Wobs joined the next day as promised. Despite the key role it may have played with Martin, the Aztec T-shirt was gone, replaced by another that showed a stylised bird with an olive sprig in its beak. Underneath were the words: 'pigeon love.' Bernice somehow sensed that this would be just the first of many such intriguing garments, and felt doubly pleased by her appointment.
After Wobs' induction - to which his only comment was 'weird music' - Bernice spent some time with him, explaining her ideas for the magazine, its component parts and the kind of look she wanted. She said he had a week to come up with designs for the dummy, including the cover. During some of that time he would also have to lay out the dummy, though with the repeated pages they would be using there would be no more than 32 pages to put together on this occasion. Then he would have a week or so to review the design before honing it for the launch issue. Wobs seemed untroubled by these completely unreasonable deadlines.
His reception in the office had been rather cool. Pete made some effort to welcome him, but she could see that he was sceptical that Wobs was going to be the ace designer they needed to make The Business a resounding success. George, as she might have predicted, did not take to this small, strange person, muttering something about 'young people today', while Dave barely took any notice, too engrossed by the newspaper cuttings and magazines strewn over his desk as he researched the article she had asked for.
At least Dave seemed to be getting stuck in. She had been disappointed to receive a formal memo from Peter asking it to be put on record that his deadline for the article was far too tight, and that his work was bound to be prejudiced as a result, and that he hoped it would not be held against him. George was even worse: he seemed just to sit at his desk all day, chewing his pen, turning over a few books in a rather desultory fashion. Luckily she had built in quite a lot of slack to the deadlines to allow for just these eventualities. She would do a few more articles herself over the weekend so as to have something to give Wobs on Monday in addition to the three she had already written.
It was a long and hard weekend. At times she felt quite desperate, wondering why she had taken on this impossible task. What was she trying to prove, and to whom? But she knew that it was just the exhaustion talking, and something kept her going during the long hours of work. Perhaps it was partly the thought of Dibbs joining on Monday, of reinforcements arriving in the nick of time.
Certainly she felt that the office was transformed by Kate's arrival, as if suddenly shaken out of a deep torpor by this energising presence. True, Pete seemed rather suspicious of this newcomer who already had Bernice's confidence, but before long he realised that she was a real professional, and as such would be invaluable for the magazine. George seemed indifferent, as did Dave, though the latter quickly recognised her abilities too, even though he knew the two of them were doomed to clash sooner or later.
Kate brought with her two vital pieces of equipment. The first was The Board. This was simply the schedule for the coming issue, showing when articles were due from the journalists, how long they would be, when they had to be at the typesetters, when laid out by the Art Editor, and when finally approved as pages and sent down to the printers. The Board was Kate's bible: once the dates had been decided they became set in stone for her, rock-like certainties that enabled her to work to any hour to make them happen. As a corollary, she regarded late copy as an insult to The Board, something quite unforgivable; her reactions grew progressively violent the later the articles were. This was partly what made her such a fearsome - and good - production editor. Bernice knew that with Kate in the office things would happen.
The other item that came with Kate - though actually sent in by her the previous week - that would prove crucial to the success of the magazine was The Test. This innocuous looking piece of paper contained on it a few paragraphs of an article written by Bernice long ago, wickedly modified. The article itself was nothing special: what was important were the errors it contained. Some were gross, others less obvious, while some were invisible to all but the most discerning eye. It was with The Test that Kate and Bernice would recruit the Sub Editor, Kate's right-hand man or woman whose standards would have to match Kate's own stratospheric levels.
Before getting Janice to send off copies of The Test to applicants for the post of Sub Editor, she read it through again. It brought back so many memories - of her early days as a journalist when she had made precisely the kind of errors now enshrined in The Test, and of the lessons she had learnt by comparing her initial copy with the polished version as produced by Kate, and of the past interviews she and Kate had carried out using The Test.
It read as follows:
When the rest of the team arrived on Monday, Bernice tried a little small talk to get some interaction going in the office.
"So, people been up to anything interesting this weekend?" she asked. Silence. "Pete?" she said, prodding harder.
"Oh, well, you know, the usual: playing with the kids, a bit of DIY, cleaning the car...." his voice trailed away as if embarrassed at having to expose such everyday but deeply personal details.
Er, right, thought Bernice.
"George, what about you?" she persisted.
"Oh, rather quiet, I'm afraid - spent most of it with the family or in the garden - you know us old codgers," he said self-deprecatingly. But again, Bernice sensed that she was probing areas that he was reluctant to talk about.
"Dave..." Bernice was getting depressed by this failed exercise in jollying along the office.
"Uh?" he said, "yeah, well, read a few books...." He shrugged his shoulders as if to say: what do you expect?
Kate joined in, seeing Bernice's flagging energy.
"And you, er, Wobs" - she still had not got used to the name - "anything exciting?"
"No, just raving as usual..." he said, smiling his strange, ancient smile. Today's T-shirt showed a stylised whale's fluke; underneath were the words 'Lordly Mountains.'
"Pardon?" asked Pete, seriously concerned about this admission of mental instability on the part of their new Art Editor.
" - You know, down the disco like," Wobs explained.
"Ah..." said Pete, unconvinced.
Great, thought Bernice, really great. And what did I do? she asked herself rhetorically. Work, bloody work. Great weekend we all had by the sound of it. But she knew that if anything things would get worse: once the launch was in full swing none of them would have much time to do anything outside work, except sleep - if they were lucky. Bernice felt a twinge of self-pity as she accepted that her social life - already worryingly quiet - would well-nigh disappear for the next few months. Thank God I'm not worrying about getting old and left on the shelf, she thought, and immediately started worrying about it.
There were some fifteen candidates for the post of Sub Editor, most of them fresh from university or in their first jobs after school. Bernice suspected that many of them saw their application as simply a way into journalism, but she knew that as far as Kate was concerned, and quite rightly, being a sub was a way of life, not a stepping stone to becoming a 'glamorous' reporter. Most of those who had applied would need to be rejected, but from their CVs it was hard to tell who would be truly committed to working in the production department. The only way to tell was to send them The Test.
Ideally The Test would have been carried out under controlled conditions within the office - perhaps with a few telephones ringing, wild cries being exchanged across the room and constant interruptions to reproduce the authentic feel of a typical editorial department. But given the constraints of time, this was not really feasible. Instead, the candidates would be allowed to do it at home, spending as long as they liked on it, and using what help they could. She knew that The Test was sufficiently formidable for it to retain its worth even in these unrepresentative circumstances.
One of Kate's first tasks that Monday was to go through the Tests that had been sent back. Bernice flinched each time she heard Dibbs' characteristic cries of "Bloody Hell!", "Moron!", and "God Almighty!" in response to the attempts at correcting the twisted prose of The Test. She feared that none would survive the scrutiny, but in the event she was being too pessimistic. Slightly.
"Well, Kate," asked Bernice at the end of this process, "what's the score."
"I just don't know why these people bother. Half of them are completely illiterate. I reckon there are about two worth looking at," she replied.
"Two? Don't you think we ought to bring in a couple more just in case?" asked Bernice, worried that Kate's high standards might deprive them of a sub for months.
"In case what? We want to start up our own Adult Literacy Project?" Production Editors can be harsh at times, driven by their unremitting desire for perfection.
"OK, you're the chief - " which Kate was when it came to matters of style and usage.
"Janice, could you fix up for these two to come in, tomorrow if possible?" asked Bernice. Janice said she would with pleasure, and meant it, never having been treated quite so well by her (male) bosses before. She had never thought that work - the hitherto boring business of opening letters, answering the phone, typing and the rest - could be transformed into something so enjoyable by virtue of the fact that the person she was working for treated her like a human being not a slave, and as somebody whose contribution had an importance beyond its sometimes trivial results.
Setting up one interview proved no problem, but the other shortlisted candidate was more troublesome. He had to come down from the north, and had difficulty taking time off work. When Janice told Bernice of these problems the latter was tempted to say 'forget it' - after all, there was always the other person. But her professionalism got the better of her, and she managed to find another spot in her Wright's Diary when she and Martin could see him. When Janice rang back he then asked whether the money for the fare could be sent to him in advance. Bernice again nearly called it off, but once more thought better of this action: after all, it was not his fault if he was short of cash, was it? So the two sub editor candidates were fixed up for Thursday.
Meanwhile on Wednesday, she and Martin were seeing potential News/Features Editors. Originally she had planned for George to handle Features. But it soon became apparent to her that poor George was completely incapable of filling this role. She found out after she had tacitly accepted him that far from being a reporter he was in fact Executive Chief Editorial Manager - a typically grandiose name that meant in effect Office Boy. Yet deeper treachery from senior management. She had therefore decided to cover the Features Editor's post herself to begin with, and to hire a separate News Editor who would also have feature writing as an important part of their job. Later, she would pass the Features Editor function either to Pete or possibly the News Editor, depending on how things went. Luckily the newspaper ad for the job had been suitably ambiguous, speaking only of 'senior editorial positions involving news and features.'
The pile of CVs that had come through for this post were not particularly encouraging: a few more senior journalists who obviously had been left on the shelf and saw this as an opportunity to get off it, and other more junior journalists chancing their arm by applying for a post that they were probably not quite ready for. It was hard to tell from looking at them who if anyone might be the person they were looking for. This meant bringing most of them in for the long process of interviews. For unlike the post of Art Editor, which could be decided by looking at past work, or indeed that of sub-editor which could be filled using The Test to weed out unsuitable applicants, finding somebody for the job of News Editor needed direct observation and the right questions.
The first few candidates failed to withstand this kind of close scrutiny. They were obviously cruising in their careers, and had applied on the off-chance that somebody was desperate enough to take them on without demanding too much. But it soon became clear from Bernice's quite aggressive questioning that she wanted more than they could offer. Martin was content to play a secondary role in this, impressed by what he saw, and happy to let her practise her interviewing technique, one of the key managerial skills.
By the time the sixth candidate came in, Bernice had pretty much established the pattern of her questions. After the usual formalities had been dealt with, she began be leading them through their CVs.
"So," she said, "Yasmeen Patel, born 29.1.65 in Bombay - that sounds interesting - what's Bombay like?"
"I wish I knew - my parents left India when I was 2, so I don't really remember anything about it. I'd like to go back one day," Yasmeen said. She was quite tall and well-built for an Indian, Martin thought, not really knowing that much about Indian physiques, but having an opinion nonetheless. He was also struck by the fineness of her features and her beautiful, long, straight black hair, almost blue in its blackness, that rose from her temples like a crown over her head, and then fell in a thick mass over her shoulders.
"You'd like to go back to live?" he asked.
"No, just to visit. Although ultimately my roots are there, all of my family and friends are here. I have no illusions on that point."
"Even though you got excellent results at 'O'-level, you didn't stay on to do 'A's: why was that?" asked Bernice, who believed that even the earliest, apparently irrelevant parts of a CV tell a story.
"My parents needed my help in their shop. We are a big family and things were quite tight then." She said this without a trace of bitterness.
"So you were working in your parents' shop and later started doing 'A'-levels at night school..." continued Bernice.
"That's right, I managed to find somewhere reasonably local that I could get to after finishing work in the evening."
"What kind of shop did/do your parents have?" asked Martin.
"A newsagents-cum-corner shop," said Yasmeen.
"Really?" said Bernice, genuinely interested. "So you grew up with magazines and newspapers as companions? I'm surprised that didn't put you off for life."
"No, not at all," replied Yasmeen seriously, as if Bernice were casting doubt on her commitment. "It meant that I got to know about hundreds of magazines from reading the SOR copies before they were dumped " - one of the harsh realities of publishing is that all of the unsold copies supplied to newsagents on a so-called SOR or 'Sale Or Return' basis get destroyed rather than re-used in any other way - "and later on through helping my father do the paperwork I also became familiar with the distributors and publishers to a lesser extent." She probably knows more than I do about publishing in general, thought Martin ruefully.
"So tell us how you got into publishing," continued Bernice, warming to this serious young woman.
"Well, after the 'A'-levels I just did a course in journalism - " she said, as if it were quite natural to do so, and as if anybody could do the same and then get a job afterwards, which Bernice well knew was not the case " - and then applied for jobs. The one I got was at the Sugar Marketing Council as Editorial Assistant."
"Well," said Bernice, "I'm sure that fitting in the course work around a job which if I'm not mistaken was probably seven days a week as well as being long hours - right? - " Yasmeen shrugged vaguely, as if to say, well, nothing very terrible - "was hardly straightforward, but anyway, that's the how, what about the why: why journalism?"
"I suppose partly because I had grown up with all these magazines around me, I had this romantic image of the people putting them together, of creating something from nothing. I was also very conscious of how important magazines are. I mean, mostly people buy one or two a month, and so tend to discount their overall importance in the scheme of things. But working in my dad's newsagents" - she was starting to relax a little now - "I saw literally thousands and thousands of magazine being sold every week, and this just from our tiny shop. I had this vision of millions and millions of magazines being sold up and down the country. And not just sold, but read and often kept. Newspapers are something that you buy and discard, but people really care about magazines. You choose a magazine as an expression of yourself and your interests, you get excited about them, you look forward to them coming out next week or next month. I suppose I wanted to be part of that, to produce things that people wanted, to be part of their lives." She stopped, conscious that she had got carried away by her enthusiasm. Which was precisely what Bernice was looking for.
Good answer, Bernice thought, and Martin too was impressed by this analysis of the role magazines play in society. He made a mental note to use some of it in his next report to Charles.
"Tell us about your work at the - what was it? - Sugar Marketing Council," Bernice continued.
"Well, it's nothing glamorous. I joined in 1985 as Editorial Assistant. This meant collecting information, writing press releases, that sort of thing. Then in 1986 I became Reporter on SMaC News - that's the monthly newsletter the Council produces. At first I was writing simple news items, doing some subbing and production work, then later I started writing features. From 1987 I have been Assistant Editor on this, and I have frequently stood in for the Editor. I enclosed some samples of my work with the CV that I sent you."
"Yes, thanks for that, they were very good," said Bernice. And they were - a little staid perhaps, but well-written and with some original angles to them, insofar as the subject matter allowed.
"So why do you want this job?" Bernice continued.
"Well, I enjoy what I'm doing SMaC a lot, and the people I work with are great, but I feel that I need to progress. I like challenges, I like to be stretched, and really I'm just cruising now as Assistant Editor on a small title. And there is little likelihood of John - the Editor - moving on in the foreseeable future." Conscious that this sounded rather negative, she continued:
"The other reason I wanted to apply for this post goes back to what I said earlier about being part of people's enthusiasms, lives even. Obviously huge numbers of people work in business, so the prospect of being part of general business title, especially one that is going to take a new approach to that market as the advertisement said, is very appealing. I would love to write for and about those people, their interests, their concerns. As I also said, for many years I read magazines on just about every subject under the sun, so I think that I am well-placed to write about general business rather than specifically about particular areas." She paused, hoping that she was saying the right things. Neither Bernice nor Martin gave any indications as to whether she was - part of the ritual sadism of interviews.
"Looking further ahead," asked Bernice, "what longer-term ambitions do you have?" Always an interesting question: what do people really want from their careers?
"Well, I think that if I were luckily enough to get this job there would be a lot for me to learn, so I think that my ambitions would be catered for some time to come. But in the longer term I would hope to progress up the ladder a little - Assistant Editor, Deputy Editor...Editor."
"Oh, so you want my job, do you?" asked Bernice smiling.
"Well, not yet, but I suppose one day I would hope to be Editor of something similar," Yasmeen said.
"And what about a publisher afterwards?" asked Martin.
"I'm afraid we don't have one on SMaC, so I don't really know what a publisher does. Perhaps I will when I know more about the specifics of the job."
Bernice couldn't help smiling. Yes, just what do publishers do...? She would have to remember to ask Martin in a less public forum than this.
"OK," said Bernice, becoming business-like again, "let's talk specifically - about this job, which is basically News Editor on our new title, with some feature writing as a secondary but important function. What sort of articles would you expect to see appearing?"
"Well, I've put together a few ideas that I've had about that" - here she handed out a neatly typed list of features to Bernice and Martin - "I don't know if these are the kind of things you had in mind..."
Bernice looked down the list: Office Hierarchies, Technology at Work, Alcoholism at Work, Working from Home, Writing Memos, Briefing Designers, etc etc, some 30 or 40 of them. It was an impressive list, not least because it included quite a few that Bernice had not thought of.
"Very impressive," said Bernice. "I presume that in drawing up this list you also gave some thought to the overall aims of the magazine?"
"Well, yes, to come up with appropriate articles I tried to imagine very clearly a typical reader and their typical needs. I saw them as somebody working in an office with a few people, with a boss who in turn had a boss or two above them. I thought that the magazine could try to address all the elements in common that people who work in offices have. That is, nothing specific to one industry, but the things we all know about, or worry about when we work in offices. Particularly the social aspects: I am fascinated by the idea that we spend most of our waking moments in an office, and yet we tend to try to ignore its presence in our lives. In fact it seems to me to be one of the main forces in modern life - another reason why I'd love to write about it."
Couldn't have put it better myself, thought Bernice. Perhaps she should be Editor now....
"Right, what about notice periods, if you got the job, when could you start?" asked Bernice.
"I'm on a month's notice," said Yasmeen.
After what had so far proved to be a dream of an interview, Bernice was brought back to earth with a bump. A month? she thought, forgetting that this was quite normal and eminently reasonable. It was only through exceptional circumstances that others, including herself, had been able to join sooner.
"Is that a problem? asked Yasmeen, worried at Bernice's sudden silence.
"N-no," stammered Bernice, clearly indicating it was.
Yasmeen felt desperate. She wanted the job badly, but really could not join sooner. John, her Editor, was away for two weeks, so she was effectively running her magazine. Besides which, her own sense of professionalism meant that she couldn't abandon the company that had given her her break in journalism. She felt trapped.
"Well, I think that's about all we wanted to ask you, I'm sure you have some questions you want to ask us," said Bernice.
She did, many, but Bernice's clear indication that her notice period was a problem meant that she was disinclined to waste much time asking lots of details. She was nothing if not realistic in these matters. Knowing that she was expected to ask something, she enquired about things like salary, holidays and such like, but without much interest now. The interview had at least been useful practice, she thought, drawing from it what consolation she could.
"OK, obviously we have other people to see, so we will let you know as soon as possible," said Bernice, annoyed with herself that she had signalled her problem with the notice period, and disappointed that what had started so well was ending so badly. "Thanks for coming in."
They all shook hands and Yasmeen left, as serious as when she had entered.
There were a few minutes before the next candidate was due to arrive.
"Pity about the notice period," said Martin. "But we may not have much choice. The other interviewees certainly didn't shine. We'll just have to keep our fingers crossed for the last two."
Bernice grunted vaguely in assent, conscious that her mind was working away in the background, wondering if it might be possible....
But first there were the last two candidates to see. Who knows, perhaps one of them would fit the bill perfectly? she thought without much conviction.
After Wobs' induction - to which his only comment was 'weird music' - Bernice spent some time with him, explaining her ideas for the magazine, its component parts and the kind of look she wanted. She said he had a week to come up with designs for the dummy, including the cover. During some of that time he would also have to lay out the dummy, though with the repeated pages they would be using there would be no more than 32 pages to put together on this occasion. Then he would have a week or so to review the design before honing it for the launch issue. Wobs seemed untroubled by these completely unreasonable deadlines.
His reception in the office had been rather cool. Pete made some effort to welcome him, but she could see that he was sceptical that Wobs was going to be the ace designer they needed to make The Business a resounding success. George, as she might have predicted, did not take to this small, strange person, muttering something about 'young people today', while Dave barely took any notice, too engrossed by the newspaper cuttings and magazines strewn over his desk as he researched the article she had asked for.
At least Dave seemed to be getting stuck in. She had been disappointed to receive a formal memo from Peter asking it to be put on record that his deadline for the article was far too tight, and that his work was bound to be prejudiced as a result, and that he hoped it would not be held against him. George was even worse: he seemed just to sit at his desk all day, chewing his pen, turning over a few books in a rather desultory fashion. Luckily she had built in quite a lot of slack to the deadlines to allow for just these eventualities. She would do a few more articles herself over the weekend so as to have something to give Wobs on Monday in addition to the three she had already written.
It was a long and hard weekend. At times she felt quite desperate, wondering why she had taken on this impossible task. What was she trying to prove, and to whom? But she knew that it was just the exhaustion talking, and something kept her going during the long hours of work. Perhaps it was partly the thought of Dibbs joining on Monday, of reinforcements arriving in the nick of time.
Certainly she felt that the office was transformed by Kate's arrival, as if suddenly shaken out of a deep torpor by this energising presence. True, Pete seemed rather suspicious of this newcomer who already had Bernice's confidence, but before long he realised that she was a real professional, and as such would be invaluable for the magazine. George seemed indifferent, as did Dave, though the latter quickly recognised her abilities too, even though he knew the two of them were doomed to clash sooner or later.
Kate brought with her two vital pieces of equipment. The first was The Board. This was simply the schedule for the coming issue, showing when articles were due from the journalists, how long they would be, when they had to be at the typesetters, when laid out by the Art Editor, and when finally approved as pages and sent down to the printers. The Board was Kate's bible: once the dates had been decided they became set in stone for her, rock-like certainties that enabled her to work to any hour to make them happen. As a corollary, she regarded late copy as an insult to The Board, something quite unforgivable; her reactions grew progressively violent the later the articles were. This was partly what made her such a fearsome - and good - production editor. Bernice knew that with Kate in the office things would happen.
The other item that came with Kate - though actually sent in by her the previous week - that would prove crucial to the success of the magazine was The Test. This innocuous looking piece of paper contained on it a few paragraphs of an article written by Bernice long ago, wickedly modified. The article itself was nothing special: what was important were the errors it contained. Some were gross, others less obvious, while some were invisible to all but the most discerning eye. It was with The Test that Kate and Bernice would recruit the Sub Editor, Kate's right-hand man or woman whose standards would have to match Kate's own stratospheric levels.
Before getting Janice to send off copies of The Test to applicants for the post of Sub Editor, she read it through again. It brought back so many memories - of her early days as a journalist when she had made precisely the kind of errors now enshrined in The Test, and of the lessons she had learnt by comparing her initial copy with the polished version as produced by Kate, and of the past interviews she and Kate had carried out using The Test.
It read as follows:
2000 AD, the start of the second millenium, - what a day that will be. The dawn of a new era, when man will be able to re-look fondly back over centruries of history and things he has done. But what about company's? What have they then got to look forward to? It depends. Companies who are fighting-fit for the future will have already dismissed thoughts of what they would have had had they done something else when they were as successful as they were: they will be looking to fulfill their fates way into the next millenia, hopefully better than what they were: others won't think of that and will get blown out.Even now, Bernice was not sure whether she could knock this tangled wreck of prose into something resembling good clear English, cutting to the bare bone of meaning that lay hidden beneath so many layers of gross error, empty bombast and lazy slang. She was glad that she no longer had to take The Test to prove herself, though in a sense every feature that she wrote and gave to Kate was subject to the same stringent standards, and would be just as ruthlessly rejected if it failed to measure up to them.
But we Brits must not be totally disinterested in planning for this Big Day; it doesn't behove us not to avoid the way of cowardly pusillaniminity of leaving it to Chance; God knows what happens if you do. Instead, at this point in time, is the the moment to carefully think about doing things for the future, but pushing the parametres further back:- as if this was their last chance. We've got to to go with the flow.
2000AD looks a long way a way, but it isn't. Its closer then you think. Pull your finger out now.
When the rest of the team arrived on Monday, Bernice tried a little small talk to get some interaction going in the office.
"So, people been up to anything interesting this weekend?" she asked. Silence. "Pete?" she said, prodding harder.
"Oh, well, you know, the usual: playing with the kids, a bit of DIY, cleaning the car...." his voice trailed away as if embarrassed at having to expose such everyday but deeply personal details.
Er, right, thought Bernice.
"George, what about you?" she persisted.
"Oh, rather quiet, I'm afraid - spent most of it with the family or in the garden - you know us old codgers," he said self-deprecatingly. But again, Bernice sensed that she was probing areas that he was reluctant to talk about.
"Dave..." Bernice was getting depressed by this failed exercise in jollying along the office.
"Uh?" he said, "yeah, well, read a few books...." He shrugged his shoulders as if to say: what do you expect?
Kate joined in, seeing Bernice's flagging energy.
"And you, er, Wobs" - she still had not got used to the name - "anything exciting?"
"No, just raving as usual..." he said, smiling his strange, ancient smile. Today's T-shirt showed a stylised whale's fluke; underneath were the words 'Lordly Mountains.'
"Pardon?" asked Pete, seriously concerned about this admission of mental instability on the part of their new Art Editor.
" - You know, down the disco like," Wobs explained.
"Ah..." said Pete, unconvinced.
Great, thought Bernice, really great. And what did I do? she asked herself rhetorically. Work, bloody work. Great weekend we all had by the sound of it. But she knew that if anything things would get worse: once the launch was in full swing none of them would have much time to do anything outside work, except sleep - if they were lucky. Bernice felt a twinge of self-pity as she accepted that her social life - already worryingly quiet - would well-nigh disappear for the next few months. Thank God I'm not worrying about getting old and left on the shelf, she thought, and immediately started worrying about it.
There were some fifteen candidates for the post of Sub Editor, most of them fresh from university or in their first jobs after school. Bernice suspected that many of them saw their application as simply a way into journalism, but she knew that as far as Kate was concerned, and quite rightly, being a sub was a way of life, not a stepping stone to becoming a 'glamorous' reporter. Most of those who had applied would need to be rejected, but from their CVs it was hard to tell who would be truly committed to working in the production department. The only way to tell was to send them The Test.
Ideally The Test would have been carried out under controlled conditions within the office - perhaps with a few telephones ringing, wild cries being exchanged across the room and constant interruptions to reproduce the authentic feel of a typical editorial department. But given the constraints of time, this was not really feasible. Instead, the candidates would be allowed to do it at home, spending as long as they liked on it, and using what help they could. She knew that The Test was sufficiently formidable for it to retain its worth even in these unrepresentative circumstances.
One of Kate's first tasks that Monday was to go through the Tests that had been sent back. Bernice flinched each time she heard Dibbs' characteristic cries of "Bloody Hell!", "Moron!", and "God Almighty!" in response to the attempts at correcting the twisted prose of The Test. She feared that none would survive the scrutiny, but in the event she was being too pessimistic. Slightly.
"Well, Kate," asked Bernice at the end of this process, "what's the score."
"I just don't know why these people bother. Half of them are completely illiterate. I reckon there are about two worth looking at," she replied.
"Two? Don't you think we ought to bring in a couple more just in case?" asked Bernice, worried that Kate's high standards might deprive them of a sub for months.
"In case what? We want to start up our own Adult Literacy Project?" Production Editors can be harsh at times, driven by their unremitting desire for perfection.
"OK, you're the chief - " which Kate was when it came to matters of style and usage.
"Janice, could you fix up for these two to come in, tomorrow if possible?" asked Bernice. Janice said she would with pleasure, and meant it, never having been treated quite so well by her (male) bosses before. She had never thought that work - the hitherto boring business of opening letters, answering the phone, typing and the rest - could be transformed into something so enjoyable by virtue of the fact that the person she was working for treated her like a human being not a slave, and as somebody whose contribution had an importance beyond its sometimes trivial results.
Setting up one interview proved no problem, but the other shortlisted candidate was more troublesome. He had to come down from the north, and had difficulty taking time off work. When Janice told Bernice of these problems the latter was tempted to say 'forget it' - after all, there was always the other person. But her professionalism got the better of her, and she managed to find another spot in her Wright's Diary when she and Martin could see him. When Janice rang back he then asked whether the money for the fare could be sent to him in advance. Bernice again nearly called it off, but once more thought better of this action: after all, it was not his fault if he was short of cash, was it? So the two sub editor candidates were fixed up for Thursday.
Meanwhile on Wednesday, she and Martin were seeing potential News/Features Editors. Originally she had planned for George to handle Features. But it soon became apparent to her that poor George was completely incapable of filling this role. She found out after she had tacitly accepted him that far from being a reporter he was in fact Executive Chief Editorial Manager - a typically grandiose name that meant in effect Office Boy. Yet deeper treachery from senior management. She had therefore decided to cover the Features Editor's post herself to begin with, and to hire a separate News Editor who would also have feature writing as an important part of their job. Later, she would pass the Features Editor function either to Pete or possibly the News Editor, depending on how things went. Luckily the newspaper ad for the job had been suitably ambiguous, speaking only of 'senior editorial positions involving news and features.'
The pile of CVs that had come through for this post were not particularly encouraging: a few more senior journalists who obviously had been left on the shelf and saw this as an opportunity to get off it, and other more junior journalists chancing their arm by applying for a post that they were probably not quite ready for. It was hard to tell from looking at them who if anyone might be the person they were looking for. This meant bringing most of them in for the long process of interviews. For unlike the post of Art Editor, which could be decided by looking at past work, or indeed that of sub-editor which could be filled using The Test to weed out unsuitable applicants, finding somebody for the job of News Editor needed direct observation and the right questions.
The first few candidates failed to withstand this kind of close scrutiny. They were obviously cruising in their careers, and had applied on the off-chance that somebody was desperate enough to take them on without demanding too much. But it soon became clear from Bernice's quite aggressive questioning that she wanted more than they could offer. Martin was content to play a secondary role in this, impressed by what he saw, and happy to let her practise her interviewing technique, one of the key managerial skills.
By the time the sixth candidate came in, Bernice had pretty much established the pattern of her questions. After the usual formalities had been dealt with, she began be leading them through their CVs.
"So," she said, "Yasmeen Patel, born 29.1.65 in Bombay - that sounds interesting - what's Bombay like?"
"I wish I knew - my parents left India when I was 2, so I don't really remember anything about it. I'd like to go back one day," Yasmeen said. She was quite tall and well-built for an Indian, Martin thought, not really knowing that much about Indian physiques, but having an opinion nonetheless. He was also struck by the fineness of her features and her beautiful, long, straight black hair, almost blue in its blackness, that rose from her temples like a crown over her head, and then fell in a thick mass over her shoulders.
"You'd like to go back to live?" he asked.
"No, just to visit. Although ultimately my roots are there, all of my family and friends are here. I have no illusions on that point."
"Even though you got excellent results at 'O'-level, you didn't stay on to do 'A's: why was that?" asked Bernice, who believed that even the earliest, apparently irrelevant parts of a CV tell a story.
"My parents needed my help in their shop. We are a big family and things were quite tight then." She said this without a trace of bitterness.
"So you were working in your parents' shop and later started doing 'A'-levels at night school..." continued Bernice.
"That's right, I managed to find somewhere reasonably local that I could get to after finishing work in the evening."
"What kind of shop did/do your parents have?" asked Martin.
"A newsagents-cum-corner shop," said Yasmeen.
"Really?" said Bernice, genuinely interested. "So you grew up with magazines and newspapers as companions? I'm surprised that didn't put you off for life."
"No, not at all," replied Yasmeen seriously, as if Bernice were casting doubt on her commitment. "It meant that I got to know about hundreds of magazines from reading the SOR copies before they were dumped " - one of the harsh realities of publishing is that all of the unsold copies supplied to newsagents on a so-called SOR or 'Sale Or Return' basis get destroyed rather than re-used in any other way - "and later on through helping my father do the paperwork I also became familiar with the distributors and publishers to a lesser extent." She probably knows more than I do about publishing in general, thought Martin ruefully.
"So tell us how you got into publishing," continued Bernice, warming to this serious young woman.
"Well, after the 'A'-levels I just did a course in journalism - " she said, as if it were quite natural to do so, and as if anybody could do the same and then get a job afterwards, which Bernice well knew was not the case " - and then applied for jobs. The one I got was at the Sugar Marketing Council as Editorial Assistant."
"Well," said Bernice, "I'm sure that fitting in the course work around a job which if I'm not mistaken was probably seven days a week as well as being long hours - right? - " Yasmeen shrugged vaguely, as if to say, well, nothing very terrible - "was hardly straightforward, but anyway, that's the how, what about the why: why journalism?"
"I suppose partly because I had grown up with all these magazines around me, I had this romantic image of the people putting them together, of creating something from nothing. I was also very conscious of how important magazines are. I mean, mostly people buy one or two a month, and so tend to discount their overall importance in the scheme of things. But working in my dad's newsagents" - she was starting to relax a little now - "I saw literally thousands and thousands of magazine being sold every week, and this just from our tiny shop. I had this vision of millions and millions of magazines being sold up and down the country. And not just sold, but read and often kept. Newspapers are something that you buy and discard, but people really care about magazines. You choose a magazine as an expression of yourself and your interests, you get excited about them, you look forward to them coming out next week or next month. I suppose I wanted to be part of that, to produce things that people wanted, to be part of their lives." She stopped, conscious that she had got carried away by her enthusiasm. Which was precisely what Bernice was looking for.
Good answer, Bernice thought, and Martin too was impressed by this analysis of the role magazines play in society. He made a mental note to use some of it in his next report to Charles.
"Tell us about your work at the - what was it? - Sugar Marketing Council," Bernice continued.
"Well, it's nothing glamorous. I joined in 1985 as Editorial Assistant. This meant collecting information, writing press releases, that sort of thing. Then in 1986 I became Reporter on SMaC News - that's the monthly newsletter the Council produces. At first I was writing simple news items, doing some subbing and production work, then later I started writing features. From 1987 I have been Assistant Editor on this, and I have frequently stood in for the Editor. I enclosed some samples of my work with the CV that I sent you."
"Yes, thanks for that, they were very good," said Bernice. And they were - a little staid perhaps, but well-written and with some original angles to them, insofar as the subject matter allowed.
"So why do you want this job?" Bernice continued.
"Well, I enjoy what I'm doing SMaC a lot, and the people I work with are great, but I feel that I need to progress. I like challenges, I like to be stretched, and really I'm just cruising now as Assistant Editor on a small title. And there is little likelihood of John - the Editor - moving on in the foreseeable future." Conscious that this sounded rather negative, she continued:
"The other reason I wanted to apply for this post goes back to what I said earlier about being part of people's enthusiasms, lives even. Obviously huge numbers of people work in business, so the prospect of being part of general business title, especially one that is going to take a new approach to that market as the advertisement said, is very appealing. I would love to write for and about those people, their interests, their concerns. As I also said, for many years I read magazines on just about every subject under the sun, so I think that I am well-placed to write about general business rather than specifically about particular areas." She paused, hoping that she was saying the right things. Neither Bernice nor Martin gave any indications as to whether she was - part of the ritual sadism of interviews.
"Looking further ahead," asked Bernice, "what longer-term ambitions do you have?" Always an interesting question: what do people really want from their careers?
"Well, I think that if I were luckily enough to get this job there would be a lot for me to learn, so I think that my ambitions would be catered for some time to come. But in the longer term I would hope to progress up the ladder a little - Assistant Editor, Deputy Editor...Editor."
"Oh, so you want my job, do you?" asked Bernice smiling.
"Well, not yet, but I suppose one day I would hope to be Editor of something similar," Yasmeen said.
"And what about a publisher afterwards?" asked Martin.
"I'm afraid we don't have one on SMaC, so I don't really know what a publisher does. Perhaps I will when I know more about the specifics of the job."
Bernice couldn't help smiling. Yes, just what do publishers do...? She would have to remember to ask Martin in a less public forum than this.
"OK," said Bernice, becoming business-like again, "let's talk specifically - about this job, which is basically News Editor on our new title, with some feature writing as a secondary but important function. What sort of articles would you expect to see appearing?"
"Well, I've put together a few ideas that I've had about that" - here she handed out a neatly typed list of features to Bernice and Martin - "I don't know if these are the kind of things you had in mind..."
Bernice looked down the list: Office Hierarchies, Technology at Work, Alcoholism at Work, Working from Home, Writing Memos, Briefing Designers, etc etc, some 30 or 40 of them. It was an impressive list, not least because it included quite a few that Bernice had not thought of.
"Very impressive," said Bernice. "I presume that in drawing up this list you also gave some thought to the overall aims of the magazine?"
"Well, yes, to come up with appropriate articles I tried to imagine very clearly a typical reader and their typical needs. I saw them as somebody working in an office with a few people, with a boss who in turn had a boss or two above them. I thought that the magazine could try to address all the elements in common that people who work in offices have. That is, nothing specific to one industry, but the things we all know about, or worry about when we work in offices. Particularly the social aspects: I am fascinated by the idea that we spend most of our waking moments in an office, and yet we tend to try to ignore its presence in our lives. In fact it seems to me to be one of the main forces in modern life - another reason why I'd love to write about it."
Couldn't have put it better myself, thought Bernice. Perhaps she should be Editor now....
"Right, what about notice periods, if you got the job, when could you start?" asked Bernice.
"I'm on a month's notice," said Yasmeen.
After what had so far proved to be a dream of an interview, Bernice was brought back to earth with a bump. A month? she thought, forgetting that this was quite normal and eminently reasonable. It was only through exceptional circumstances that others, including herself, had been able to join sooner.
"Is that a problem? asked Yasmeen, worried at Bernice's sudden silence.
"N-no," stammered Bernice, clearly indicating it was.
Yasmeen felt desperate. She wanted the job badly, but really could not join sooner. John, her Editor, was away for two weeks, so she was effectively running her magazine. Besides which, her own sense of professionalism meant that she couldn't abandon the company that had given her her break in journalism. She felt trapped.
"Well, I think that's about all we wanted to ask you, I'm sure you have some questions you want to ask us," said Bernice.
She did, many, but Bernice's clear indication that her notice period was a problem meant that she was disinclined to waste much time asking lots of details. She was nothing if not realistic in these matters. Knowing that she was expected to ask something, she enquired about things like salary, holidays and such like, but without much interest now. The interview had at least been useful practice, she thought, drawing from it what consolation she could.
"OK, obviously we have other people to see, so we will let you know as soon as possible," said Bernice, annoyed with herself that she had signalled her problem with the notice period, and disappointed that what had started so well was ending so badly. "Thanks for coming in."
They all shook hands and Yasmeen left, as serious as when she had entered.
There were a few minutes before the next candidate was due to arrive.
"Pity about the notice period," said Martin. "But we may not have much choice. The other interviewees certainly didn't shine. We'll just have to keep our fingers crossed for the last two."
Bernice grunted vaguely in assent, conscious that her mind was working away in the background, wondering if it might be possible....
But first there were the last two candidates to see. Who knows, perhaps one of them would fit the bill perfectly? she thought without much conviction.
