Page 19 of The Do-Over

‘Are you sure?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Thank you.’

‘What for?’

‘For listening to my demented ramblings, I guess.’

He smiles. ‘What are friends for?’

10

It’s not a wobble. A month has passed since John Curbishley’s memorial service and, although I followed Alasdair’s advice and I’ve tried to summon the enthusiasm that I used to feel, it’s just not there. In fact, I feel more and more like someone who’s trapped on a train that’s going in the wrong direction, and there’s no sign of a station where I can get off and change tracks. I’m currently sitting in an airless basement meeting room in Paris, trying to find a way over the seemingly endless hurdles in French employment law, which gives workers so much protection it’s almost impossible to get rid of them. Normally, this kind of thing energises me; a knotty problem that I can really get my teeth into, but I’m just not feeling it. I’m glad there aren’t any windows in here, as I have a horrible suspicion I’d probably let the discussion wash over me while I stared out of them. It’s not helped by the fact that the people on the other side of the table keep breaking off into heated discussions in French.

‘Shall we take fifteen minutes for a comfort break?’ I suggest after one such debate. If I don’t get up and move, I’m in danger of going to sleep.

‘How do you think it’s going?’ Laura, one of the junior associates, asks quietly while we’re getting coffee. I take a moment to study her; she reminds me of how I was at her stage. I can see the same hunger in her eyes that I used to have.

‘Honestly? I have no idea,’ I tell her and see the surprise register in her face. Partners aren’t supposed to say things like that.

‘But we’ll get there, right? I mean, there has to be a way to make these people redundant without making the transaction so costly it becomes unviable?’

‘If there is, I can’t see it. The law is pretty clear. The only way we’re going to get rid of these employees will be to be to offer such a ridiculous incentive that it would be frankly cheaper to keep them on and pay them to sit at home and watch TV. On top of that, I get the distinct impression that the guys on the other side of the table are enjoying running rings around us. Time for a change of tack. I’m going to suggest we wrap things up for now. Our client needs to rethink their approach, and it might just unsettle the other side and make them a bit more cooperative if we call a sudden halt.’

‘That seems a very high-stakes plan.’

‘I don’t know about you, Laura, but I can’t see any benefit in sitting in that room for the rest of the week while they carry on making us look like idiots. It’s not a good use of our time.’ I’m already shutting down, looking forward to curling up in my own bed tonight and spending the rest of the week at home. I’ve always enjoyed travelling, having all the humdrum aspects of life such as food and laundry being taken care of by the expenses policy, but the shine has definitely worn off recently. One hotel room is pretty much like another; yes, they might vary in size and opulence depending on the price, but they all have the same problems. The beds are never as comfortable as your own; theshowers always depressingly feeble; the layout impractical for working. I don’t know how I never realised this before.

‘You’re the boss,’ Laura says uncertainly.

‘I am, and I’ve decided it’s time to get the hell out of here,’ I tell her as I pull out my phone to call Janice and get us booked on the next train to London.

I know pulling the plug like this is a risky strategy, and it seems the senior partners don’t think it’s the right one if the summons that arrives before we even reach the tunnel is anything to go by. It takes the form of an email from Helen Armitage, the senior partner who has taken the transaction over from John.

Thea,

I gather you have terminated this week’s negotiations prematurely. Please come to my office at 8a.m. tomorrow for an urgent debrief.

Helen

The phrase ‘urgent debrief’ is a company euphemism. What it actually means is ‘come prepared to have your arse kicked from here to next week’. It’s like being invited to a meeting to discuss ‘future resourcing’, which always means ‘you’re fired’. Although I’ve heard of people getting ‘urgent debriefing’ requests, this is the first time I’ve received one myself. I stare at the screen for a while, trying to work out why the request hasn’t filled me with terror in the way it’s supposed to. Although I’m pretty certain I can defend my decision, I know I’m not going to get the chance to do that. The conversations in urgent debriefs tend to be one-sided and loud. After a few minutes, I close my laptop and stare out of the window at the passing countryside.

It’s dark by the time I get home. Usually, I’d leave my bag in the hallway to be dealt with later and go straight into the study to get on with some work, but the combination of my despondency about life in general and the impending urgent debrief have robbed me of my usual motivation. Instead, I carry my bag upstairs and unpack it before pouring myself a glass of wine and settling in front of the TV. After a bit of channel hopping, I settle onGrand Designs. Tonight’s couple have embarked on an ambitious project to convert a former Welsh Methodist Chapel into a family home for them and their three young children. We’re only ten minutes in, but already Kevin McCloud is confidently predicting that it’s all going to end in tears. Just the kind of schadenfreude I need on a day like today.

By the time we reach the end of the programme, the wine bottle is two-thirds empty and I’ve also polished off a chicken madras with rice that I found in the freezer. The chapel conversion is stunning; after a few false starts, the couple realised that the best way to get around all the various planning restrictions and other issues thrown up by trying to convert what was basically a poorly insulated barn with pretty windows into a home was not to convert it at all. Instead, they put an entire new ‘skin’ inside the chapel, ensuring they didn’t compromise the structure in the process, and then constructed their home within the skin. They are, of course, horrendously over budget and there were times when their marriage hung by a thread, but even the famously gloomy Kevin can’t fault it. I particularly like the way they’ve aligned the glazing on the inner layer with the stained-glass windows on each side of the chapel. Their other stroke of luck came when the east end of the chapel, where the altar was, proved to be in such a poor state that the only option was to demolish it and replace it. After a bit of to and fro with the council, and yet more overspend, they’ve installed a glass wall that floods that end of the house with natural light.

For a moment, I’m tempted to see if I can find another episode on catch-up, but I can feel my eyelids beginning to droop so, after clearing away the remains of my meal, I head upstairs to bed.

Initially, it seems as if Helen doesn’t seem to have got the memo on how to conduct an ‘urgent debrief’ because she’s not shouting. Instead, her voice is suspiciously calm and reasonable.

‘I was a little surprised,’ she begins, ‘to be informed by Monsieur Duchamp that you had cancelled the remainder of this week’s sessions and pulled the entire team off site. Talk me through your decision process.’

‘It’s a genuine impasse,’ I reply. ‘As you know, the deal is only viable to our client if they can shift the software development offshore to their team in Hyderabad.’

‘Yes. They’ve been very clear about that.’

‘Unsurprisingly, the French aren’t very happy about their developers facing the axe, and the law is on their side. The only way they can get redundancies approved by DIRECCTE, the work inspectorate, is to prove that the company is having economic difficulties that can only be resolved by reducing the workforce. Even then, the workers have to consent. The books clearly show that the company is healthy and they’ve made it clear there’s no way the workers are going to consent. We’re out of options and there didn’t seem to be any point in sitting there while they said the same thing over and over again. They were enjoying humiliating us, so I decided to take back control the only way I could think of, by calling a halt to the negotiations while we re-grouped. I didn’t really see what else we could do.’

---