The last thing Bernice needed was to spend a few hours being inducted into the great institution that was Wright's, but Martin was adamant that it was something she needed to go through, if only so as to be able to manage her staff better. The logic of this escaped her, but she did recognise that knowing more about how a big multinational company like Wright's saw and presented itself to its staff could be useful for future articles and her own general understanding of how corporate business worked.
And so on the Wednesday after joining she approached the twin towers of Wright's with another experience in store for her. Personnel, being a support function, was in the North building, on the sixth floor. There was a presentation suite there, set out rather like a small and very plush cinema. Here the company film was shown giving the history and background of Wright's.
According to the stentorian upper-class voice on the soundtrack - it sounded like some World War II propaganda film - Wright's was set up in 1887 by one Albert Royston Wright. He had the idea of publishing illustrated calendars in the year of Queen Victoria's Silver Jubilee. Following the success of what would now be called a one-shot, he expanded his range, producing a number of different models - though whether this was done with the benefit of market research is not recorded.
His most successful line were the Thought for the Day calendars: each day was accompanied by a pithy little thought or saying that appealed to the Victorians' penchant for moralising and their desire for order. Business boomed, until the famous advertising copyline 'Start the day the Wright way with a Wright's calendar' became as well-known as the Bubbles images of Pears' soap.
In true capitalist fashion, Wright's found that it needed to expand into new areas, partly to protect its current line of products, and partly to maintain its growth, something that was taken for granted. It started producing diaries, and then a weekly family magazine. This foray into publishing was so successful that it rapidly expanded its activities here, partly through organic growth, but particularly through acquisition and merger, until by the 1950s Wright's had grown into one of the biggest general publishers of books, magazines and related sundries in the UK.
Thereafter further acquisitions and mergers saw it expand overseas and move into new areas such as directory publishing. More recently it had taken its first faltering steps in electronic publishing with various online database in the US, not entirely successfully as Bernice later gathered.
All of this was presented like some epic tale, centred at first round the heroic young Albert Wright, and then on the dynasty that he founded. Every phrase and image was a cliché, Bernice noted, and as such belonged to the true tradition of bardic poetry that was first created in Homer's Ancient Greece.
Along with the other four new apprentices being processed that day, she emerged blinking into the artificial light neither moved nor shaken, but a little wiser. She recognised now why there seemed to be so many calendars and diaries everywhere she had gone yesterday. In a way it was appropriate for a publishing company to be so pre-occupied with deadlines, since without such schedules, magazines are impossible. And on a more general level, business itself is largely about the organisation of time. Indeed one of the reasons people have such a desperate need for employment - as well as financial ones - is that it provides a structure to the day, the week, the year, a sense of overall order that is otherwise largely missing from a secular society. Whether money is the principal god of these times, or - as the root of all evil - its devil, business is certainly the main religion of today, she concluded.
It was with these thoughts passing through her mind - with the usual view to employing them at a later stage in an editorial or article or two - that Bernice passed from the presentation suite to the central personnel office for the final stage of her induction. As a manager she was granted the pleasure of the Personnel Director's attention, rather than dealing with one of his minions.
Dan Scowcroft unfortunately corresponded precisely to one of her management stereotypes. He was in his fifties, thin and red-faced, and with an unfortunate skin complaint that caused his forehead and scalp to flake in a rather unsightly manner, and left a kind of fallen halo of skin on his ill-chosen dark three-piece suit.
"My dear, come in," he said when his secretary showed Bernice to his office.
"Welcome to Wright's - the right decision coming here, ha-ha. Now, you've been inducted, I believe, yes, so perhaps if I can just finish you off, so to speak, ha-ha. First things first: here are your Wright's Managers Diary and Wright's Managers Calendar."
These symbols of office intrigued her. As she later found out, everybody at Wright's was given similar items, but of an appropriate kind. For example, the workers received a simple fold-up paper diary with little space on it for writing appointments - based on the assumption that workers don't have appointments, presumably, and that they just get on with it. They were also given chunky day-by-day calendars printed on grease-proof laminated card that had to be flipped over - to remind them that time was passing, or perhaps to wake them up in the morning. Each day had some sententious reminder designed to encourage productivity - generally along the lines of 'when in doubt, ask about.'
Top managers like Scowcroft, on the other hand, had massive leather-bound day-by-day diaries printed on hand-woven paper, to allow for their crammed schedules. They were also given ten-year wallplanners, tastefully decorated with timeless masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance. This was presumably to save them time by not having to read the thousand words or more each picture might represent. Bernice's gifts fell between the two: a weekly diary of a reasonable quality, plus a tasteful monthly calendar showing works of minor British landscape painters.
As well as the ceremonial handing over of the sacred calendars and diaries, Scowcroft was responsible for giving her more serious pieces of paper like her the appropriate job description (Editor Grade 2B*), contract and terms and conditions of employment. No one-week notice periods here, she noted, but three months rising to six after 10 years in the job. She was also given a hefty folder containing background information about Wright's, its canteens, nearby sports facilities, and discounts available at local dry cleaners and florists.
"Well, that's the end of the formal part of our meeting, so if you don't have any questions" - this did not seem to be an invitation so much as a statement of fact - "perhaps we can pass on to other matters.
I gather from Michael Davies, your publisher, that you will be recruiting a number of staff in the next few months. This, of course is highly complex process - you know, Maslow's Hierarchy and that sort of thing - and one in which mistakes made early on can be costly to correct. So I just wanted to offer my services should they be of any use to you."
The last thing Bernice wanted was Mr Scowcroft sitting in on her interviews.
"That's really very kind of you, " she said in her best liar's voice, "I think I'll talk that through with Martin if I may," she said, pausing slightly on his name, "to see what he thinks. But if I need help with Maslow's Hierarchy I'll certainly come to you." Probably not a good idea to poke fun at someone on the main Board, but Bernice was feeling tired after all the propaganda and the events of the day before, and so felt like hitting back a little. Luckily Scowcroft was so insensitive as not to notice the heavy sarcasm.
"Well, as you wish. But if I could just give you a couple of pieces of advice - and this is entirely off the record you understand. First, our coloured brethren. Now, the point is that legislation being what it is these days, it really can be more trouble than it's worth employing them. Now of course I'm not saying that you shouldn't, but just bear in mind that there may be other candidates just as suitable and without these problems." Bernice could hardly believe her ears, but was too surprised to say anything immediately.
"And secondly, the same thing really, women. I'm sure you know what I mean, a certain age, pregnancy a possibility - it just causes problems for all concerned. I'm sure I need say no more."
"In case you hadn't noticed, Mr Scowcroft," Bernice said with emphasis and barely controlled rage, "I am a woman of a certain age...."
"Of course, of course, but this is nothing personal, you understand - just personnel, ha-ha - I'm regarding you not as a woman, but as a manager...." This he obviously intended as a compliment, but before Bernice could correct any misapprehensions he might be labouring under, there was a knock at the door.
"Oh, sorry, Daniel," a rat-like face said around the door, "I didn't know I was interrupting."
"Ronald, no, please, do come in, we were just finishing."
I was just about start, thought Bernice.
"Bernardine, this is Ronald Feltham, he's our Union Representative on the Personnel Council."
Bernice thought that Ronald was strangely deferential for a union representative, what with his bowed head and hunched shoulders. She half expected to see a cloth cap clutched in his hands. Presumably he was fairly marginal in the union organisation.
"So if you'd just like to toddle off with Ronald..." said Scowcroft as if Bernice could want nothing more.
"Er, why?" asked Bernice bluntly.
"Well, we have this, um, arrangement with the union that they meet new journalists when they arrive - to introduce themselves, explain the situation, that sort of thing."
"I see," said Bernice, though she didn't really. But she was more than happy to get out of the presence of Scowcroft before she committed a serious faux pas. Like breaking his jaw.
After getting up and going to the door quickly so as to avoid shaking hands with this odious man, she was followed outside by Ronald after he had thanked Daniel profusely.
Outside his attitude was rather different.
"So, Bernardine was it?" he asked chummily.
"Bernice, actually," she replied.
"Strange, could have sworn Dan said 'Bernardine'. Anyway, I'm your FoC. Welcome."
Him, Father of Chapel - the local head of the journalists union, which was organised in so-called chapels?
"In the Union yourself?" She was. "What chapels did you have at your place?" - her place being her last employer. None was the answer, since the company was so small it didn't seem worth having all that bureaucracy.
They had reached his office by now, a tiny little cupboard right at the end the corridor. He saw her disapproving glances.
"Yeah, typical bloody management, eh? Stuff the workers. It's all about power of course, Them and Us. That's why we've got to stick together," he said firmly.
The idea of sticking together with Feltham did not appeal to Bernice.
"Anyway, here's something you'll find useful," he said, fishing out a battered folder from his desk and extracting a dog-eared document. "Perhaps you could photocopy it and return it to me sometime?"
"What is it?" asked Bernice as she took the stained, stapled papers rather gingerly, unsure where they had been.
"It's the official Chapel Launch Schedule."
"Launch schedule? What, it tells me how to launch a magazine?"
"Not exactly, it simply lays down how long management should allow you for each phase."
"Ah, I see," said Bernice, deeply sceptical. "And how long is the entire launch process according to this?"
"Well, the initial discussions with management about staffing, salaries etc should last a couple of months, then - "
"I have two months..." she said coolly.
"Oh, that's OK then. After that there's the basic planning - "
"No, you don't understand: I have two months to launch the title from scratch. Starting yesterday."
He really didn't understand. Two months? Two months?? He was obviously wasting his time here.
"Yeah, well, if you need my help, you know where you can find me," he said curtly.
"Thanks," she said, leaving an office that by now had become sweaty. And also where not to find you, she thought, as she went back down to her office to get on with a launch in the real world.
Bernice was delighted to watch the office suddenly being to stir itself as the nearness of the deadlines had its effect on her team. Luckily the exact nature of the articles was not so important at this stage: almost anything would have done for the dummy. In fact in the week before joining she had banged out three pieces almost without stopping to think. What was more important was having some words to work with - any words - and for her staff to have some thing to do. Without busy-ness, business would be dead. And so would The Business.
