to be worth anything if the share price went up and the best way to achieve this was to report massive and entirely fictitious profits. They crept up each quarter so that by year end the company was report ably making more money than the GDP of Belgium. It didn’t con the markets of course who saw right through the numbers game the CEO was playing but it made it harder for the company to pretend to its own staff that times were tough.
Not that this was beyond the hypocrisy of head office who started spinning a yarn about how building costs for the new corporate centre in Dublin were way beyond budget and how this would have an impact on local pay rises. This was ironic considering the company normally said that global results were what mattered. Frank hadn’t been around for long but he was quickly learning not to believe a word the company told him.
He used the extra money in his monthly pay to move out of the student flat in Ranelagh he’d been sharing with three mates from college and found a new place along the river. The housing boom was just kicking off and tax breaks encouraged builders to erect glass cages along the quay in the part of town that people had only ventured to before to buy drugs or to negotiate the re-purchase of their car radio. Frank sub-let the spare room to a young Spanish girl who was part of the initial wave of immigration into Ireland’s fledging economy and she fed him paella while he fed her increasingly lustful stares.
From his living room he watched the new corporate headquarters taking shape across the river, like a glass and steel monument to the new Ireland. He wondered where his desk would be and if it would be river facing. That way he could watch Monica as she wandered around their apartment even when he was at work.
Given his proximity to the new building, Eimear had asked him to represent the team on an early inspection and to report back. It was an afternoon off work, so he jumped at the chance and he joined four others in the first trip across the river and into the heart of the International Financial Services Centre. They were met at the half finished reception area by a girl who introduced herself as an ergonomic engineer, which to Frank sounded like an Engineering job for people who didn’t like Engineering. She showed them round a prototype of what the internal space would eventually look like. To Frank and the others it looked space age, compared to the 1960’s slum that they were currently crammed into. Desks that curved around your body, soft lighting and flat computer screens. Best of all, it had air-conditioning, a concept that was just arriving in Ireland along with hot stone massages and foccacia bread.
Frank reported back enthusiastically and the other staff members hung on his every word as though he was a Columbus who had witnessed the new world. When the move finally happened, he was the unofficial leader, showing people how the chilled water dispenser in the kitchen worked and where the best place was to sit if you wanted to see the skimpedly dressed girls from cash processing descend the stairs.
When they had all moved in, the big boss came over from New York to inspect the newest addition to his empire. He did a tour of each floor like some General inspecting soldiers at the front. Then he called all the staff into the atrium and gave what he thought was a motivating speech. He talked about how Dublin had 50% turnover the previous year and how he was determined to stem this. He said loyalty was the most important thing in business and that together we could make the company great. Frank sniggered and Eimear had to nudge him. She knew the guy from New York was talking bullshit, that he would happily sack them all tomorrow if the need arose. But she also knew that this was a game and you had to nod your head and play along. Pretty soon he’d be in First Class on his way back to New York and they could get back to normal.
The following Monday, everyone turned up at work to find that their new flat screens had disappeared to be replaced by old fashioned deep backed monitors. Suddenly the ergonomically designed desks weren’t so comfortable as the curvature brought your body within 10 centimetres’ of the computer screen. The systems manager was embarrassed. He’d spent all weekend unplugging the new screens and replacing them with these technological dinosaurs. The boss had sent an email from the Delta business lounge in Dublin airport. His traders in New York didn’t have flat screens, so he was damned if a bunch of Micks in the back office of back offices would have them. He wouldn’t listen to arguments that the screens were on a three year lease and it would cost more money to send them back than would be saved by replacing them. Money wasn’t the point; it was all about letting off-shore centres know where they stood in the greater lexicon of the corporate world.
Two weeks later another email arrived. The big boss had left to take up a position with the company’s biggest competitor. Frank read the news on his new but second hand monstrosity of a monitor. He looked up the dictionary and saw that loyalty was “faithful adherence to a leader.” It didn’t say anything about the leader’s loyalty to his staff. It was a lesson that would stay with Frank for as long as the clapped out monitors.
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