When she first saw it, she couldn't believe it: it was so big. In fact she'd never seen one quite like it before.
It was a hectic day, full of change and uncertainty. First she arrived to find that Linda, the receptionist, had gone.
"Linda's married," she said impassively, more as a statement than a question.
"Yes, to a security guard. I'm Leda," the new receptionist said brightly. Then after this minor upheaval, there was a major one: the installation of the computers.
Trevor was in his element as he carried in all the equipment.
"Excuse me, per-lease!" he would cry, making people jump out of the way, sometimes quite unnecessarily. But today was his day, when he could order editors and ad managers around and they had to obey. The rest of the year he was simply one of the maintenance men, who lifted and carried as he was told. But now he was in charge, albeit briefly, and he was revelling in it.
After Trevor had finished carrying all the carefully marked boxes into the offices and placing them in the appointed spots - Bernice was glad production of the magazine had been finished by Wobs for that month - it was the turn of the technical support people. They descended on the machines like a flock of intent vultures, and soon had everything out of the packing, switched on and running. They then hooked up the micros to the network that had been installed over the weekend before, leaving pieces of wire sticking out of the wall everywhere, waiting for its computer. Once the network was functioning, then came the on-site trainers. One for each person, they sat beside the journalists and took them through the basics of working with micros and word-processing packages - the main program they would be using. And then suddenly they were abandoned, left alone with these new monsters.
Kate and Terence had come in specially, and now returned to the typesetters to finish clearing the pages. The others began their journeys of discovery. Chris was enthusiastic but cautious, while Dave ignored his machine completely: he said he was too busy to waste time messing around. Bernice rather expected George to take the same attitude, but here she was in for a surprise.
Something one of the trainers had said - that using a micro you could rewrite an article endlessly, and even start writing it in the middle - had fired George's imagination. His secret problem had always been that he found it hard to start writing an article for fear that he would have to change it all. As a result he hovered on the edge for hours, like a weak swimmer reluctant to trust himself to the water. Now, he discovered, he could start writing anywhere, and then either move what he had written or change it in a couple of seconds. He was transformed. From writing barely one article a month he now started producing three or more. He was so proud of his achievement, and Bernice was doubly delighted: for the sake of the magazine, and for his own sake.
Yasmeen, as might have been expected, just settled down and used her New Technology - in fact to such good effect that she was soon able to go off on another overseas trip, still hoping against hope one day to see something of the countries she visited. This time it was to New York, courtesy of a computer company - clearly the flavour of the month, thought Bernice when she received the invite. She had decided to send Yasmeen again and not Chris: this was partly because she was conscious that Yasmeen was becoming frustrated by her lack of career progression and needed a diversion, and partly because Chris's work was still not strong enough for her to allow him the luxury of a few days out of the office, however much she would have liked to give him this treat.
Janice too took to technology like a proverbial duck to water, and became something of an office guru on the subject: Bernice several times asked her to explain something. And ads seemed to find her positively indispensable for explaining their new toys - they were also being plugged in to the corporate network. And not just the 'girls': even Mr Slide seemed to need her help constantly - though Bernice was surprised that such a gadget-happy type was having problems so often. All in all, then, the introduction of this 'new' technology proved to be far less painful than she had expected, and its overall benefits far greater than she had dare hope.
For Wobs, too, what had threatened to be a disaster as far as his layout skills were concerned turned into a mind-blowing opportunity. Although still not convinced that this was the best way of laying out magazines, Wobs had discovered that his micro could be used to make music. He had soon bought some extra equipment - a board to plug into his machine, strictly against company rules, but Bernice cared little about these - and a small electronic piano keyboard. Thereafter, even in the middle of work, he could often be seen fiddling away with the keyboard - but totally silently, because all of the output was fed through a pair of headphones.
Even Kate would ultimately prove won over. Her fears about the possible damage that micros could cause her unborn child had been largely stilled by giving her a portable computer that used a special screen that emitted no rays. Another benefit of this was that she was able to take the micro with her to the typesetters, and even work at home - though Bernice was unsure whether she wanted Kate to work even longer hours, especially in her condition.
So the office was already in a state of some agitation when she received the phone call from Martin to say that James had just brought along an early issue of New Business. It was not due out until the Friday of that week, but he had managed to get hold of one of the copies that were being circulated to selected advertisers.
"We've got a copy!" she said to the office. A cheer greeted the news as if it had been them who had produced it. At last they would be fighting against something real rather than a shadow.
But when she first saw the magazine in Martin's hands she was not sure she wanted such an adversary. She had never seen anything like it: well over 500 pages in total, more like a telephone directory than a magazine. Even Martin had been rather taken aback when James literally threw it onto his desk, ever one to seek maximum impact.
"OK, OK," said Martin, "let's not get too depressed by this. We knew they were going for a big first issue, that they were a very practised and professional company and that they had enormous resources to put behind the magazine. What we need to do now is to go through and look at the reality behind the initial appearances."
And so the four of them - by now Tim had turned up too - clustered around Martin's desk as they leafed through the issue page by page. Occasionally Tim would dart over to a flipchart where he was noting down the pros and cons of the title. It turned out that, as Martin had suspected, things were not as rosy as they seemed for New Business.
James recognised many cheap ads, effectively used as fillers to plump up the magazine, and Bernice pointed out that many of the articles were clearly taken from the US New Business Frontiers with only minor adjustments and therefore were not directly relevant to UK readers. Tim was interested in the branding and subscription offers. The first issue was sold for just 50p - another giveaway, and eventually would cost £1.90 - 5p cheaper than The Business. The subscription offers were ludicrously cheap: just £12.95 for a year. Clearly Morgan-Banacek were trying to lock in as many readers as quickly as possible.
At the end of the session, even if had degenerated at times into 'mine's bigger than yours' it was clear that New Business was more a brilliant piece of packaging rather than a brilliant piece of magazine publishing. And in any case, their own cover-mounted CD had been such an indisputable success that by 'merely' producing a huge magazine Morgan-Banacek had failed to match readers' and advertisers' heightened expectations. Basically, Wright's had moved the market on.
She went back to the team with a summary of the results. At first they were as shocked as she had been, but as they began talking it through, they gradually felt better and better about it. Now they had something to react against, and already ideas were starting to flow. In particular Wobs was keen to try out some techniques on his new equipment, and suggested some slight re-design of various elements. Bernice asked him to produce some samples, which Wobs was pleased to find was very easy to do with his new toy where, just as George now did with words, he could try something out then change it easily if he was not happy with the results.
Meanwhile Bernice thought that she would give Pete a ring. She hoped that there was no malice in this, but equally she was conscious that it would be a nice way of passing on the message that they had seen an issue.
"Hi, this is Pete speaking, how may I help you?" he said when she was put through to his extension.
"Hi, Pete, Bernice here, how are you doing?" she said, wondering why he sounded like a salesman. In fact this was part of the Morgan-Banacek way, and part of the indoctrination all staff had to undergo when they joined. When they emerged from the process they were supposed to be more 'customer-orientated' in all things, even in picking up the phone, and to have a rock-like faith in the company. Other journalists in the industry, envious of the constant flights to the U.S. offered to the more senior editorial staff at Morgan-Banacek, quipped that this was to have the surgical implants required to obtain these results periodically renewed.
"Oh, fine, you know, relieved now we've finished the first issue - I'll send you a copy if you like."
"Oh thanks, we've already got one - "
"- But - "
"Looks really good," she said honestly.
"Do you think so?" asked Pete, "But what about the contents? I think they've made a mistake myself " - and who were 'they' she wondered - "I mean it's good, but I think we can make it better," he added, aware that he was being disloyal, aware that he was not living up to Morgan-Banacek's expectations, aware that they might be listening to his telephone manner even as he spoke. But then as if admitting defeat he said: "And after that CD of yours...." His voice trailed away.
"Is everything OK, Pete?" asked Bernice.
"Yeah, sure, why shouldn't it be?" he asked defensively.
"No reason. Elaine and the kids OK?"
"Fine, thanks, they're fine." But there was a tremendous sadness in his voice, an exhaustion far deeper than hers had been. She hoped that everything would work out for him.
"Right then," she said, "well, good luck - you'll be needing it," she added as jocularly as she could.
"Right, thanks, yeah. Bye."
She was quite worried by her conversation with Pete. It seemed to confirm her worst fears about his position at New Business, that he had been pushed to the side. She felt sorry for him, and regretted the fact that her victory - assuming it came - would be his defeat. Why did it all have to be so adversarial? she wondered, no longer as hungry for success as she had been a few months ago.
Still, enough of this maundering, she thought. What we need is some response to New Business. The supplements had been very successful, with people writing in for any that they had missed so that they could 'keep them for reference'. The competition, too, had gone down a storm: she had asked George to come up with £20,000 worth of prizes, and instead he had gently twisted the arms of companies so well that he now had over £100,000 promised to them. The competition was over three issues, and already they had received over a thousand entries. And of course the CD had been a real coup, but she knew that not even Tim's squirrellings would enable them to afford another one. Even if they could have done, it would probably have lost its novelty value now - she had already heard of several other magazines intending to follow their lead, so soon they would be commonplace and correspondingly lacking in impact.
"What we need is a big story, something that will really make people sit up and take notice," she said to the team after explaining her thinking. "Any ideas?" she asked. There was a silence, and then finally Mowley looked up from a desk even more submerged in papers and magazines than usual - and now having to accommodate a computer as well, even if not switched on.
"Give me a bit more time and I may have something for you."
"Can you give me some more details?" Bernice asked.
"I'd rather not say until I'm a bit more sure of my facts," he said. Bernice knew he hated talking about anything until it was completely finished.
"OK, but don't take too long over it - we need it. And anything else anyone can come up with." She would just have to trust to Dave and hope that this time he really delivered something out of the ordinary.
