They didn't.
In a way she was relieved, because she had already decided that Yasmeen was the one she needed. She admired the way she had overcome obstacles at home to become a journalist, her approach to writing, her ideas, her enthusiasm. The month's notice was deeply inconvenient but she refused to let herself be beaten by a detail such as that. With Martin's agreement - he also thought Yasmeen the best candidate and trusted to Bernice's judgement about the feasibility of waiting the month - she rang Yasmeen that evening at her digs.
Someone else answered the telephone and then bawled 'Yasmeen - it's for you-hoo'; there was then a short pause followed by approaching footsteps. Then Yasmeen's voice, as calm and collected as ever: "Yasmeen Patel here" - even at home she sounded like a journalist on the phone.
"Hallo, Yasmeen, Bernice Stuart here from Wright's" - it felt strange already to be a representative of the company she had only joined last week - "sorry to trouble you at home, but I wanted to contact you as soon as possible. Can you talk now?" as if she might be deep in some other meeting.
"Of course," said Yasmeen, still betraying no excitement, though this was only through application of tremendous will-power.
"Basically we'd like to offer you the job of Features Editor on our new launch; the salary and conditions will be as we mentioned. I really hope that you'll accept," said Bernice, honestly.
"But what about the one month's notice? I've thought about it, but I can't see any way round it," said Yasmeen, perplexed for a moment.
"Oh, we think you're worth wait," said Bernice simply.
"Thank you - for that and for the job. I'd love to come," said Yasmeen. "One thing I did think: I could do some work for you in the evenings and at weekends, or at least start preparing things so that when I arrive I'm productive immediately."
"That's great, Yasmeen," said Bernice, delighted that Yasmeen had come up with the same idea she was about to suggest. "Have a think about some of those titles you came up with, and we'll talk about it tomorrow evening - if you're in, that is," Bernice said, realising that not everyone sacrificed their social lives to work as she did.
"Certainly I'm in. I look forward to talking with you - and joining the team."
Bernice felt strangely elated given that she had just chosen someone who would be unable to contribute much initially. But she had a hunch the Yasmeen would more than repay that initial deficit, if indeed there was one. And she suspected that young Yasmeen might well prove even more surprising than even she or Martin imagined.
And as for that team Yasmeen was so glad to be joining, well, there were still two more members to find.
In all over 60 hopefuls applied for the post of Reporter. She managed to whittle this down to a more acceptable 15 by excluding those whose application letters and CVs disqualified themselves by being badly organised or illiterate, and also the rank outsiders. Some of these were very strange.
There were the usual dreamers who hoped to break into publishing after a lifetime of being a bank clerk and knowing nothing of the reality of the job, but there was also even odder applicants. For example, the 45-year old ex-publisher, who for some reason had resigned and wanted now to 'get back to the coalface'.
His CV was most extraordinary, not least because the last salary he had given was that of a senior publisher with one of Wright's major rivals: it was a cool £45,000, nearly double what Bernice was earning as Editor. Why somebody should give up that kind of money to become a humble reporter even she had difficulty understanding, much as she prized the profession. Was being a publisher such a terrible task - or had he discovered that money was indeed an evil? As well as being confused by his CV, she was secretly slightly disturbed by this attempted crossing of hierarchy levels, where somebody currently her superior was asking to be her junior. Something deep within her jibbed at this; she knew that that way lay madness, at least from a business point of view.
As far as the others were concerned, there was little to choose between them. Because of the numbers involved, she was forced to limit the interview to 30 minutes. For a similar reason Martin excused himself completely, pleading the necessity to do some work with his other titles. Besides, for this most junior post, her judgement alone should suffice, and he had no real qualms about leaving the decision to her.
She felt quite strange in these interviews. Perhaps because she had already recruited three key members of staff - the Production, Art and Features Editors - she felt slightly more relaxed at the start. But gradually the steady progression of hopefuls - the spotty youths who knew nothing about anything, the ageing graduates desperate to enter the industry, people with failure written through them like rock from Brighton - wore her down.
Soon she could judge somebody within the first five minutes of the interview. Thereafter it became something of a game, a ritual that had to be gone through. Once or twice, unforgivably, she found herself falling asleep during some particularly boring account of past activities or future aspirations. She felt the odd twitch of power, conscious that for that short span of time she wielded almost unlimited control over these people. They had come here asking for a favour, and as such had to be compliant. In those thirty minutes she could theoretically have asked almost any question, however impertinent or intrusive, and most people would have answered. That she did not was down to her professionalism and personal ethics, but she knew that many others gave in to these unjustifiable liberties - she thought of Martin's moment of weakness during their initial 'chat' - and was glad when such sessions were over, and the temptation out of the way.
She was also glad when in the middle of these it was time to interview the two shortlisted candidates for the post of sub editor. Glad because it broke the monotony of asking the same questions and receiving similar answers, and glad too because Kate would be there to stop her falling asleep and to act as a natural brake on her baser managerial instincts.
The first candidate, Kirstie Maccleby, had scored reasonably well in The Test. Though her version of the Test lacked real style, she had expunged the grossest errors - unlike some other candidates who, unbelievably, had happily let through some of The Test's worst excesses. Her work had not been the best - that honour belonged to the second interviewee - but she was clearly very competent and would do if need be.
She was also incredibly dull, as if she went through life pedantically correcting mistakes because she had not the imagination to do otherwise. And although dullness was hardly an indictable offence, Bernice felt very strongly that her office had to have a certain magic, a certain pumping energy if it was to succeed. She already had some dead weight in the shape of George and Pete, and Dave looked as if he could rarely be bothered to rouse himself, so she needed some help for Kate, Wobs and Yasmeen who all mercifully had the qualities she was after.
As Kate and Bernice waited for the second candidate to turn up, it looked increasingly likely that they would be forced to go with Ms Maccleby. The other interviewee, Terence Wilbur, had already asked for yet another postponement, giving train timetables as the problem. This meant that it was now nearly 7 o'clock in the evening, with both of them already tired after long, stressful days.
"Damn him, let's give him another five minutes, and then tough," said Bernice.
"Did you read his Test?", asked Kate pointedly.
"Well, I glanced at it late last night," said Bernice, knowing what was coming.
"Read it again," said Kate peremptorily, prepared to fight hard for something that was important to her.
"OK, OK," said Bernice, conscious that she should already have done this properly. She opened Mr Wilbur's file, took out his version of The Test, and began studying it:
"OK, let's give him another 15 minutes - but after that I really must go home - I've a feature to write this evening," she said. Again, she added mentally.
Kate assented reluctantly, recognising that poor Bernice did have a lot to do in very little time.
It was fourteen minutes past seven when the security man on reception announced that there was a Mr Wilbur for Bernice. Semi-reluctantly she went down to pick him up, not in the best of humours. Mr Wilbur was in his early thirties and turned out to be tall, dark and stocky, square-jawed and with a noticeable seven o'clock shadow, and black bristly hair cut very short. He was dressed in an anonymous duffel coat, chunky crew-neck sweater and jeans. He was slightly pale, and he had a handkerchief wrapped around his right hand, which meant that Bernice did not shake hands as she normally did when meeting candidates.
"Are you OK?" asked Bernice, feeling a little guilty about her earlier ungenerous thoughts.
"Ay, fine, fine - sorry I'm late. I hope I'm not too late?" he said with a noticeable northern accent.
"No, don't worry about it," said Bernice, still a little taken aback by his appearance.
She could see that Kate too was a little surprised when they returned, and she too restrained her urge to offer her hand, but said nothing.
They talked a little about his CV, but in his case there was little that was directly relevant to the post of sub-editor. He was currently a temporary librarian, and he made no bones about his dislike for the job. He had always loved words, he said, but found that end of the business depressing. Before becoming a librarian he had trained to be a teacher of English, but soon realised that he was not cut out for this kind of work either.
But words remained his passion.
"Passion?" Bernice picked him up on his choice of phrase.
"Ay, passion. I hate it when I read a book or a newspaper and the grammar is all over the shop, or there are spelling errors. It makes my blood boil. Don't they ever check these things?" he asked, getting quite worked up just thinking about it.
"Have you ever done any subediting before?" He hadn't. "What do you think the job would entail?" asked Bernice.
"Well, I presume I would get given the words by the journalists and then I'd go through it and find any errors and correct them."
"What would you do if it were riddled with errors?"
"Well, I suppose I'd re-write the bloody thing myself - as I tried to do in that there test thing. That was fun, I must say, though I hope there aren't as many errors in the words your journalists write."
"Oh no," answered Bernice, " - there are far more. Well, sometimes. But how would you handle a journalist who continued to hand in bad copy, or late copy?"
"Er sorry, copy?"
"Sorry, jargon - terrible habit" - but then a profession wouldn't be a profession if it didn't have its secret jargon designed to exclude the uninitiated - "copy is just the raw words."
"Well, I suppose I'd try to reason with them, pointing out ways they could improve their writing."
"And if that didn't work?"
"Well, I can shout pretty loudly," he said with a smile. And you probably can, thought Bernice. Which suddenly reminded her about his hand.
"What happened to your hand?" she asked suddenly, one of those marginally unreasonably questions she had repressed during the rest of the day.
"Oh, that, that's nothing. A graze," he answered defensively.
"Did you fall over or something?" continued Bernice.
"No, I just hit it against something, shall we say," Bernice was worried by this turn of events: was he violent?
"Can you be more explicit," she went on.
"Well, if you must know," said Terence rather annoyed by now, "there were these young hooligans who were worrying some poor soul outside the station. I hate bullies, so I encouraged them to stop." He said no more.
"Did they?" asked Kate.
He just smiled and nodded.
Conscious that they had strayed from the point, Bernice went on:
"What about notice periods?"
"Well, I'm on a week, but I reckon I'd need another week to sort out accommodation down here, if that were all right."
"OK," said Bernice. "Any other questions, Kate?" Kate said no, so she asked Terence whether he had any for them.
"Look, I could ask you a whole row of clever questions about the job, but basically I'll take the job whatever your paying and whatever the conditions. I want to work with words, and I feel this is the job where I can do it, and do it well."
It was a simple declaration, but one that gained by that simplicity despite flying in the face of all the rules about job interviews.
"Fair enough. Tell me, are you getting the train back tonight? Yes, I thought so. Well, given that you came all this way tonight, it seems to me only fair that you have a decision as soon as possible. I wonder if you mind stepping outside for a moment, please?" Bernice asked.
When he did so, she turned to Kate:
"Well, what do you think?"
"You know what I think," Kate answered.
"I know that he did The Test well, and that he seems as passionate about words as your are. I'm not so sure about his vigilante activities," said Bernice, playing devil's advocate to a certain extent.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that," said Kate, "I think you'll find he's a mild a lamb. Anyway, I'm sure I can handle him."
Coming from this petite woman and referring to this hulk of a man, Bernice thought the comment strange, but knew that Kate had many hidden depths.
"So I'll take that as a 'yes' shall I?" Bernice asked. Kate smiled and nodded, rather as Terence had done.
Bernice called Terence back in.
"Well, the good news is that we'd like to offer you the job." He smiled. "Obviously we appreciate you need to make arrangements to move down here, and we hope that you'll do that as soon possible. Any problems, just let me know."
And that was that. Which just goes to show, thought Bernice after they had symbolically shaken their left hands with Terence and wished him a more peaceful journey home than he'd had in coming, that it was always worth putting up with that extra inconvenience and waiting for that extra minute in order to get the right person.
In a way she was relieved, because she had already decided that Yasmeen was the one she needed. She admired the way she had overcome obstacles at home to become a journalist, her approach to writing, her ideas, her enthusiasm. The month's notice was deeply inconvenient but she refused to let herself be beaten by a detail such as that. With Martin's agreement - he also thought Yasmeen the best candidate and trusted to Bernice's judgement about the feasibility of waiting the month - she rang Yasmeen that evening at her digs.
Someone else answered the telephone and then bawled 'Yasmeen - it's for you-hoo'; there was then a short pause followed by approaching footsteps. Then Yasmeen's voice, as calm and collected as ever: "Yasmeen Patel here" - even at home she sounded like a journalist on the phone.
"Hallo, Yasmeen, Bernice Stuart here from Wright's" - it felt strange already to be a representative of the company she had only joined last week - "sorry to trouble you at home, but I wanted to contact you as soon as possible. Can you talk now?" as if she might be deep in some other meeting.
"Of course," said Yasmeen, still betraying no excitement, though this was only through application of tremendous will-power.
"Basically we'd like to offer you the job of Features Editor on our new launch; the salary and conditions will be as we mentioned. I really hope that you'll accept," said Bernice, honestly.
"But what about the one month's notice? I've thought about it, but I can't see any way round it," said Yasmeen, perplexed for a moment.
"Oh, we think you're worth wait," said Bernice simply.
"Thank you - for that and for the job. I'd love to come," said Yasmeen. "One thing I did think: I could do some work for you in the evenings and at weekends, or at least start preparing things so that when I arrive I'm productive immediately."
"That's great, Yasmeen," said Bernice, delighted that Yasmeen had come up with the same idea she was about to suggest. "Have a think about some of those titles you came up with, and we'll talk about it tomorrow evening - if you're in, that is," Bernice said, realising that not everyone sacrificed their social lives to work as she did.
"Certainly I'm in. I look forward to talking with you - and joining the team."
Bernice felt strangely elated given that she had just chosen someone who would be unable to contribute much initially. But she had a hunch the Yasmeen would more than repay that initial deficit, if indeed there was one. And she suspected that young Yasmeen might well prove even more surprising than even she or Martin imagined.
And as for that team Yasmeen was so glad to be joining, well, there were still two more members to find.
In all over 60 hopefuls applied for the post of Reporter. She managed to whittle this down to a more acceptable 15 by excluding those whose application letters and CVs disqualified themselves by being badly organised or illiterate, and also the rank outsiders. Some of these were very strange.
There were the usual dreamers who hoped to break into publishing after a lifetime of being a bank clerk and knowing nothing of the reality of the job, but there was also even odder applicants. For example, the 45-year old ex-publisher, who for some reason had resigned and wanted now to 'get back to the coalface'.
His CV was most extraordinary, not least because the last salary he had given was that of a senior publisher with one of Wright's major rivals: it was a cool £45,000, nearly double what Bernice was earning as Editor. Why somebody should give up that kind of money to become a humble reporter even she had difficulty understanding, much as she prized the profession. Was being a publisher such a terrible task - or had he discovered that money was indeed an evil? As well as being confused by his CV, she was secretly slightly disturbed by this attempted crossing of hierarchy levels, where somebody currently her superior was asking to be her junior. Something deep within her jibbed at this; she knew that that way lay madness, at least from a business point of view.
As far as the others were concerned, there was little to choose between them. Because of the numbers involved, she was forced to limit the interview to 30 minutes. For a similar reason Martin excused himself completely, pleading the necessity to do some work with his other titles. Besides, for this most junior post, her judgement alone should suffice, and he had no real qualms about leaving the decision to her.
She felt quite strange in these interviews. Perhaps because she had already recruited three key members of staff - the Production, Art and Features Editors - she felt slightly more relaxed at the start. But gradually the steady progression of hopefuls - the spotty youths who knew nothing about anything, the ageing graduates desperate to enter the industry, people with failure written through them like rock from Brighton - wore her down.
Soon she could judge somebody within the first five minutes of the interview. Thereafter it became something of a game, a ritual that had to be gone through. Once or twice, unforgivably, she found herself falling asleep during some particularly boring account of past activities or future aspirations. She felt the odd twitch of power, conscious that for that short span of time she wielded almost unlimited control over these people. They had come here asking for a favour, and as such had to be compliant. In those thirty minutes she could theoretically have asked almost any question, however impertinent or intrusive, and most people would have answered. That she did not was down to her professionalism and personal ethics, but she knew that many others gave in to these unjustifiable liberties - she thought of Martin's moment of weakness during their initial 'chat' - and was glad when such sessions were over, and the temptation out of the way.
She was also glad when in the middle of these it was time to interview the two shortlisted candidates for the post of sub editor. Glad because it broke the monotony of asking the same questions and receiving similar answers, and glad too because Kate would be there to stop her falling asleep and to act as a natural brake on her baser managerial instincts.
The first candidate, Kirstie Maccleby, had scored reasonably well in The Test. Though her version of the Test lacked real style, she had expunged the grossest errors - unlike some other candidates who, unbelievably, had happily let through some of The Test's worst excesses. Her work had not been the best - that honour belonged to the second interviewee - but she was clearly very competent and would do if need be.
She was also incredibly dull, as if she went through life pedantically correcting mistakes because she had not the imagination to do otherwise. And although dullness was hardly an indictable offence, Bernice felt very strongly that her office had to have a certain magic, a certain pumping energy if it was to succeed. She already had some dead weight in the shape of George and Pete, and Dave looked as if he could rarely be bothered to rouse himself, so she needed some help for Kate, Wobs and Yasmeen who all mercifully had the qualities she was after.
As Kate and Bernice waited for the second candidate to turn up, it looked increasingly likely that they would be forced to go with Ms Maccleby. The other interviewee, Terence Wilbur, had already asked for yet another postponement, giving train timetables as the problem. This meant that it was now nearly 7 o'clock in the evening, with both of them already tired after long, stressful days.
"Damn him, let's give him another five minutes, and then tough," said Bernice.
"Did you read his Test?", asked Kate pointedly.
"Well, I glanced at it late last night," said Bernice, knowing what was coming.
"Read it again," said Kate peremptorily, prepared to fight hard for something that was important to her.
"OK, OK," said Bernice, conscious that she should already have done this properly. She opened Mr Wilbur's file, took out his version of The Test, and began studying it:
The Year 2000 will mark the beginning of a new era, a time when Mankind will look back over centuries of history and achievement. But in what circumstances will today's companies find themselves when the day arrives? That depends. Those prepared for the challenges of tomorrow will have already put aside thoughts of past glories and dreams of what might have been; they will be looking to forge new and brighter destinies that will take them far into the next millennium. Others, however, may be more shortsighted and fall by the wayside as a result.On re-reading it Bernice had to concede it was pretty damn good - obviously her mind had not been at its best the night before. Perhaps he was worth waiting for.
British firms are not exempt from this stark choice. There can be no foolish reliance on luck, uncertain at the best of times. Instead, companies must begin now to plan for the future with care - but with vision and boldness too. Both are required because new times require new ideas.
Tomorrow is closer than you think: start preparing today.
"OK, let's give him another 15 minutes - but after that I really must go home - I've a feature to write this evening," she said. Again, she added mentally.
Kate assented reluctantly, recognising that poor Bernice did have a lot to do in very little time.
It was fourteen minutes past seven when the security man on reception announced that there was a Mr Wilbur for Bernice. Semi-reluctantly she went down to pick him up, not in the best of humours. Mr Wilbur was in his early thirties and turned out to be tall, dark and stocky, square-jawed and with a noticeable seven o'clock shadow, and black bristly hair cut very short. He was dressed in an anonymous duffel coat, chunky crew-neck sweater and jeans. He was slightly pale, and he had a handkerchief wrapped around his right hand, which meant that Bernice did not shake hands as she normally did when meeting candidates.
"Are you OK?" asked Bernice, feeling a little guilty about her earlier ungenerous thoughts.
"Ay, fine, fine - sorry I'm late. I hope I'm not too late?" he said with a noticeable northern accent.
"No, don't worry about it," said Bernice, still a little taken aback by his appearance.
She could see that Kate too was a little surprised when they returned, and she too restrained her urge to offer her hand, but said nothing.
They talked a little about his CV, but in his case there was little that was directly relevant to the post of sub-editor. He was currently a temporary librarian, and he made no bones about his dislike for the job. He had always loved words, he said, but found that end of the business depressing. Before becoming a librarian he had trained to be a teacher of English, but soon realised that he was not cut out for this kind of work either.
But words remained his passion.
"Passion?" Bernice picked him up on his choice of phrase.
"Ay, passion. I hate it when I read a book or a newspaper and the grammar is all over the shop, or there are spelling errors. It makes my blood boil. Don't they ever check these things?" he asked, getting quite worked up just thinking about it.
"Have you ever done any subediting before?" He hadn't. "What do you think the job would entail?" asked Bernice.
"Well, I presume I would get given the words by the journalists and then I'd go through it and find any errors and correct them."
"What would you do if it were riddled with errors?"
"Well, I suppose I'd re-write the bloody thing myself - as I tried to do in that there test thing. That was fun, I must say, though I hope there aren't as many errors in the words your journalists write."
"Oh no," answered Bernice, " - there are far more. Well, sometimes. But how would you handle a journalist who continued to hand in bad copy, or late copy?"
"Er sorry, copy?"
"Sorry, jargon - terrible habit" - but then a profession wouldn't be a profession if it didn't have its secret jargon designed to exclude the uninitiated - "copy is just the raw words."
"Well, I suppose I'd try to reason with them, pointing out ways they could improve their writing."
"And if that didn't work?"
"Well, I can shout pretty loudly," he said with a smile. And you probably can, thought Bernice. Which suddenly reminded her about his hand.
"What happened to your hand?" she asked suddenly, one of those marginally unreasonably questions she had repressed during the rest of the day.
"Oh, that, that's nothing. A graze," he answered defensively.
"Did you fall over or something?" continued Bernice.
"No, I just hit it against something, shall we say," Bernice was worried by this turn of events: was he violent?
"Can you be more explicit," she went on.
"Well, if you must know," said Terence rather annoyed by now, "there were these young hooligans who were worrying some poor soul outside the station. I hate bullies, so I encouraged them to stop." He said no more.
"Did they?" asked Kate.
He just smiled and nodded.
Conscious that they had strayed from the point, Bernice went on:
"What about notice periods?"
"Well, I'm on a week, but I reckon I'd need another week to sort out accommodation down here, if that were all right."
"OK," said Bernice. "Any other questions, Kate?" Kate said no, so she asked Terence whether he had any for them.
"Look, I could ask you a whole row of clever questions about the job, but basically I'll take the job whatever your paying and whatever the conditions. I want to work with words, and I feel this is the job where I can do it, and do it well."
It was a simple declaration, but one that gained by that simplicity despite flying in the face of all the rules about job interviews.
"Fair enough. Tell me, are you getting the train back tonight? Yes, I thought so. Well, given that you came all this way tonight, it seems to me only fair that you have a decision as soon as possible. I wonder if you mind stepping outside for a moment, please?" Bernice asked.
When he did so, she turned to Kate:
"Well, what do you think?"
"You know what I think," Kate answered.
"I know that he did The Test well, and that he seems as passionate about words as your are. I'm not so sure about his vigilante activities," said Bernice, playing devil's advocate to a certain extent.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that," said Kate, "I think you'll find he's a mild a lamb. Anyway, I'm sure I can handle him."
Coming from this petite woman and referring to this hulk of a man, Bernice thought the comment strange, but knew that Kate had many hidden depths.
"So I'll take that as a 'yes' shall I?" Bernice asked. Kate smiled and nodded, rather as Terence had done.
Bernice called Terence back in.
"Well, the good news is that we'd like to offer you the job." He smiled. "Obviously we appreciate you need to make arrangements to move down here, and we hope that you'll do that as soon possible. Any problems, just let me know."
And that was that. Which just goes to show, thought Bernice after they had symbolically shaken their left hands with Terence and wished him a more peaceful journey home than he'd had in coming, that it was always worth putting up with that extra inconvenience and waiting for that extra minute in order to get the right person.
