“Does my face look big in this?” asked
Valerie, peering into the new mirror on the staff room wall.
“No, don’t worry. That mirror’s not right,” Rachel reassured her, taking up
position by her side and smoothly circling her mouth with lipstick. “I told Malcolm and he say’s he’ll get
it fixed. I don’t hold up much
hope though. Not the way things
don’t get done round here.”
She snapped the lid back onto her lipstick and wriggled into position on
the sofa. “What we watching then?”
“Insurance – family cover and all that,”
said Valerie. “You in this one
Martin?”
“Nah, don’t think so. I’m not doing any more. It’s shit.”
“No!” Rachel protested. “ Don’t say that. You’re really good at it. You should be on the telly.”
Martin knew she was right and that indeed
he was cut out for far higher levels of media exposure than he currently
enjoyed. But it wasn’t for him to
say so.
“Nah.
It’s shit.”
“What was that one you were in the other
day – No Access Instant String Mortgage or something. Do you know I can’t remember what it’s called. Do you know Valerie?”
“Low String No Payment Random Access…No
Access Low Random Payments…you’ll know Martin. You were in it.”
“Low Access Instant Rate No String Random
Payment Mortgage,” he said casually.
“Let’s you vary your payments in accordance
with your personal circumstances.
Particularly useful for those with high
levels of disposable income who wish to pay off their mortgage ahead of time
thus saving thousands of pounds in interest. Australian idea.
Shit."
“He’s got one of those phonographic
minds. I could never remember that
lot.”
“Don’t worry yourself Valerie love. They can’t expect you to. Not without training. We can’t be expected to remember all
this stuff without proper training.
They can’t just pour it in and expect it to stay there.”
“I wasn’t trained,” said Martin looking
wistfully out of the window.
“Yes but you were in the video.”
“I knew it before I was in the video. I know all the others as well and I
wasn’t in their videos.”
“Yes, well you’ve that kind of mind.”
“What – able to remember things you mean.”
“Yes, lots of things at once.”
“Nothing weird about that,” Martin said
reaching for the TV remote control.
“I’d have thought that most people can do that. Can’t they?”
“So what you saying?”
“Nothing I guess”. He feigned bemused confusion and
activated the TV.
“Leave it Valerie love. Don’t let him get to you. It’s not worth it.”
“I’m not getting at anybody. Just don’t see why it’s weird to have a
brain and be able to remember things with it…”
He was interrupted by the sound of multiple
feet on linoleum, heading up the stairs towards the staff room.
“Ah, good,” said Malcolm the branch manager
as he entered the room and took up position in front of the mirror. “Everybody
here and ready to start. That’s
what I like to see.”
Martin too was liking what he saw. The manager was accompanied by a young
woman – in her late twenties he guessed – whom he twirled round to face his
staff like a manikin in a shop window.
“Some of you might have noticed that we
have someone new with us this evening.”
He looked her up and down as though seeing her for the first time
himself. “It’s always nice to
welcome a stranger to the branch, so let’s give…” His head wavered in front of her face as though looking for
a label. “I’m sorry, I seem …”
“Debbie – Debbs.”
“…Deborah here a good old traditional
Mytholmroyd welcome.”
The staff let out various half-hearted variations
on the hello/hi theme and lapsed back into silence. What was really called for at this moment was some kind of
collective greeting or expression of interest towards the newcomer voiced
through a selected spokesperson.
As this role normally defaulted quite naturally to Martin the others
kept quite. As the seconds ticked
by, however, and the slight pause showed signs of developing into a full blown
awkward silence, a number of them felt compelled to utter their own brief
exclamations on a freelance basis before peering anxiously across to see what
had become of their usual vocal organ.
What they saw, for the first time, was a
Martin incapable of speech. A
Martin wondering vaguely who had just injected six pints of Scrumpy Jack
directly into his bloodstream.
Was spontaneous internal human inebriation a common phenomenon? Who
cared. It was great.
“Like videos?” he asked the apparition
before him, gesturing approximately in the direction of the video player.
Pink lips on tanned, slightly freckled face
break into slight smile. Tight
perms sways slightly to left as right hand makes movement towards right ear
lobe.
“Don’t really know. Suppose so.”
Divine answer. Well thought out.
Nicely delivered.
“I’m in them usually - acting,” said
Martin.
“Yes I thought I recognised your face. Very good. We need people like you.” She needs him. We needs him. Obviously immersed in senior management culture. A ‘company woman’. Respected. Powerful.
Beautiful strategic mind.
Team player. Ambitious. Popular. Outward going.
Sexy.
“Yes Martin is our resident superstar,”
said Malcolm, tapping in on a vein of humour which, like his hair, seemed to
grow thinner every day. Not that
Martin minded. His mind was on
other things.
Large boy friend with Audi TT and jut
jaw. Arran sweater. Big hands. Exciting Friday night escapes to country hideaway with long
drive. Hay loft. Lake. Speedboat.
Water skiing. Wet
suit. Debbie – Debbs in a wet
suit!
“Every branch should have one I suppose,”
continued Malcolm. “Martin’s
ours. Are you in today’s video
Martin?”
“Yes.”
“Good, well I’m sure we’re all looking
forward to seeing you do your thing so let’s move on to the afternoon’s
activities. Oh – I’m almost
forgetting myself – Deborah here works on the special projects team at head
office. What do they call it these
days – 22 TARTs is it or something?”
Despite his inebriated state Martin
couldn’t stifle a burst of hilarity.
“Shut up Martin!”
“21 TITS – Twenty-first century Taskforce
for the Implementation of Tomorrow’s Strategies,” trotted out Martin, watching
Debbie’s face carefully for her reaction to his profound knowledge of the
organisation. He was her kind of
guy. For all she knew he had a
dozen Arran sweaters in his bottom drawer. “There’s twenty-one of them as well, isn’t there Debbie.”
“Couldn’t possibly comment on that.” She stepped away from the mirror and
scanned the room for a suitable seat.
If she noticed Martin attempt to reduce his girth by a full 50% and tap
the sofa between himself and Rachel she didn’t show it.
“Good, well…” The grandiose language was having an unsettling effect upon
the manager. “You know what I
always say, no point in using two words when three are perfectly …
sufficient. Deborah is working on
a number of long term strategic project such as…” he glanced across at her
“…now let me get this right, project 1st
Dimension which involves the changes to branch design that we’ve been lucky
enough to trial.”
Martin glanced around the room to find
someone to swap cynical grins with.
There were no takers. So
far the so-called branch redesign had involved installing a large mirror across
the end of the banking hall, apparently intended to double the number of till
positions available without increasing the overhead. (He’d pointed out through the staff suggestion scheme that it
also doubled the number of waiting customers thus nullifying any improvement in
customer service standards. Two
weeks later a Personal Assistant to one of the twenty-one TITs rang him and
reassured him that the additional customers were actually only reflections so
would not require individual attention).
They’d put a new mirror in the staff room
as well. To encourage staff to
take a greater pride in their appearance, claimed Human Resources. Martin suspected it was to generate the
new staff required to man the extra till positions. Then there was the new enquiries booth interior which they’d
been working on for months. None
of the staff had even been allowed in to look at it.
“Deborah is going to be with us on and off
for a while to oversee completion of the work and make sure we’re all happy
with the way things are going.”
Deborah felt moved to stand up at this
point. “That’s right, thank you
Malcolm. I know how unsettling
change can be and it’s important that you’re all kept informed. You’re all very important to us. I’ve always said that a branch is bricks and mortar. The Bank
is the people inside.”
Martin felt his heart would burst. He cared about her too –
passionately. He’d do
anything. He felt a sensation in
his lower body that he hadn’t felt since filling in his last Butternut Self
Assessment Questionnaire. The
soles of his shoes lifted off the floor as he placed his jotta fairly and
squarely on his lap.
“As you know, most of the changes we’re
making are geared towards making it easier for you – the bank - to sell a wider range of financial services products to
customers.”
Where did all these ‘products’ come from,
thought Valerie. When she joined
there wasn’t a product in site – just ‘accounts’. You bought ‘products’ from Tesco. Mind you that was a long time ago. Swimming pools were still rectangular. These days swimming a width represented
a geometric impossibility. And
chocolate was wrapped in paper. And
stations had litterbins. And …
“which I believe..,” Debbie swiveled on her
heels towards the manager for verification “…is what the video’s about today.
Yes?”
“Err, just a moment.” Malcolm was struggling with a large
vacuum-formed case which suddenly popped open spewing the ‘fully integrated
mixed-media communication solution’ all over the floor. Amongst the assortment of booklets,
quick reference guides, questionnaires and floppy discs was the tape. Malcolm fished it out and applied his
glasses.
Involving as it did a certain amount of
technical knowledge and manual dexterity the task of inserting the tape into
the VCR fell to Martin.
“Okay,” he said, taking the tape. “So this is VHS and…” glancing towards
the player “...so is that. Should
be fine. PAL – UK standard. Fine. Copy protected, yes, good.” He lifted the cassette flap and
had a good look at the tape inside.
“Yes, that all looks okay.
Better to be safe than sorry though.”
“Get on with it Martin. Honestly.”
“Okay, right way up. Here we go. Speed and…action. Remote please!” Valerie fumbled around the back of the sofa and handed it to him obediently. “Select AV1 and … play. Come on baby.” It was playing – as always. He never let them down.
“Okay, right way up. Here we go. Speed and…action. Remote please!” Valerie fumbled around the back of the sofa and handed it to him obediently. “Select AV1 and … play. Come on baby.” It was playing – as always. He never let them down.