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On Monday the office was unusually full of staff. It was partly to do with the fact that we were ''officially'' open for business, so there were some clients, although not too many. There were also some new staff; the basic opening stock of knowledge and documentation we needed. It was always useful to have some new, fresh blood in the team, although I had the feeling that this time there was something else going on, not just a bit of recruitment.
No one said anything, but I was sure I could see the same expression on everyone's face: utter bewilderment. It was almost as if someone had informed new staff, who were pretty much going to be doing the same job as us anyway, that there had been a ''diversification'' happening in the business, that things would be a lot different from now on.
'Think carefully about that offer', said the voice in my head. 'You might get quite a lot more out if that deal goes through.'
I felt foolish for not having expected that. The same was obviously true of the new staff, because it seemed like just about everyone there was pretty surprised about the enormity of the changes. Some of the mums there recognized me, and of course half the staff did, too.
'It was a bit cynical of me,' I admitted, 'but I thought this was probably it for me. It wasn't such a leap to get us upgraded to the big offices, except that nonsense.'
'I suppose it never ceases to astound me, either, that the company we work for isn't subject to the same economy as anyone else,' said one of the older ladies. 'It sounds like we'll be earning at least twice as much as everyone else in the next few years.'
'That's not the economy,' I pointed out. 'It's the company we work for. As long as the company continues to grow and prosper, the economy will keep taking in more than it costs. And with this change, we'll be ahead of the curve, which makes us quite a bit of money.'
Any criticism of the management wouldn't go down well. After all, they'd deserve it , if they were a ''company'' in the real sense.
I'd fallen out with them a couple of years back over their use of renewable energy sources. It seemed they had started demanding by law that all of the information suppliers were forced to provide to them was in digital form. They also wanted us to provide them with all our documents in electronic form, too.
In response I'd started putting the heavy paperwork on energy consumption into gold bullion, in a box I had in my house for safekeeping. It would have been several kilos. It would have been worth a hell of a lot more than it originally was, but I'd have to be calculating a day before I could have access to all that money. That was frowned upon by someone in senior management.
'Why the hell you try and bribe them with information, I'll never know,' she said to me. 'For all the good it did, it's just as well they don't have it. It's their money in the first place, anyway. Why should they pay for something for no good reason?'
I replied, and I agreed to scale back the demands to paper forms or something similar, but it never happened. That all seemed to be by the way. We now had the operation upgraded to the next level.
'It's a damn shame all the digital stuff has to go,' said a girl, who was a few years younger than me. 'I worked out a system a couple of years back which allowed us to avoid things like keyboards and computers. We only needed our brains to work, anyway.'
So even she had new ideas, although it was almost too obvious.
'It's about time,'' I said. 'The last thing anyone needs, when they're selecting a computer, is the need to buy a screen. And the last thing anyone wants is to use a keypad and mouse.'
But she hadn't finished yet, because she looked like she was going to say something else.
'I noticed our access has been cut off this morning,' she said slowly. 'Only our own teams can get in now. I thought almost everyone was supposed to be available, and even so, we were asked to come in early.'
'There can only be one reason,'' I said. 'It's just like before, although much, much better than it was. I think we're being separated from the rest of the working population, and given special access. I thought this might happen some time. That's what happens when you get something like this.'
The girl dropped her jaw, like she hadn't expected this to happen, but it was obvious to me that she had. It was why she came in early in the first place, and why she looked like she knew more than she should.
'What do you mean?' she asked.
I had a flashback of reception. We'd all thought this place was in much, much better shape now. Our clients seemed much more professional now, and they looked much more official. They looked like people with real money to spend, which made them quite attractive to most businesses, and as a whole they were much more likeable to the general public.
But this girl was coming in for much more than that. She looked like she was cut out for promotion, or for the executive level. She looked like she had a lot more potential than most of the other members of staff. If anything, it looked like it was only a matter of time before she got there.
'I'm not exactly sure what this means,' I said slowly. 'It's not just that the working population, or the employees, are getting less. It's the way we work, and I think they're changing. We'll have to be ready for a lot more changes, I think. I just don't have all the answers, but I've had a bit of advice.'
I knew what this meant by now. The vote was imminent. The two sides were each starting to make a public case. One was ''for'' the business, and the other was ''against''. These things were never easy to make a success of, in the first place, and in the second, they were never easy to control.
'I think you're right about all that. It's not just that things are changing. I think there are people behind this. Maybe they're ''alive'' now.
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