Company

by Max Barry

  The Training Sales cubicle farm is bisected by an eight-foot-high divider with sales reps on one side and sales assistants on the other. To the untrained eye the two halves are identical, but to those in the know, the rep side has a subtle, fluorescent glow. That glow is status. The residents of the rep side possess much better numbers: they have six-figure salaries, seven-figure quotas, and single-digit golf handicaps.

  During the last office relocation, a plan was mooted to seat each rep beside his or her assistant, in the interests of efficiency. Fierce lobbying led by Elizabeth and Wendell dismantled this proposal within a day. So the assistants get a lot of exercise. They call the cubicle divider the Berlin Partition.

  Wendell stops at Roger's desk, folds his arms, and lets out the little barking cough that signifies he is about to speak. “Roger. It pains me to raise this, but you've parked in my space again.”

  Roger holds up a finger. He is on the phone to Catering, waiting for a transfer to the Snacks and Desserts division. But it would be unwise to let Wendell, a fellow sales rep, know this, so Roger tells the phone, “I recommend the complete package, which gives you all the benefits at lower total cost of ownership. Yes . . . of course. Excellent. I'll put that through immediately.” He hangs up. Wendell towers above him, blocking out the fluorescent lighting. “What?”

  “Your car. Despite our previous conversations, it is yet again occupying my space.”

  Roger pinches the bridge of his nose. “Wendell, there is no allocated car parking on the second subfloor. It's first in, best dressed. You don't have an allocated car space. None of us do.”

  Wendell reaches into his jacket pocket. “Hak-kah.” This is Wendell clearing his throat. “So you said last time. I have, however, taken the liberty of contacting Infrastructure Management for a parking plan. If I may direct your attention to this particular space here, the one your vehicle is currently occupying, you'll see it's marked TRAINING SALES DEPARTMENT—SR 2. That, Roger, is me. You have the next space along.” He stabs the paper, at a space five feet farther from the elevator.

  Roger waves the plan away. He has been a sales rep just six weeks; previously he was a customer. But he is terrifically talented, which makes Wendell nervous. Roger is too confident, his dark brown eyes too piercing. His hair is obviously executive material. Lately Wendell has been working ninety extra minutes a day and skipping lunch. Elizabeth has been affected, too; she's now constantly out on sales calls. But this is because being close to Roger makes her want to strangle him with his tie. “Infrastructure Management doesn't have the authority to appoint individual car spaces. It's up to each departmental manager. In our case, Sydney hasn't announced a system, so it's laissez-faire.”

  Wendell hesitates, unsure exactly how the balance of power works between Infrastructure Management and departmental managers. “In the absence of a decision from Sydney, we'd default to Infrastructure Management's allocation, surely.”

  “If you want to argue that, take it up with Sydney,” Roger says. “Until then, it's laissez-faire.”

  “If it's laissez-faire,” Wendell says, his voice rising, “why do you always park in the same spot? You never take Sydney's or Elizabeth's space. Everybody parks in the same spot every day, except you always take mine.”

  “That's just coincidence.” Roger allows this absurdity to hang in the air for a moment. “But I tell you what. I'll try not to park in quote your unquote space if you tell me why you took my donut.”

  “I didn't take your damn donut! Don't change the subject.”

  “Did you think it was some kind of revenge? Really, I'm just curious.”

  “I have no idea what happened to your donut, Roger, and I'm not going to discuss it. Just stay out of my parking space. Or I will go to Sydney.” Wendell storms off to his desk, which is the next one along and shares a low wall with Roger's. When they're both seated, they stare at each other over the top of their docked notebook computers, their teamwork and productivity—if you believe the memos—steadily increasing.

  Jones walks down the orange-and-black carpeted corridor and pushes through the glass doors to Training Sales. He stops and looks around his new corporate home: at the cubicles, the Berlin Partition, the framed motivational posters (IT'S NOT HOW LONG YOU WORK, IT'S HOW SMART), the coffee machine, the complete absence of natural light. He spots Freddy, who gestures to the other side of the Partition (the rich side, West Berlin). Jones follows directions. Three people are there, all on the phone and none paying him any attention. He peers at their nameplates until he finds ROGER JEFFERSON, then waits by his desk. Roger says to his phone, “But I can't get the forms to Order Processing until they're approved by Legal. Well, you tell that to Credit. Until they release the hold, Marketing won't sign off.” He frowns at Jones. “What do you want?”

  Jones points to his ID tag. “Hi! I'm your new grad.”

  Roger tells his phone, “Hold on a second.” He covers the mouthpiece. “Seven or eight?”

  “Seven or eight wha—” Jones realizes. “The Catering department says Training Sales got eight donuts this morning.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Jones is sure. Catering had a formal snack delivery process, complete with charts. Next to TRAINING SALES DEPARTMENT was an 8 and a tick. They stood behind their chart. Jones felt awkward questioning them, because of the chart and because they were cleaning out the whole area in preparation for being outsourced, and Jones was holding them up to discuss donut numbers.

  “Okay. Good work.” Roger uncovers his phone. “Now, look, we can go to Human Resources to resolve this if you want. Is that what you want?”

  Jones realizes he's been dismissed. He walks back to East Berlin, where Freddy and a girl with alarmingly toned arms poking out of a summer dress have wheeled their office chairs into the aisle between their cubicles. “Here he is,” Freddy says. “Jones, this is Holly. She's Elizabeth's assistant.”

  As she and Jones shake hands, Holly says, “Is it true, you went to Catering?”

  “Catering called Sydney and complained you were badgering them,” Freddy explains. “Now she's mad.”

  Jones lets go of Holly's hand. “What? I just did what I was told.”

  “The Nuremberg defense,” Holly says. “That's what Roger's last assistant said.”

  “Poor Jim,” Freddy says. “I was just starting to like him, too.”

  “I'd better go see Sydney.” Jones looks around for her office.

  Freddy laughs. Then he realizes Jones is serious. “Jones, you don't go see Sydney.”

  “Why not?”

  Freddy looks lost for words. He turns to Holly.

  “You just don't,” she says.

  Jones spies an office at the far end of the cubicle farm. “Is she in there?”

  Freddy and Holly exchange a glance. “Yes, but seriously—”

  “I'll be back in a minute.” Jones walks between Freddy and Holly, who wheel their office chairs apart to make way for him. Sydney's office is guarded by a large woman behind a tiny desk: Megan, the department PA. Megan, Jones sees, collects ceramic bears. She has bears dressed to go fishing, bears with T-shirts that say I LOVE YOU, bears with hard hats, and bears with Wellington boots. There are dozens of them, as if Megan's desk was the stage for an all-bear musical. An in-box is perched precariously on one corner, with several bears leaning against it as if they are trying to shove it off.

  Sydney's door is closed. Jones tries to peer through the little square of glass set into it. “Can I . . . ?”

  Megan stares mutely at him through brown glasses. Later Jones will realize that the only reason that Megan does not leap out of her chair and tackle him to the ground at this point is that she cannot believe he is actually going to walk straight into Sydney's office. He starts to turn the door handle, and by the time she realizes what he's doing, he's inside and gently closing the door.

  Wendell's and Elizabeth's heads appear above the Berlin Partition. Wendell says, “Did that person just go into Sydney's offi
ce?”

  “He's new,” Freddy says weakly. “That's our new grad. He doesn't know.”

  Nobody says anything for a moment. Megan's shocked face turns from Sydney's door to the other employees, then back.

  “Well,” Holly says, “he's gutsy.”

  “He's dead.” Freddy sighs. “He didn't even have time to set up his voice mail.”

  “Pity,” Elizabeth says. “He's cute.”

  “I know,” Holly says.

  “What's his name?”

  “Jones.”

  “Just Jones? What, like Madonna?”

  “That's what his ID tag says.”

  “Intriguing,” Elizabeth says.

  “He's so young,” Freddy says. “How can he know anything?”

  “Haaak-kah. Clearly, he doesn't. He just walked into Sydney's office without an appointment.”

  “Hmm. Maybe the rumors are true,” Elizabeth says.

  They look at her. Freddy says, “What rumors?”

  “Well . . . I'm not saying I believe it, but . . . some people say the company is running a secret project. On level 13.”

  Wendell snorts. There is no level 13: the elevator button after 12 is 14. But it is an old Zephyr joke that it takes a suspiciously long time to travel between those two floors.

  “According to the rumors . . .” Elizabeth lowers her voice, “Human Resources is secretly scraping skin cells from successful sales reps and breeding clones in vats, to be released through the intern program.”

  Freddy and Holly crack up. Wendell rolls his eyes. “I have work to do.” His head drops below the Berlin Partition.

  “Don't take my word for it,” Elizabeth says. “Check if Jones has a belly button.”

  “Mmm,” Holly says. “Maybe I will.”

  “Better hurry,” Freddy says.

  There's a small clack and Sydney's door swings open. It's as if the Training Sales employees' heads are connected to it by invisible strings: they all jerk around at the same time. Seven sets of eyes watch Jones walk all the way to his desk and sit down.

  Freddy holds out for as long as he can. “Well?”

  “Hmm? What?”

  “What happened?”

  “Oh. We talked. I think we got it straightened out.” Jones shrugs. “She was kind of busy. Most of the time she was on the phone.”

  “You mean—” Holly starts, but Freddy cuts in: “To who?”

  “Uh . . . somebody Seddon?”

  Freddy rocks back in his chair. “Blake Seddon is in Senior Management.”

  “So?” Jones is too new to Zephyr Holdings to see that a squall is developing here. The building is hermetically sealed, but Zephyr has its own weather: last Friday there was a high-pressure center over the telephone sales room; tomorrow a cold front of layoffs is predicted to sweep down from level 2. Right now a blustery rumor is gathering strength in the cubicle farm.

  “Someone's getting fired,” Freddy says.

  Holly says, “You don't know that.”

  “Or maybe this is it. Outsourcing.”

  “They can't outsource us! Who would sell training?”

  “Maybe Zephyr is getting out of training.”

  “That's crazy,” Holly says, but her voice wavers. Holly is well protected from layoffs because Elizabeth is unsackable. But outsourcing, the nuclear bomb of Human Resources' arsenal, would spare no one. “If there was no training . . .” Holly trails off, unable to express the horrors of a world without training.

  Freddy jumps out of his chair and heads for Megan, the PA. She confirms that Sydney has been exchanging calls with Senior Management, but refuses to tell him any details. This is because she doesn't know anything, but Megan sits away from everyone else in Training Sales and is lonely, so she drops hints that she's holding something back in order to encourage future visits.

  “Megan knows something, but she's not telling,” Freddy says grimly, walking through East Berlin without stopping. The turbulence from his passage causes a paper on Jones's desk to slide off, but in meteorological terms, Freddy is tearing up the carpet, pulling computers off desks, sending chairs spinning in a tornado.

  “Who's getting fired?” Freddy asks Wendell in West Berlin, point-blank.

  “What?” Wendell says, irritated. He was on zero points in hearts with Pauline about to go over the top, and had to close the program to stop Freddy from seeing it.

  “Sydney's been on the phone to upstairs. It's about cost cutting, isn't it? Someone's getting canned.”

  “Sydney's talking to upstairs?”

  “That's what Megan says.”

  “Well, that could mean anything. Don't jump to conclusions. Hak-kah.”

  “Hey, guys,” Elizabeth calls across the aisle. “Are you having trouble with the network? I just e-mailed Wendell and it bounced back.”

  “Haven't checked,” Roger says, not looking up.

  “What was your e-mail?” Wendell says.

  “I'm selling raffle tickets for the Social Club. Want to buy some? You can win a set of golf clubs.” Her eyebrows rise hopefully.

  “Oh.” Wendell's eyes lose focus. “I'll, hak-kah, consider that when I get your e-mail.”

  “They're only a dollar each,” Elizabeth says, rolling closer. “And there are many secondary prizes. Want to see?”

  “I'm busy right now, Elizabeth.”

  “Oh. Okay. Maybe later then.” She rolls back to her computer.

  Freddy says, “So you haven't heard anything?”

  “No. Why, have the others?” Wendell looks at Roger and Elizabeth fearfully.

  “I haven't asked.”

  “Leave it with me. I'll find out what's going on.”

  “Thanks.” Freddy knows he can trust him. Wendell relies on Freddy to translate his outrageous expense claims into language acceptable to Central Accounting, a rare and valuable skill. Elizabeth and Roger are insanely jealous of Wendell in this regard. This year alone he has been compensated for parking fines, dozens of lunches, and a new suit, while Elizabeth's request for a new office chair was denied, forcing her to steal one late at night from Call Center.

  Freddy heads out of West Berlin. Roger smiles at him as he passes by, which is so out of character that Freddy gets the heebie-jeebies. Roger is in the process of dialing someone, but he waits, his finger hovering above the number pad, until Freddy is gone.

  “What's the story?” Holly asks.

  “Nobody knows. Do you think we'd hear about it if we were being outsourced?”

  “No idea . . . no one who's been outsourced has survived to talk about it.”

  Jones says, “Why would someone be sacked? You just hired me.”

  Freddy looks at him sympathetically. “You really don't understand this company.”

  “There's a hiring freeze,” Holly explains. “Technically, we haven't hired you. We got you through the back door. See, toward the end of each financial year, Senior Management realizes we're going over budget, so they impose a hiring freeze. If an employee leaves, everyone else has to pick up their workload.”

  “Did you have spare time before?” Jones asks, lost.

  Freddy laughs so hard that his nose touches his keyboard.

  “This went on year after year, but the departments all realized they had to do their hiring before the freeze, so everyone was packing a year's worth of spending into the first six months. And that made Senior Management order the freeze earlier. Then about eighteen months ago, it became permanent.”

  “Permanent?”

  “Well, they can't lift it now,” Freddy says. “Every department would start hiring like crazy. We used to have eight reps and eight assistants.”

  “Also,” Holly says, “Zephyr needs to show it's serious about cost cutting. If we started hiring people again now, our stock price would tumble. Further, I mean.”

  “Well, that's what they say. In my opinion, it's just an excuse to shovel work onto us guys in the trenches while Senior Management gets bonuses for meeting cost-reduction targets. Not to m
ention the golden handcuffs. You know about golden handcuffs?”

  Jones nods. “Sure, the bonus an executive gets when he leaves the company.”

  “No, no, that's a golden parachute.”

  “Oh—right. The signing bonus, then.”

  “That's the golden handshake. Golden handcuffs are what they get for working in a company with low morale. First they screw up the company, then because it's hard to attract good staff, they pay themselves more.”

  “But that's wrong!” Jones says, shocked. “Did somebody take this up with Daniel Klausman?”

  Freddy cracks up again. Even Holly smiles. “Remember when you first started here, Freddy, and you thought everyone was clever and helpful and only wanted to do what's best for the company?”

  “Yeah. I used to shine my shoes.”

  Jones says, “So with this freeze, how did you hire me?”

  “It was Freddy's idea. We process your salary as office expenses. Copy paper, specifically.”

  “That reminds me,” Freddy says to Holly, “do you have to xerox all of Elizabeth's orders? Because the paper in that machine has to last until January.”

  “We probably won't last until January. I might as well xerox while I can.”

  “I'm copy paper?” Jones says.

  “Don't worry, it's just a paperwork thing. It doesn't affect anything. Well, unless they cut our stationery budget. But there's nothing to sweat about, this is just a little creative accounting. It goes on all the time.”

  A wave of red light sweeps through the department. For a second Jones thinks he's fainting. Then he thinks the building has lost power and the emergency lights have kicked in. But it's the phones: all their voice-mail lights are suddenly blinking.

  “Argh.” Freddy picks up his phone. “I hate it when they do that.” He tucks it under his ear. “All-staff voice mail. There should be instructions on your phone, Jones.”