Only The Ruthless Can Play

by John Burke

  He wasn’t going to be defeated by Muriel or by anyone. He had taught himself to survive. The more she nagged, the more he threw himself into his work. She had an abrasive effect on him that perhaps was no bad thing.

  He clung to one certainty: whatever Muriel did or didn’t do, whatever complaints she made, whatever she said or didn’t say, he was going to come through this Course with flying colours. For the next six weeks he was going to be unflinchingly single-minded. Nothing must be allowed to stand in the way. To reach the top in Intersyn you had to be quite clear about your objective and quite ruthless.

  He was sorry for anyone on the Course who was rash enough to challenge him.

  Two

  The offices of International Synthetics had occupied two floors of a grimy building in High Holborn in the immediate post-war years. Within a very short time they spread out over half a new office block behind Cheapside. Intersyn then carried out one of the biggest industrial recruiting campaigns ever known, coaxing graduates into their production and marketing departments and forging links with foreign companies whose staff could contribute information and know-how to the central office. At a time when nearly every government in the world was introducing legislation to smash cartels and restrictive trading practices, Intersyn blandly formed new companies and bound them up in trading agreements which were legally unassailable but which depended more and more on a central guiding authority. Headquarters staff multiplied. A whole new building was needed. The Intersyn Tower rose above the glass and concrete blocks which had been dropped around the City of London like a giant’s casually discarded toys.

  Some architects and newspaper columnists called the tower a skinny monstrosity. Others waxed ecstatic about the slender upthrust which counterbalanced the squarer aspects of so many adjoining buildings, and referred to it as a twentieth-century substitute for a Wren spire. People who worked in it grumbled to one another about the faults in the central heating and air-conditioning systems, moaned about the sameness of the food in the canteen, and complained of suffering from claustrophobia, of being smothered, and of contracting skin troubles from the synthetic soap dispensers in the washrooms; but when talking to outsiders they became instinctively defensive and even enthusiastic about the smoothness of the organisation and the way in which everything had been thought of — everything for the comfort of staff from the cradle to the grave, everything that soothed petty irritations and enabled them to concentrate on their work.

  Jessica approached the hard-edged tower along a segment of road that would not be finished off until the buildings on both sides were finished. The rawness of this road contrasted oddly with the gleaming, glassy suaveness of the Intersyn headquarters. Even after three years with the firm, taking the same route nearly every morning, she was conscious of the clash: it might almost have been deliberately arranged by Intersyn so that employees should feel the difference between the ragged outside world and the all-embracing efficiency of the Company.

  The power-driven revolving doors in the main entrance purred slowly round. You didn’t have to push them. You would be foolish to do so: nothing would alter their set speed. You stepped in, adjusted to their pace, and stepped out into the steely blue of the entrance hall with its Italian murals and its symbolic statuary.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Rogers.’

  ‘Good morning.’ It was a new messenger who had spoken and she did not know his name, but he knew hers.

  One of the six main lifts was waiting. Three men and two women stared straight ahead, conditioned to the idea that the doors would close at an electronically appointed time. Another woman, younger and not yet acclimatised, pressed a button for the fifth floor once, twice and then again. The lift remained unresponsive until Jessica walked in, then its doors closed and it started on its upward journey. At the tenth floor Jessica got out and crossed the corridor to the door marked CAREER DEVELOPMENT FUNCTIONS.

  Newcomers often let out a gasp when they opened this door and walked in. The far wall consisted entirely of glass, with a metal stripe across it two feet up from the floor — for visual steadying, said the experts. Beyond the glass was a sprawling, jagged, exhilaratingly jumbled vista of London. The higher you went up this building, the more dizzying the view. From the directors’ suites it was difficult, looking down, not to feel that the world lay at your feet — to be divided up or trampled on, as you saw fit.

  Jessica was used to the view by now. The girl waiting in the office had evidently not been here before, however, and was gulping nervously and studying the window with unhappy fascination.

  ‘Miss Rogers?’ she said, half turning as Jessica came in. Jessica pulled her desk blotter back from the position into which it was always pushed by the cleaner, and checked that the duplicated copies of the course timetable were waiting in her ‘In’ tray.

  She said: ‘You’re from Staff Records?’

  ‘That’s right.’ The girl was dark and pretty, with the slim smartness that Intersyn liked, as though choosing its employees to match the building. ‘I’ve brought the dossiers of the people on the Fifth Executive Course.’ Her eyes wandered towards the window again. ‘Gosh, don’t you get frightened sometimes? It all looks so … so close. As though it’s tilting up at you.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it,’ Jessica assured her.

  ‘I’d be afraid of — well, of a storm breaking the glass … of being sucked out … or something.’

  ‘It’s all been worked out by experts,’ said Jessica. ‘The worst that can happen to you here is getting a stomach chill from the iced water supply.’

  The girl looked blank then forced a giggle. She lifted a large package from the floor and put it on Jessica’s blotter. When she peeled the sticky tape from the edge and opened the brown paper, two neatly stacked piles of green-bound dossiers were revealed.

  Jessica reached for her check-list.

  The girl said: ‘Miss Thompson has already checked that they’re all complete.’

  ‘We have to be sure,’ said Jessica.

  ‘Oh. Oh, yes. Of course.’ The girl’s giggle got out of hand for a moment. She glanced at the window and glanced away again, gulping. ‘Miss Thompson says it’s like being the keeper of the Gestapo files.’

  After all these years with the Company, thought Jessica, it was time Miss Thompson discarded such fancies. She took out the folders one by one and ticked off the names on her list.

  ‘Do they really keep a record of all of us?’ the girl marvelled. ‘Absolutely everything about us?’

  ‘They don’t have you shadowed once you’ve left the building in the evening,’ Jessica drily reassured her.

  ‘Miss Thompson says you just never know. She says,’ the girl chattered on, ‘Mr Partridge’s nomination is a bit of a surprise.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, of course — I wouldn’t know who she meant — but she says it’s someone who’s done a parallel Course in the States.’

  ‘Nonsense. Nobody does the Executive Course twice.’

  ‘That’s what Miss Thompson says. But she says this time there’s one of them … Ooh.’ The girl spread her feet far apart as though to regain her balance. ‘Perhaps I oughtn’t to have said … ’

  She certainly ought not to have said anything on those lines. Miss Thompson ought not to have said anything in the first place. The girl might learn in time. Miss Thompson, after all this time, apparently had not learnt. One day her gossipy tongue would carry her too far and she would be quietly informed that she was redundant.

  Jessica said: ‘Thank you. They all seem to be here.’ The girl went towards the door. From the way she walked one would have thought that the floor sloped upwards and that she was afraid of sliding backwards into infinity.

  Jessica studied the green folders, each embossed with a name. Intersyn had no equivalent to the Official Secrets Act, but it was generally understood that people who handled personnel dossiers must be discreet, responsible employees. Annual reports, career assessme
nt record and occasional revealing letters were all bound into these folders. The making or marring of a man was all here.

  Miss Thompson ought to be ashamed of herself.

  But who was it: who was the man who was doing an Executive Course for the second time; which was Partridge’s nomination?

  It was none of Jessica’s business. Such details were not supplied to the course organisers.

  Maybe Partridge simply wanted the man to study the European course for purposes of comparison. But that didn’t fit; Partridge was Technical Director of the plant in Yorkshire, and while he was entitled to nominate staff for this gruelling assessment it was not within his province to nose into the methods of personnel handling.

  Only once before had there been a nominee who had done a previous Executive Course. It had been before Jessica’s time but the story was remembered. A man had been put on the Course knowing every step so well that he could give his undistracted attention to watching somebody else. In fact, he had been appointed to watch the watcher. The management wished to have detailed evidence which would enable them to dismiss the senior lecturer — a damning, detailed, unassailable report. They got it.

  A watcher, within the class itself …

  It could be the same thing all over again. But watching whom, and for what reason?

  The same thing, thought Jessica, all over again.

  Poor old Dampier.

  *

  Dampier smiled at his class. The tables were large and the chairs reasonably comfortable, but still the grown men before him looked — and, he knew, felt — like small boys on their first day at school. Some of them sat upright and stared boldly at him, asserting their knowledge and self-assurance; but inside they knew that he was their master. If they didn’t make a good impression on him he wouldn’t cane them or give them lines; but he could put a large or small dent in their career.

  He said: ‘Please smoke if you wish to. Our fire precautions have been approved by the local authorities.’

  There was an eager laugh. He sorted through papers on his desk although he needed no notes, and covertly watched who fumbled too readily for a cigarette, who took his time over lighting a pipe, and who quickly nibbled at a thumbnail.

  ‘Now, gentlemen … ’

  There was an almost audible sigh. His words were the starter’s signal.

  ‘These preliminary sessions,’ he said, ‘will be devoted mainly to the broader aspects of our industry. Each of you is a specialist in his own field, and you may feel as we progress that I am not giving sufficient emphasis to that particular field. If you do, I shall expect you to challenge me at the appropriate time. You may persuade me that I am in error. On the other hand, I may be able to show you that your own job is not quite as all-important as you think. The Company is made up of many interlocking functions. For a day or two I want us to consider the general picture — how those different aspects are all parts of a whole.

  ‘This means that I shall start with the whole problem of the face we show to the world. Because, gentlemen, whether that face is seen clearly or misinterpreted, it is the face by which we are judged. Whether you deal with outside contractors or with members of the general public who buy our products or refuse to buy our products, you are giving to them an image of what we are. What we are … or think we are … or wish people to think we are.

  ‘In other words, let’s begin with Public Relations and work our way inwards. Marketing and Public Relations have to be related with technical know-how more than some of us — some of you — appreciate.’

  It was a routine speech. Dampier knew it off by heart. It gave him the chance to study his pupils while he talked. He smiled as he made one of his little stock of jokes, and let his gaze wander benevolently over the respectful faces. His eyes did not linger anywhere, but he made his first brief assessment. He could always pick out the likely ones. Later he would compare his own opinions with the notes in the dossiers. He was rarely wrong in his first judgment.

  It had already been indicated on his list that there were four on whom the management wished to keep a special eye. The little tick against three names meant that here was potential management material — subject, of course, to the findings on the course. The fourth name had a different mark. It did not imply condemnation — unease, rather. It was not that the man was no good: he might well be first-rate in his own field; but they were unhappy. The mark was not a direct invitation to fail the man on the course, but Dampier knew that any plausible failing he could report back would be welcomed. He was skilled at such interpretations.

  ‘Public Relations,’ he said, ‘is designed to furnish a means of forecasting trends and disseminating information which it is felt desirable to — ah — convey to the public. The public may be a small specialised one or a large general one. In our advertising, our personal contacts and our business relationships we must create an atmosphere of confidence and goodwill which will smooth the way for our salesmen.

  ‘Bleustein-Blauchet, an outstanding figure in French advertising, has defined advertising itself as a conversation between manufacturer and consumer. Our job is to ensure that these are friendly conversations — conversations, that is, which make friends … ’

  The phrases came so naturally that he could simultaneously have played a tough game of chess. He hoped there were one or two good chess players on the course. He liked a good fight. This whole course was a fight. The men before him were preparing for a battle for power. It was the same sort of battle as the one he had once fought and from which he had emerged into the profitable peace of his present job. He fed them the right phrases and in the ensuing weeks would see who put them to the best use.

  ‘And allied with the question of our relations with the outside world is the question of internal relations. In many ways our own colleagues and our own employees are our best mouthpieces. If we know that what we do is good for the prosperity of humanity, and if we all work together and enjoy working together, we find it much easier to convince customers and newspapers and the most casual contact that Intersyn means well — that Intersyn works for the benefit of all. Men in senior positions know that the satisfied operative is an operative who has been put in the picture and made to feel that he plays an essential part in the whole design. If our own clerks and typists are dissatisfied with their working conditions, they will tell their friends … and this is bad for our image. We have to project the right image. The first discussions on this course will deal with such matters. Some of you may think we are putting the cart before the horse — or, to make the metaphor even clumsier, arranging the transport before we’ve finalised the product. But experience has shown us that the attitude of our own workers in the plant or in offices conditions what we produce and how we market it. In our discussions we shall work inwards from the outside … ’

  Three or four. There were always three or four on every Executive Course who stood out. It was obvious after the first day who was managerial material. The marks on the official list were usually close, but you got a surprise every now and then: you found the man who had unsuspected talent, who stood out in front of all the others.

  And the others — good but not quite good enough. They would spend the rest of their days in cosy jobs, paid better than most of their neighbours yet clawed by a faint resentment, wondering how Jones got ahead and why Smith was now General Manager in Melbourne. The fact that they wondered was proof in itself that they were not of the calibre of Jones and Smith.

  Dampier talked, and surveyed his class.

  Andrew Flint had a splendid record. Following up the tick on the list, Dampier had skimmed the dossier. Flint was a man who knew where he wanted to go. Whether he would get there or not was a different matter. ‘Sensitive about his limited education,’ said a note on the file. ‘Chip on the shoulder. Excellent at his job but perhaps not suitable for promotion outside his specialised field.’ There were later doubts cast on this judgment. Andrew Flint was on the course, so it must be assumed that he wa
s now in the running for promotion. And he had been marked as a favourite.

  ‘I don’t want any of you to feel under any restraint during these few weeks,’ said Dampier. ‘You’re not sitting for an examination. I don’t mark your papers or recommend that you be expelled.’

  Not in so many words. But he knew, and they knew, and he knew that they knew, what his final verdict could mean to them.

  ‘Now, gentlemen. I have done enough talking. I have set the stage, and I think it is high time that you came out and spoke a few pieces on your own behalf. There are twenty of you, and for a day or two we will all have difficulty in remembering names. Intersyn has never believed in the common practice of issuing lapel badges with printed names on them. I think all of us here prefer to think that our personality is sufficient to imprint the name on the consciousness of our colleagues, hm?’

  The laughter was still forced and uneasy. One laugh was far too hearty. Dampier made a mental note to check on future sounds from the same source.

  ‘I want you,’ he said, ‘each to stand up and give a five-minute summary of your career with Intersyn. Don’t be too solemn about it. Keep the facts where we can all look at them, and don’t feel shy if you haven’t done ten years’ overseas service. All I want is for us to get to know one another.’

  And, he added to himself as automatically as he recited his lines to the class, for me to know exactly what you feel about yourselves. There was always a word or a phrase or an intonation that gave away the truth.

  Gerald Hornbrook. Oh, yes — a sure winner. He was smooth and he had been to the right public school. A General Manager in the making. Pleasantly, without undue emphasis, he stood up and outlined his career to date. He had done the right things at the right times. He didn’t even have to drop names as some of them always tried so desperately to do. When he did, there was nothing contrived about it. Dampier had met Hornbrook before, under a dozen different names. He was the perfect Intersyn man. Even when he did not do his job terribly well, he somehow arranged that someone else should do it terribly well for him. He made no wrong decisions. He created a good impression on outside contacts, and even when his staff hated him they felt in a baffled sort of way that he was superior and not to be criticised. If he mentioned the name of a Director and perhaps allowed the implication of a round of golf to creep in — ‘As I was saying to Vogel on Saturday afternoon … ’ — it was quite genuine and unforced. To some of his colleagues this made it worse and even less forgivable. But the Hornbrooks of this world would always be all right. Dampier knew this and was circumspect in his dealings with them.