The Art and Craft of Approaching Your Head of Department to Submit a Request for a Raise (Vintage Classics)

by Perec, Georges

  and ask him whether one of his daughters has perhaps caught measles he’ll answer yes or no if he says yes one of his daughters has measles check discreetly this goes without saying whether or not he has red spots on his face if he has no spots breathe deeply relax and in an intelligible voice lay out your problem but if he has got spots on his face get out of there on any excuse for example i have to pop out to feed the parking meter or i’m afraid i swallowed a fish bone or i wonder if they weren’t a bit off those eggs we got at lunch today or hang on i think ms wye is calling me inform health and safety and lock your boss in his office for forty business days that is to say for eight weeks after the eight weeks have elapsed go back to see your boss there’s every likelihood he will be in his office but maybe he will refuse to see you in which case you will come back to try your luck a little later preferably in the morning and not on a monday or a friday or a day of lent remember that if mr x is not in his office when you go to ask for an appointment you can always wait for him by walking up and down in the corridor or if he is running late by schmoozing with ms wye if in fact she is in her office and a good mood or else by circumperambulating the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the consortium which pays you a pittance while grinding away the best years of your life let us rather assume that everything goes to plan summoned by mr x at half past two on a wednesday you are in actual fact in his office the following tuesday on the stroke of ten he tells you to come in but he has not yet told you to sit down so you ask him whether one of his daughters has measles and he answers no don’t believe it or rather do not believe that that means that none of his daughters has measles unless you have it on unimpeachable authority that mr x has only one daughter but it is much more likely he has four that’s what it says on the flow-chart anyway and you can’t invent this kind of thing so you ask him whether two of his daughters don’t have measles he will answer yes or no if he says yes two of his daughters have measles you don’t even have to squint up his nose to see whether or not he has red spots it’s better to get out on some fabricated pretext for instance shit my meter or ouch a fish bone or again those eggs at lunch i wonder hang on i’m being asked for that must be ms wye who needs me for a T60 issue as soon as you are out the room rush to health and safety and have mr x locked in his office for the official incubation period that is to say forty business days once that period has elapsed go back and see mr x preferably on a tuesday or wednesday because it is obvious that if you go to see him on a thursday and he puts you off until friday you’re going to have the lunch problem re fish and eggs on your plate and it’s better to stack the chances in your own favour if perchance meanwhile mr x has managed to get out and has not yet come back in wait for him either by pacing up and down in the corridor or by nattering with ms wye unless ms wye has already retired and only if she is still suffused with the bonhomie of yesteryear or lastly by circumperambulating the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the organisation with which you should definitely not identify yourself stick your neck out and check the lunch menu and get vaccinated against measles then with your heart full of hope go back to stand outside the office of mr x we shall assume to keep things simple – for we must do our best to keep things simple – that mr x is in his office that he raises his eyes when you knock and asks you to come in but still does not ask you to sit down so you ask him whether one of his daughters has measles he answers no whether two of his daughters have measles he answers no it’s a good answer up to a point but it could be camouflage hiding a far worse truth namely that three of his daughters have measles put the question honestly if your line manager says yes three of his daughters have measles get out fast you don’t even have to find an excuse alert health and safety and the first aid team have your boss locked in and the whole department to boot and even the departments on either side for forty business days and keep yourself in isolation as well in 1966 there were 18,931 registered cases of measles in france and 109 fatalities which gives you a pretty good chance with a survival rate of approximately 99.5% measles is an infectious disease of man marked by an eruption of rose-colored papulae in irregular circles and crescents that is to say by often acute facial efflorescence or exanthema it is preceded and accompanied by catarrhal and febrile symptoms typically sore throats sore eyes and coughing its principal complications are bronchial pneumonia laryngitis and encephalitis sulpha series drugs and penicillin provide effective medication it’s better than catching scarlet fever forty days later you will still be able to go and see the firm’s legal claims officer to request damages if the legal claims officer is not in you wait for him in the corridor or else you go and have a chinwag with ms jay providing she is in her office and a good mood or else you circumperambulate the various departments which taken together

  constitute the whole or part of the firm which defends the interests of the firm that employs you we shall consider despite the notoriously contagious nature of the above-mentioned disease that the simultaneous co-occurrence of three cases of measles in the same family is a sufficiently unusual event to impinge on the awareness of the head of aforementioned and your department and to lead him to take all necessary steps for the collective well-being of the firm of which he too is an employee and as a result it is likely that for once he will reply that no three of his daughters do not have measles sure but what is true of the three is not necessarily true of the four and it is well known that measles lies dormant the fourth offspring of your boss could well be nursing the infection whence the fatherly worries that cause him to forget even to offer you a seat so do worry about the health of the littl’un if the answer is that she gives some cause for concern wait for confirmation before acting if it really is measles it will soon be known and after all in the position you have reached you can’t really claim that forty days more or less is here or there if on the other hand your line manager says that there is not the slightest risk of measles on the far horizon stop pushing the question you will end up arousing suspicion in the otherwise crystalline heart of your boss rather think that after completing all these sanitary routines you have more than adequately demonstrated your proper concern for the personal well-being of your head of department and for what he must hold dearest to be within your rights to sit down even before being explicitly invited so to do in other words either you behave as if when asked to come in you had also been asked to take a seat and so you sit down or while still on your feet you behave as if you were seated and begin to speak of the problem that is nagging at you so now you have got to the point we can indeed call crucial stop scratching relax breathe in remember nothing ventured nothing gained keep right on to the end of the road lay out your problem with honesty you know full well that what brings you here is a matter of money you earn 750 francs a month you would like to earn 7,500 you know it’s going to be difficult you would settle for 785 plus an annual bonus pegged at the equivalent of 40 business days to compensate for incubation you also know that your line manager can see right through your little game and he knows why you’re standing in front of him biting your nails pathologically stumbling over your words you know that he knows that you know and he knows you know that he knew that you saw that he would know that you were about to know in other words you have the actually quite accurate impression that it would be tricky clumsy dangerous to launch into the issue just like that you need a pretext you need to persuade your line manager that you deserve the raise for instance you are going to give him an idea that the firm to which you owe everything could use to its benefit you’ve been thinking about the international context competition is increasing with the dismantling of customs tariffs and the implementation of that accursed treaty of rome on the common market next month how will we sell anything expansion means you we’re in this together lads there’ll always be something left over the more we produce less fast the less we consume more slowly and vice versa et cetera but your line manager who sees what you’re trying to do stops you
by asking if this is a T60 issue it’s one or t’other either it is a T60 issue or it is not a T60 issue but you haven’t a clue what a T60 issue is and i can’t help as i don’t know either so you stick your neck out and obviously say yes this is a T60 issue but hang on your line manager exclaims with a burst of enormously sardonic laughter if it is a T60 issue then it doesn’t come under me go and see AD 4 section for that is the only department that can deal with it all you can now do is to get up thank your head of department for the excellent advice he has given you and go and look for AD 4 section which obviously you will fail to locate while musing on your misfortune and swearing if somewhat belatedly that you’ll never get caught out like that again you will wander from department to department then you will come back to see your head of department once again obviously your head of department will have to be in if he is not then wait in the corridor for him to turn up if he takes his time go and see ms wye if ms wye is indeed in her office and in addition in not too bad a mood but she is used to seeing you now so if she is there there is no good reason for her to shoo you away otherwise you would have to circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the vast organisation where you are wasting the greater part of your time stick your neck out and ask around if someone else doesn’t also have a T60 issue then drift back to mr x’s office until such time as he is in which must eventually come to pass unless he got so ill from the eggs that were served yesterday but were not fresh or unless he has been laid low by ingurgitating a fish bone last lent or unless he is incubating a case of measles or unless he is himself pacing up and down in the corridor outside mr z’s office that’s his head of department to try to speak to him about a U120 issue but let’s suppose that all goes well that mr x is in you knock he doesn’t answer such things do happen do not lose heart nor should you persevere that would be unseemly try your luck afresh the morning after except if the morning aforesaid falls on a monday or a friday or even a thursday because if you go to see him on a thursday and still he does not answer the knock on the door that puts you back not to the next day which would be a friday day of eggs and fish nor even to monday an unlucky day overcharged with magic memories of satsun but unto tuesday which is a long way off so all in all it’s a better bet to decide right now to go to see your line manager on a tuesday because if he spurns you that still leaves all of wednesday to try your luck one more time so the following tuesday you go back to mr x’s office and o joy o rapture he’s there mr x is there he raises his eyes when you knock of course he can’t see you but at least he summons you to come and see him that very afternoon at 2:30 pm if by good luck it is not lent then there’s not much chance of fish or eggs being on the lunch menu and even if there are eggs they will not necessarily be off and if there is fish mr x is in no way obliged to swallow a bone in short you still have a good chance and on the very stroke of half past two you present yourself at the door of the office of your line manager who has no valid reason not to be there and yet such is the case you wait for him in the corridor then as he takes his time you go to see if ms wye is at her desk no she isn’t so you circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the tentacular organisation that provides your meagre means of subsistence

  on wednesday you clock in forthwith at your line manager’s office let’s suppose to keep things simple – for we must do our best to keep things simple otherwise we would be utterly lost – that he is in he being your head of department you knock he raises his eyes he beckons you to enter let’s suppose he forgets to tell you to sit down but assures you that neither one nor two nor three of his daughters have measles and that his fourth-born isn’t in the remotest danger of catching it recall that if this were not the case you would have to exit more or less precipitously depending on the seriousness of the situation alert health and safety or first aid or both at the same time lock your line manager in his office for forty business days with a supply of sulpha series medications and/or antibiotics and put yourself into isolation too but if despite forgetting to ask you to sit down while reassuring you that all his family are well then you have once again a small a tiny a minuscule a risible opportunity to achieve your ends of course you won’t dare launch point blank into boss i wanna raise that would be clumsy you have to find a pretext without getting too tangled up so you undertake to explain to your line manager that as you are deeply concerned about the organisational equilibrium of the firm that is for you like a third teat and yet worried while also inspired by the recently remodelled competitive robustitude ipsified by the market how will we pay our suppliers next month expansion is other people industrial output is personal input and vice versa and so forth and so on it occurred to you that other things being if not equal scuse me is what your head of department will then say aren’t we talking about a T60 issue it’s one or t’other either we are talking about a T60 issue or we are not talking about a T60 issue since you still don’t know what a T60 issue is you can say anything you like but you must not say yes because if you do your line manager will have it easy and be able to say that your thoughts touch him not a jot or tittle for they come under AD 4 section or the dispatch department the disputes department the canteen health and safety first aid external relations ms wye or the legal claims officer and you would have to start all over again no for pity’s sake no so you answer that it is definitely not a T60 harrumph harrumph harrumph your line manager will then say so we need to plan another project it’s one or t’other either you lie and say yes or weary with all the lies you’ve told you say no pretty much forcing your line manager to be the first to utter the word raise let us suppose that in an attempt to outsmart the fates which you would be wrong to do but let’s not get carried away too soon you said yes we need another project i’m listening your head of department will say so all you could then do is to lay out your proposal to your line manager of course the idea would have to catch your line manager’s imagination let us suppose that it does not catch his imagination which is altogether the most likely situation have you ever seen a line manager get interested in an idea brought to him by one of his subordinates at best he will see in it an interesting suggestion he could hasten to suggest to his boss mr z as soon as the latter has fully recovered because after eating an omelette that his youngest daughter had lovingly cooked for him he caught measles so your head of department is going to pretend to find your proposal extremely dull boring and in addition totally impractical and to keep things simple he will ask you in a particularly icy tone to put it all down on one sheet of a4 which will go straight into the wpb all you can then do is exit do not lose heart after all you make a decent living do you really need a raise if you cut out the unnecessaries heating clothing transport if you have lunch in the canteen every day and dine on boiled lettuce you should be able to make both ends meet in any case it’s a well known fact that boiled lettuce sharpens the mind and within a few months you get a non-trivial new idea that you reckon will fascinate your line manager and will allow you to drop a few hints about a hypothetical upward adjustment of your pecuniary emoluments so you go to see your head of department he is not at his desk you wait in the corridor but as he takes his time you go to see if ms wye is in her office she is but she greets you like a bullfrog in a pottery store so you circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the firm that is your sole horizon then you go back to see mr x who is in his office he raises his eyes when you knock but gestures that he is busy and will see you on the morrow without fail at 2:30 pm alas the morrow is a thursday and mr x takes advantage of his daughters’ day off school to take them to the clinic to have them vaccinated the next day is friday and you do not even try in any case you nearly choke to death on a fish bone and have no more than a quarter of your normal speaking voice left the following tuesday mr x leaves for his annual leave it’s just a happenstance put it down to bad luck syndrome nothing you can do about it the day he gets
back you catch measles then ms wye goes on her holidays then the economic situation constrains the firm to downsize quite seriously by a miracle you are spared which proves if proof were needed that you should never be overly pessimistic but it’s not a good time to ask for a raise anyway it’s lent then you have your annual leave when you get back you learn that mr x unsurprisingly swallowed a fish

  bone while eating eggs laid by hens raised on fish waste despite what you think all this is actually very helpful to you because when eight and a half months later you manage to corner mr x coming out of the cafeteria he will surely be very glad to see you and will ask you to drop by his office that very day at 2:30 pm so you go he will be there you will be seated as per his offer then following elementary courtesy you ask after his health and his loved ones and mme x is ok too and the four wee uns ah measles is a cruel disease measles cruel fate excuse me i’ve got some milk on the stove i must run without hesitation you present yourself at the door to the office of your head of department forty-one days later unless of course the forty-first day following this goes without saying is a thursday or a friday saturday sunday monday bank holiday the day after a bank holiday a day of lent or the eve of lent mr x now he’s better will certainly be receptive to your request he might even see you on the spot and could go so far as to ask you to be seated relax breathe in lay out your problem no this is not a T60 issue do not make the horrendous mistake of saying so even if it is because your line manager will surely reply that T60s are not his potatoes and all you will then be able to do is to wander from department to department in search of potentially nonexistent experts in T60s say instead that you have another plan because if you start talking spondulicks straight away your line manager might find it fishy so you lay out your plan with all the ardour you can still muster it’s one or t’other either your line manager will take an interest in what you tell him or he will not take an interest in what you tell him which is likely you will have wasted your time let us suppose as we are quite entitled to do that your head of department takes an interest in what you tell him it’s not at all impossible at least in theory even if it has never actually occurred in recorded history so your line manager is taking an interest in your plan it’s one or t’other either he thinks your idea is positive rich in possibilities worthwhile or he thinks it is stupid and will let you know in no uncertain terms that your logic is addled that’s to say cock-eyed that’s to say so devoid of understanding as to be close to either early-onset alzheimer’s or congenital idiocy remember however that whether or not he calls you a nincompoop dimwit cretin nutcase crackpot woodenhead bananabrain dolt idiot or fool it comes to the same thing namely your plan will land in the wpb and you will return empty-handed to your desk while awaiting happier days it goes without saying that learning from experience you will improve your basic idea so when the day comes once again to talk with whole and open heart to your head of department he will be unable to dismiss you straight off as a nitwit so you allow yourself some months because one must always try to stack the odds in one’s favour you swot up on the issue then when your plan seems perfect you go back to see mr x let’s assume he’s in and you don’t have to wait for him in the corridor or go and have a bit of a chat with ms wye or even circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the company in whose wheels you are at most a minuscule cog let us grant to keep things simple – for we must do our best to keep things simple – that by an even greater stroke of luck mr x answers asks you to come into his office and even goes so far as to ask you to be seated and tells you without prompting that his four daughters are in good health and married and that not one of his sixteen grandchildren seems at the present time to be incubating a case of measles he doesn’t even ask you (your head of department that is) if the problem that brings you to him is or is not a T60 issue he seems very interested indeed in your plan it’s even as if he finds your suggestion a fruitful one demonstrating a real capacity for observation critical thinking as astounding as it is instructive in short a really remarkable brain unfortunately he doesn’t have time to give you a response don’t be cross remember mr x must be overwhelmed that he spends all his time seeing or evading his twenty-four underlings your colleagues who like you appear to have one thing only on their minds namely to beg and whine for a raise which could in any case never be more than a paltry one and when through patient effort he succeeds in discouraging his subordinates for a few days he seizes the opportunity to go and see his own boss mr z who for his part never fails to put him off likewise his twelve colleagues without himself being able to get anything at all out of the assistant deputy deputy deputy director despite his harrying him without respite you have learned for every failure brings with it a lesson to ponder which will be of use to you later on you have learned i repeat that tenacity gets results and as you near the end of another campaign distinguishable from the others by mere minor details eggs not as fresh as they should be a fish bone that didn’t go down properly measles afflicting the whole family there you are again face to face with mr x explaining that the use of office glue representing nought point nought three over ten to power three of the total cash flow of the business that you cherish more than anything else in the world could be cut by seventy-three point eight seven one per cent by the acquisition of an electronic glue dispenser that would be amortised in 760 weeks and could be paid for in monthly instalments all this seems to fascinate your line manager not stupid not stupid at all he says with a sly grin as a greedy glint lights up his eyes and his thick mop of brilliantined hair sparkles in the mauve glow of the setting summer sun then seemingly taking the time to answer you which constitutes a damn fine advance on where you got to last year he proposes to look at your problem more closely and before your very eyes starts going over the sums that led you to the conclusion that you got to by yourself and on your own now it’s one or t’other when he’s finished his sophisticated arithmetical task either your line manager will have understood the full meaning and import of your plan or he will not have understood a thing let’s suppose he has not understood a thing it’s somewhat disheartening but it’s not really serious send your head of department to TV1 you don’t know what a TV1 is nor does your head of department and neither do i let’s say it’s an information office an evening class a retraining scheme in short give your line manager a few weeks to let things sink in let’s say a few months you must never try to rush things in theory it’s up to mr x to let you know when he’s finally grasped the point but you are well aware that he’ll do nothing of the sort because otherwise he would not be your head of department would he so