I'm All Right Jack

by Alan Hackney

  “But I don’t want a job in management,” said Stanley. “I just want a vacancy.”

  “What sort of vacancy?”

  “Oh, just the sort of vacancy I could fill. I’m not a fitter or a coppersmith or anything. I’d thought of starting as unskilled and working my way up to semi-skilled. You see, a relative of mine advised me to do this.”

  “Oh, I get you. He recommended you should get a bit of proper experience before you go in for the management? That’s a point.”

  “Oh no, that wasn’t his idea at all,” said Stanley.

  “Well, never mind what his idea was,” said Mr Haywood. “I have got work to do, you know. Your idea is an unskilled vacancy, I take it. How long for? We’ve got nothing temporary.”

  “Oh, definitely permanent,” said Stanley. “You see, this person said …”

  “Half a minute, half a minute,” said Mr Haywood. “You fill in this application while I look up. Want any help, ask.”

  The form was very simple, requiring for the most part answers of ‘No’ to questions like ‘Have you any convictions by a Civil or Criminal Court?’

  “Excuse me,” said Stanley.

  “Yes?”

  “It says, ‘Schools attended’ but it doesn’t mention universities.”

  Mr Haywood took a breath.

  “We don’t pay much attention to that,” he said in a nearly even tone. “The geezers here don’t seem to have got around to it somehow.”

  How much more sensible, Stanley thought, an interview like this, the two parties leaning for a few minutes on the sill of a hatch, and no nonsense about a third-class degree and in English of all things.

  “You got a driving licence?” asked Mr Haywood.

  “I had one in the army once.”

  “Well, there’s a job in Stores and Packing. Hundred and eighty-nine shillings basic. You a union member? You got to be. Get your card from GEEUPWOA at the branch in Clyde Street.”

  “What’s that?”

  “General Engineering and Electrical United Projectile Workers and Operatives Alliance. When you’ve said it once you’ll call it GEEUPWOA or the General. Start tomorrow? Well, you’ll want your Insurance card in here during the week. Your shop steward’s Mr Kite. Short-arsed bloke with glasses.”

  “Well, thank you very much,” said Stanley. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Don’t come and see me, for Christ’s sake,” said Mr Haywood. “After you clock in eight-fifteen go to S Block and report to Mr Morris. He’ll take both your cards.”

  *

  At first the people at the General Projectile’s branch were suspicious of Stanley and asked if he were from a newspaper, but they accepted his assurances and nodded at his chit from Mr Haywood. They gave him another chit to be taken to Mr Kite.

  “You want two signatures from members,” they said.

  His great-aunts were not very keen on the union.

  “I think the whole thing’s a thorough disgrace,” said Great-Aunt Mildred. “Why anyone with any backbone should have to pay protection money like that.”

  “Oh it’s only eightpence a week and anyway the management won’t have you unless you join.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” said Dolly. “You really mustn’t get mixed up in anything violent.”

  “I expect you’re thinking about that film about the New York docks. It didn’t seem like that at all to me. They seem very civil little men at the Branch. Took themselves a bit seriously, I suppose, but I suppose they have to hold the job down.”

  *

  At five past eight the following morning, the only occasion during his employment at Missiles Limited when he arrived before time, Stanley came into the main gate of the factory. The place was almost deserted; a few men were leaning on bicycles inside, chatting and smoking.

  He found a time card with his name on among the W’s, and pulled the handle onto it. ‘0806’ appeared obliquely in faint purple ink.

  Stanley was beginning to make his way keenly towards S Block, the shirtsleeves of his mind already rolled up, when a cry arrested him.

  “Don’t go in yet, mate,” called one of the men with bikes. “Cor blimey, I dunno.”

  “You clocked, inchoo?” said the man’s companion. “Well, all right then. Stop and watch the fun.”

  “The fun?”

  “The clocking. Gissa light. Ta.”

  The entrance yard, until now only patchily inhabited, was quickly becoming more animated. More and more of the workers, pushing their bikes, walked in, clocked and made their way to the cycle sheds. As the minutes ticked by, arrivals became more frequent and feverish and the clocks tinged away nineteen to the dozen. By eight-fourteen the business was reaching a crescendo.

  The hooter up on one of the main shops clicked crisply and broke into a rising moan. The clocks tripped and began to register eight-fifteen.

  “You watch now, cock,” bawled the man leaning on the bike. “’Ullo, ’ere we are.”

  The men yet to clock in came plunging forward with their bicycles in a hobbling run.

  “They got the full minute,” said the man. “And then the clock’ll stamp eight-sixteen.”

  Final frantic outbursts of tinging from the clocks marked the desperate efforts of the stragglers to catch them in the last seconds before they tripped. Triumphantly beaming faces came away panting from the row of clocks, one or two of the men showing their successful time stamps to their fellows, but then an outburst of cursing arose from the people still at the clocking handles. A row of sad folk looked at their cards with expressions of stupefaction and bitterness. A few derisive cheers went up from the watchers, together with seemingly irrelevant cries of “Stay with it, Charlie” and “Git in there.”

  “That’s the fun?” asked Stanley.

  “That’s right, cock,” said the man with the bike. “The poor buggers’ve clocked eight-sixteen and they get docked ten minutes.”

  Stanley was surprised that the promised fun had not been received with any wild hilarity—indeed, the diversion seemed to meet only with a sort of gloomy satisfaction. Surely, he thought as the smoking groups round the entrance gate drifted away to their work, this can’t be the origin of clock-watching?

  He made his way to the Stores block.

  “Mr Morris?”

  “Yes, lad?”

  “I was to report to you. My name’s Windrush.”

  “Oh yes. I got a note. On driving.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, I got you down for a fork-lift. I’ll get Vince Knowles to show you the controls and that.” He came out of his little indoor shed and called: “Knowlesy!”

  “Thank you,” said Stanley. “I’ve always wanted to drive one of those. They’re such a help in productivity, they say.”

  “I don’t know who told you that,” said Mr Morris. “But I want to give you a word of warning. The bloke you’re replacing got the ace-and-jack for toting round betting slips all round the different shops instead of doing any helping productivity. He never got more than his basic while he was on the job, but then he never reckoned he had to. So you’d better watch your step.”

  A man of about forty appeared round the door.

  “’Ow goes it, Knowlesy?” asked Mr Morris. “New bloke here. Give him the lowdown, boy. Ta.”

  Mr Knowles led Stanley away down the building to where a number of electric fork-lift trucks were lined up. Several were moving off to speed the export drive, but the drivers of most of them were clustered round the doors of the building enjoying an unofficial smoke, a practice of such long standing that the management had never been capable of abolishing it. The trucks remaining were all plugged in to battery-charging sockets on the wall, and smoking was forbidden while charging. Hence the group in the doorway.

  “It’s dead simple,” explained Mr Knowles. “You got your forward and reverse here, and that’s the lever for lift. You get the forks in the old palette and lift. You might be on the stacks here, or any of the departme
nts, all according how you’re scheduled. The only thing, you got to plug in the old charger every evening when you knock off. The mechanic won’t do it, that’s not his job.”

  “What is his job?”

  “——d if I know,” admitted Mr Knowles frankly. “They never seem to go wrong. And we’re on a shared bonus, so don’t go working your guts out. Get your schedule from old Morris and I’ll see you back here.”

  Stanley got his schedule and came back.

  “Ah, you’re on Number Four Block with me. When the stuff comes off the line and gets crated you stack the crates up the far end for the lorries. I’ll show you. You use that one. Take the plug out and hang it up and follow me.”

  “What’s in the crates?” asked Stanley.

  “——d if I know,” said Mr Knowles. “They make all sorts of things here. You don’t want to worry about that.”

  CHAPTER 9

  “WELL, I’M pleased you’ve got another job,” said Wallace. “Surely it must be better than the FO?”

  “Oh, a great deal better,” said Stanley. “I wonder you stay there. There’s no writing reports or having to show a lot of enthusiasm. It’s all very informal. And better paid, you know.”

  “You haven’t been witch-hunted yet?”

  “Oh good gracious no. Old Kitey wouldn’t let them.”

  “Who’s old Kitey?”

  “A Mr Kite. He’s our shop steward. Very pleasant. As he’s a Commie himself, you see, he’d raise all hell.”

  “Pity we haven’t someone like him at the FO. But goodbye to all that, anyway.”

  They were drinking in the Buttery of the Hyde Park Hotel. Wallace, on leave before his re-posting to Bangkok, was waiting for a débutante whom he had encountered serving in Woolland’s, and had fascinated with tales of the mysterious East.

  “It’s a funny thing,” said Stanley. “Do you know, there are people coming round all the time with raffle tickets and those little cards with the names of football teams on.”

  “What for?”

  “They say charity, but Mr Knowles tells me they just call it that and everybody knows it’s to raise money for the shop stewards to fight capitalist oppression.”

  “Well, I hope you subscribe.”

  “I certainly do. And as it’s supposed to be for charity, Mr Crawley, the foreman—they call him Creepy Crawley—has to turn a blind eye.”

  “Why don’t they do that sort of thing at the FO?” wondered Wallace. “Then we all might get a bit more money.”

  *

  Stanley had got on well during his first day.

  “It’s all sitting down all day when you come to think of it,” Mr Knowles had said. “What you call a sedimentary occupation.”

  Stanley had quite taken to the unbustling routine. It was very cheering to think that everyone was vigilant to see that no one overstrained himself.

  In the afternoon Stanley and Mr Knowles had been shifting crates from the stacks in the stores block to lorries, and when Stanley had lifted a load he had inadvertently revealed a group of old workers playing poker and sleeping.

  “Put ’em down again, Professor,” advised Mr Knowles. “Start further along.”

  “Why are they playing cards?” asked Stanley.

  “They been superseded when we got mechanical handling a couple of years ago,” said Mr Knowles. “Old Kitey done a good job there in negotiation.”

  “You mean he got them kept on, I suppose?”

  “That’s right. Wouldn’t ’ave them laid off. Very humane ’e was. ‘You can’t sack a man just because he’s redundant,’ he told the boss. So they compromised.”

  “How?”

  “Well, they took them on as extra checkers. Every one of us with a fork-lift does what three of them used to do, so there’s a couple spare for each truck. It pays the company to keep ’em on the rest of the time as checkers rather than ’ave a stoppage. Only you don’t want to rely on them to do any checking for you.”

  “Would there have been a stoppage?”

  “Too true. Old Kitey would’ve called a meeting.”

  “How?”

  “Oh, he goes round blowing his bird-warbler. Then we all stop and convene.”

  “I see.”

  Stanley saw how right Uncle Bertram’s advice had been. With this sort of thing going on there was no doubt which was the profitable side to be on.

  “Old Kitey isn’t allowed to ring a bell or blow a whistle, because it’s laid down in the regulations he can’t,” explained Mr Knowles. “And he can’t play a musical instrument either when he’s in the works, or he’d be for it, but a bird-warbler doesn’t count, being a recreational device.”

  *

  “Well, I’ve got through the first day nicely,” said Stanley. “I parked the truck and plu—— Oh dear, no I didn’t. I forgot to plug it in to charge the batteries.”

  “Oh never mind that now,” said Wallace. “Jane’ll be here any minute. Have another.”

  “Jane is this deb, I take it?”

  “That’s it. Now will she or won’t she turn up?”

  Wallace thought after a time that he had better telephone. He borrowed pennies from Stanley and clumped away with his crutch. His telephoning did no good and he returned to lecture Stanley on the faithlessness of women. From time to time other telephone numbers occurred to him and he hobbled away to ask other girls out for the evening. Stanley began to get hungry.

  “Wallace,” he said. “I’ve done a day’s work. I want to eat.”

  “Nonsense,” said Wallace. “Remember I’m your superior officer. We must get this business organized. Haven’t you any ideas about any girls?”

  “Nothing occurs to me at the moment.”

  “Well, damn it, aren’t there any girls at this factory of yours?”

  “Oh, I think so, but it’s only my first day, you know.”

  “Well, how do you propose to pass the evening then, without any girls?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I was thinking I might read a book.”

  “Read a book? Steady on. You’re getting ideas above your station.”

  In the end they went to one or two of Wallace’s clubs. Wallace’s choice of clubs did not meet with the approval of the Office. They were selected entirely on the basis of the availability of dancing and hostesses. They ended at the Siamese Cat, a place where Wallace could chatter away to the girls of his yearning to go back to Bangkok. Stanley was a little uneasy at the thought of how much the evening seemed likely to cost, but Wallace was cheerful enough for both of them.

  “Come on, Stanley,” he urged. “These Siamese girls are better than debs. They don’t have to ask Daddy.”

  Even more interesting than the Siamese girls was a sudden glimpse of Uncle Bertram talking with some men at a corner table. One of them was Mr Mahommed.

  “My Uncle Bertram’s over there, Wallace,” said Stanley. “I can’t think what he’s up to, but he’s chatting with Mr Mahommed.”

  “Showing him the town, I imagine,” said Wallace. “What does he do? Cooks Tours, or something?”

  “I don’t really know. He used to be a Brigadier during the war, but I’ve no idea what he does now.”

  “Probably got a knitting machine to supplement his pension.”

  “Oh, I don’t think they gave him a pension. He disappeared abroad, but he’s probably doing very well. He usually manages to.”

  “He looks as if he’s up to Something. Any idea what it is?”

  “In the words of Old Knowlesy,” said Stanley, “——d if I know.”

  *

  They were late home, and Stanley clocked on well after time the next morning. The factory had been opened for nearly half an hour and had already achieved the dead appearance that meant that work had started. Clouds of tobacco smoke hung above the lavatories, where numbers of men on day-work were traditionally filling in the firm’s time.

  As Stanley slunk with an attempt at invisibility into the Stores Block, he was hailed by Knowlesy.
/>   “Morning, Squire,” said Knowlesy. “Old Morris wants to see you in his office.”

  “For being late?” asked Stanley, getting into his white overalls. “I hope they won’t sack me if I keep on doing this.”

  “Eh? Course not. Old Kitey wouldn’t let ’em. You should’ve ’eard ’im taking up old Perce Carter’s case. Old Perce was threatened with the tin-tack for persistent lateness once, eh, Perce?”

  One of the drivers smoking by the door looked round.

  “Talkin’ about me?”

  “That’s right. When old Kitey took your case up.”

  “Oh, yer,” nodded the driver, and resumed his conversation.

  “Old Kitey went for the foreman, you know,” explained Knowlesy. “Oh, yes. Told ’im straight. ‘You can’t sack a man just because ’e’s incompetent,’ he said. ‘It’s victimization.’ Mind you, that’s because Perce is popular. Suppose ’e’d been a bit of a creep, well Old Kitey might’ve let Nature take its course.”

  “Any idea what Mr Morris wants me for?” asked Stanley.

  “——d if I know.”

  *

  Stanley went cautiously into Mr Morris’s cabin.

  “You want me?”

  “Oh yes; come in.”

  Mr Morris seemed unconcerned.

  “You’re the last one to come into the shop——” began Mr Morris.

  “Oh, I can explain that,” put in Stanley. “You see …”

  “I don’t know why you want to explain it,” said Mr Morris. “You just are. So you get last pick on the holiday roster for next summer.”

  “Oh,” said Stanley relieved, “you mean I’m the last to be employed.”

  “That’s what comes of having a college degree in English; you catch on. Well, when d’you want your fortnight? Four can go at a time. You can’t have August and you can’t have July or the last half of June. Otherwise you’re free to choose.”

  “Well, I’d rather like February,” said Stanley, “if that’s all right?”

  “February? What do you want February for?”

  “Well, I’d like to go ski-ing next year, you see, now I’m making enough to afford it, and February’s about the best time for most places.”