by ToClark
CHAPTER 10
For some time Grey had been pressing Folklore for some kind of status as befitted the Development Manager's Deputy and unofficial chaffeur. His latest plot was to have Howell removed from the office adjoining his so that he could have the partition wall demolished to give himself a larger one. The Establishment took office size as a symbol of prestige, quite unrelated to reality and it had been remarked that if the floor sweeper managed somehow to acquire a large vacant office and hold on to it for long enough, he was sure to end up as one of the managers. In one of his less generous moments, Dave had been heard to question Folklore's origins along such lines.
Folklore had persistently resisted Grey in this. When the idea was first put forward, he had stayed on late one evening to measure up the two offices which Grey wished to unite and found them to be about 10% larger than his own, a situation which he was not prepared to risk. Grey was growing more and more restive and Folklore was devoting progressively more of his energies to avoiding him. A good way of doing this, he discovered, was to visit the Sales and Marketing Managers for long discussions on some aspect or other of business and this kept the situation under control for a fortnight until the Sales Manager's patience finally cracked and he drove him from his office with a torrent of invective. The Sales and Marketing Director spent many hours trying to find reasons for the dip in an otherwise smooth sales curve for the year.
Folklore retired to the Executive Toilet to think things out. He had done all that a boss could reasonably be expected to do for Grey. He had seen that his salary increases were as good as he could (within the constraints of a budget which included himself), he never quibbled over his expenses and he had even paid Grey's introductory subscription to his local golf club out of the Department's entertainments account. The last time he had shown similar symptons he had been able to placate him by getting him promoted from the Staff Canteen to the Executive Canteen (first sitting).*