The 2084 Precept (27 page)

I bought an IHT, had an early lunch in
Shepherds Market, brunch really, and took my time over it. Still
cloudy, still no rain, and so I decided to walk back to the hotel
via Park Lane and the park. I came out of the restaurant, lit a
cigarette and saw the morose-looking guy I bumped into this morning
coming in my direction. I smiled at him, said, 'Sorry about this
morning," but he clearly didn't recognize me, gave me a puzzled nod
and walked on past.

Back at the hotel, I ordered a coffee in the
lounge area, finished the IHT and went up to my room. What a great
day! What a great planet! Another stack of money coming my way,
albeit the year after next. And for virtually zero work, just a bit
of supervision, a bit of pushing, make sure everything stays on
track. And Céline! She'll be here in London soon, this kind of
hotel will amaze her, we're going to have a great time.

Which reminded me, I should send her that
poem. I didn't really want to, it was definitely a weird poem, but
I had little choice. I had promised. And in any case, it might make
her really happy, she might be able to make use of it in that weird
modern poetry class of hers. Not only that, but it had to do with
her other subject, art. So O.K., here goes. I headed the message:
Hi Céline, no apologies, you insisted!

THE MAD ARTIST

There lies my shattered body

Smashed hard across the road,

As if someone with heavy boots

Had trampled on a toad.

An ugly mess, I must confess,

And causing such a jam;

They don't know why I did it

And they don't know who I am.

And so they curse me, nameless one,

It's just their rotten luck;

They're going to have to dig and scrape,

I'm well and truly stuck.

To all the morbid passers-by,

This truly is a gift;

My blood and brains, they look so strange,

An eye has come adrift.

It's floating on a funny stream

Of blue and grey and black;

Into the nearby drain it goes,

Plop! Never to come back.

No doubt, my friends, you wonder why

This ever should have been,

And why I sit up here and gloat

Upon myself, this scene.

The answer is quite simply this:

An artist once was he;

And yet he just could not create

The perfect symmetry.

But now I've done it, there it is,

For all of you to see,

A quite unrivalled masterpiece

And all of it is me.

But even so, it cannot last,

I know it has to go,

So perfect for so brief a time,

This painting here below.

The street will fill with cars and men

And women once again;

And what will there be left of me?

A disappearing stain…………

And I finished with:
Such a romantic and
literary piece!
Mais je t'adore et je pense à toi, ton Peter.
Typed
in the address and sent it before I changed my mind.

Called Fred's assistant, terrible old cow,
and told her I would be in Slough tomorrow morning, could she
please try to arrange for Fred and Charlie to be available for a
short meeting at, say, 9 o'clock? She could, she said. Try that
is.

I made a second call. To Sr. Pujol in
Barcelona. I told him I could probably start in three weeks' time.
If that was how it worked out, it would allow me a week free in
between assignments. A week in Rouen. A great week in Rouen. Or in
Hawaii. Or wherever.

I had the Slough factory meeting this
morning and back to London for the Jeremy meeting at 2 o'clock. In
fact, I would also be in Slough tomorrow and the day after as well,
but I decided to drive it each day—Céline coming, best to stay in
the London hotel.

I drove out of the hotel garage into a dark
day and pouring rain. I drove down the M4 slowly, I don't play
around with rain. I took the Slough turnoff. A small blue Nissan
followed me off the motorway. It also followed me all the way
through to the industrial estate, but it drove on past as I pulled
into Clark's. Come to think of it, I had seen it behind me on the
motorway as well, driving as slowly as I was. Another London guy
with business in Slough today.

It was raining too hard for a cigarette
outside, so I went into the building, said good morning to the guy
at the desk. He looked unhappy, maybe he was a smoker as well,
maybe the rain was the reason why the desk was attended this
morning. Maybe he spends non-rainy days wandering around all over
the place smoking cigarettes. Or maybe he doesn’t. But if I see
that desk unattended again during working hours, I'm going to make
it my business to find out why.

I went to the old cow's office, yes the
meeting was fixed for 9 o'clock. She looked like she wanted to ask
me what my problem was, I was a few minutes early. But she didn't.
If anyone deserves a salary cut, it's her…let's see what is agreed
in this morning's meeting.

I went into the conference room, coffee
already there, poured myself a cup and in came Fred and
Charlie.

"Good morning, Peter," said Fred.

"Good to see you back again," said Charlie.
"Will it be for long?"

"Good morning, folks," I said. "Just for
another two weeks. But you won't have to put up with me every day.
I'll be in and out."

They poured themselves coffee, sat down.

"How was your meeting with Roger yesterday?"
Fred asked.

"Fine. Very good. Friendly as always."

"And what have you got for us this morning?
By the way, Ron and his guys are really into those set-up
reductions. I've never seen him so enthusiastic. He sees big
productivity gains."

"I'm pleased to hear it," I said, "but let's
not forget to make sure we receive the machine by machine progress
reports regularly and on time. Keep the pressure on. And this
morning, we have three items to discuss. The first one is a hairy
one, salary and wage cuts. Then we have purchasing. And then we
just need to confirm our monthly reporting techniques vis-à-vis
Group."

"O.K., let's start with the hairy one," said
Fred.

"The hairy one is the big cost-cutting.
We've done most of the small stuff. But for the heavy, painful
stuff, we shall—like the Japanese, and unlike the Americans—start
at the top. That means the shareholders, in this case United
Fasteners. They will receive no dividends this year, agreed with
Roger and Geoff. It doesn't affect our results of course, but it
sure as hell does our cash flow a lot of good."

Fred and Charlie both nodded. They weren't
worried about United Fasteners, they were worried about what was
coming next.

"Next in line is top management. First of
all, there will be no bonuses for last year's performance.
Secondly, there will be no bonuses for this year's performance
either. As you know, approved bonuses for the prior year are
generally paid in July. This means that it will be more than two
years before the next possible bonus payments can occur, if
approved of course. In addition, you will get no stock options on
United Fasteners shares."

"Not a surprise, Peter," Fred said,
"although we
were
hoping for something if we made this
year's targets. Admittedly it will have been with your assistance,
but we have also done a lot and we will have got rid of over three
million in losses, a tremendous improvement."

"I agree with you, Fred, but for the full
year there will be no profit, or none worth speaking of."

"I can't disagree with that, Peter."

"And now the big one. Salary cuts for
everybody. It starts with top management and the cut we are looking
for here is 15%."

"
What?
" said Charlie in a loud voice.
"That is a vicious slice in my view. Can they do it without our
agreement?"

"If you will allow me, Charlie, I don't at
the moment know whether it can be done without your agreement, I
haven't even seen your contracts. But if you will allow me to say
so, it is not a question of 'they', it is a question of 'we'. One
would be hoping for it to be your own voluntary decision. First of
all to show your readiness for sacrifice until the company becomes
profitable again. Secondly, because we are looking for cuts for
all
employees, and you guys will need to show yourselves
first and foremost as an example. And thirdly, we need to convince
the works council and the employees to accept their cuts, and the
cuts at your level will have to be heavier than theirs. In fact we
want to do this whole thing on a socially acceptable basis."

"Go on, Peter," said Fred.

"Below top management level, we want cuts of
10%, 5% for the next level down, and zero for the lowest wage
earners. However, we will be expecting the latter to agree to work
an extra seven hours per month in lieu."

"Seven hours per month? They'll never agree
to that, Peter. Ask Ron."

"Oh I think they will, Fred," I said. "It's
only twenty minutes per day. It won't kill anybody. In any case, we
now need to discuss how we're going to get them to agree to the
whole thing."

"Well now," said Charlie, "I am all ears on
that one."

"O.K., let me fill in a few details.
Firstly, you and your colleagues will have to work out the salary
and wage levels at which the 10%, 5% and the 7 additional hours
should be applied. Secondly, we should build in an exception clause
for proven hardship cases—to be approved in each individual case by
yourselves of course. Thirdly, we need to document all of this and
meet with the works council. Fast. It would be good if we could
have this done by tomorrow morning and meet with them tomorrow
afternoon. You should inform them verbally that you will be taking
15% cuts and zero bonuses in any case. And also tell them that you
intend to address the whole workforce sometime this week and could
they please arrange it, preferably by stopping work early on the
Friday afternoon. That way, they will have the whole weekend to
cool down and think about it."

"But…" said Charlie.

I interrupted him. "I know, Charlie, I'm
getting there. You see, we have to take huge steps to achieve the
massive improvements in results we are looking for, and these
salary and wage cuts alone will save around one million per year.
So…how do we get them to agree? You, Fred, will be making the
speech to the workforce and my recommendations for that speech
would be to base it on the following major points. I would start by
telling them what last years' losses were and point out that we are
continuing to make losses this year—not untrue on a cumulative
basis to date. Then show them the cuts we want to make, about which
they will already have been informed by the works council. Make
sure they see that you guys are taking bigger cuts than they are,
including zero bonuses, and that the lower earners have to
sacrifice less. And then I would state that the situation has
become so serious that we have 480 jobs available at the lower
rates and no jobs at all at the current rates. Because our
shareholders will possibly close us down. We have to shock them but
we mustn't lie. Closure is not on the agenda, and it is therefore
important to use the word 'possibly'. Which is not a lie, because
anything is possible on this planet, as Toyota keeps telling
us."

"And you think this will work?" asked
Fred.

"Yes. If we shock them enough. Many of them
won't be able to find new jobs in the current environment and they
know it. Also, you may want to mention that we pay over the
national union rates anyway and we believe that this sacrifice is
not only a socially structured one but that it is also within
acceptable limits. A good psychological way to finish would be to
say that, quite simply, we are looking for their cooperation to
help save the company. And to avoid us having to begin reducing
headcount, starting now. And we would be looking for their reply
next week."

"Still difficult, in my view," said
Charlie.

"You may be right, Charlie, but I don't
think so. When you tell them that as soon as we are profitable
again, and that might be next year already, we will at least
reverse the cuts, I think that should swing it."

"And we don't need to mention that the
profits will be based on audited accounts, so the reversal would
effectively be the year after."

"Correct, Charlie, at least for now. Of
course, you might want to do it a bit sooner, Fred, but that's your
call. After all, the permanent benefit is that we will already have
saved some salary and wage costs in the meantime…plus any related
increases that might have been."

"Right," said Fred. "Even so, it's a hell of
a sacrifice, including for us."

"I agree, Fred, although less than you think
after income tax. But I think you will find that if you make next
year's targets, your bonuses and stock options are going to be very
large ones. And it is a momentum which should continue for several
years. We are going to achieve those targets, no sweat. Not a bad
deal at all, in my view."

"No risk for next year maybe, but I don't
know about the year afterwards."

"Well, I will be cooperating with you at
least until the end of next year. Mainly from a distance, so I
won't be bothering you too much. And
free of charge
if we
don't make the targets. As agreed with Roger. And as I never like
to work for no money, we
will
make the targets, believe me.
What's more, we will do it easily. I will be having more
recommendations on the sales and marketing side, for one
thing."

"Nice to hear, Peter, nice to hear," said
Fred. "Right…well…we will need to discuss this with our colleagues
and if there is agreement, we can meet tomorrow with the works
council either in the morning or in the afternoon. I'll let you
know what happens, Peter. And now excuse me please, I'm a bit short
on time this morning…the next subject is purchasing?"