Words of Warning - an extract from the book, None of your Business

“So how was the first day, then?”
Johnson was sitting at the bar of The White Lion with an unusually subdued Tim. No champagne this evening.
“It was OK, Tim,” replied Johnson.
“OK?”
“Not outstanding.”
“So, what are you doing exactly?” Tim asked.
“As yet, not much. Well, not much work of any description. I’m doing some research.”
“Oh, yes?”
“Going through newspaper ads.”
“Looking for clients you can cold call?”
“I think so.”
“Thrilling.”
“It’s a start Tim. I’m on the Internet as well.”
“Looking for..?”
“Clients…”
“…that you can cold call?”
“Pretty much. But my induction starts tomorrow. Sounds pretty interesting.”
“It does, huh?”
“My boss says that they lack the inventory and skills matrices.”
“Does he now?”
“They want people who can think outside the box.”
Tim’s eyes rolled back in their sockets.
“What does that mean, Tim?” asked Johnson.
“Bollocks, is what it means. Horrible, hairy, goose-pimpled and lumpy danglers is exactly what it means. Same as inventory and skills mattresses.”
“Matrices,” corrected Johnson.
“Same thing.”
“Well, it just isn’t is it?”
“What?” Tim swilled back the dregs of his beer and ordered two more.
“The same thing. Matrices and mattresses.”
“It amounts to the same thing, matey. You’ll see.”
“Alright, what about thinking outside the box, then?” persisted Johnson.
“It means…well, you tell me what you think it means.”
“Well, being an ideas man. Bringing something of value to the organisation. Invention.”
“Invention’s about right Johnson.”
The barman, a toothy youth in a grimy, yellow ‘I Love Bungee’ T-shirt slapped two pints on the bar carelessly and Johnson withdrew his suited elbow from the puddle of beer which was spreading rapidly in his direction.
“Thank you so much,” said Johnson.
“No worries,” said the barman.
“No wucking furries,” said Tim.
The barman swaggered away to his leaning post at the far end of the bar, eyes aimed again at the TV high on the wall. Johnson mopped up the spillage with a beer towel, then lobbed the soggy mass in the general direction of Mr Bungee. But half-heartedly, without conviction. He couldn’t carry off the complete act of chucking it at Mr Bungee, so he made the gesture, but it landed only a couple of feet away, and nobody noticed. Probably just as well.
Tim hissed a quiet gynaecological term, at about forty-five degrees to Mr Bungee‘s station. He’s as bad as me, thought Johnson.
“You seem a bit pissed off, Tim,” Johnson observed.
“Yeah. I suppose I am.”
“What’s up?”
“I’ve got my appraisal tomorrow.”
“Appraisal?”
“My boss and me will be going through my PDP.”
“This is all new to me Tim. PDP?”
“Personal development plan.”
“Oh, yes?” Johnson prompted.
“Otherwise known as the personal departure plan.”
“I’m not really following you, Tim.”
“In that case, Johnson, sit back and relax. Let me tell you all about appraisals.”
“OK.”
“And mentoring.”
“Mentalling?”
“You’re a fast learner, boy, I’ll give you that. Out of the mouths of babes, eh? A real fast learner,” Tim rocked back and forth on his stool, with his eyes shut and faint smile about his lips.
They talked for a bit.
“So, when I have one of these appraisals I get to tell my boss what I think of his performance?” Johnson asked, with an air of confusion.
“After he’s had his say, yes,” Tim supped and yawned a gentle yawn.
Johnson thought Tim was taking the world-weary act a little too far for one so young.
“But, that’s good isn’t it? I mean getting to have your say in things. In how things are run?”
“It doesn’t work like that Johnson.”
“But if he’s asking me my opinion?”
“Don’t volunteer it. Whatever you do when you find yourself in an appraisal situation..”
Johnson tried to interject, but Tim shot him down expertly.
“Shit, listen to me, in an appraisal situation, just do yourself some good and steer clear of honesty.”
“In what way?”
“Oh, you know, saying things like, I think you’re lazy or there’s no point talking to you in the afternoons because you’re too pissed, or are you banging so-and-so?”
“But he’s asking..”
“Johnson, what if someone asks a question but doesn’t care about the answer?”
Johnson sensed the brush of the world-weariness gene, or germ.
“So what’s the point of it all?” he asked.
“Search me,” said Tim, “Shall we go and eat something?”
“No, hang on. What’s the answer?”
“The answer? To what?” Tim was befuddled now.
“Well, how do you handle an appraisal?”
“Turn up well-groomed and smart, and on the dot, don’t complain about them wasting time which you can ill afford to lose because of the impossible workload they’re responsible for having given you, nod your head, make a show of listening and paying attention, smile, make a few notes - doesn’t matter what- agree with most things, disagree with a few - again, doesn’t really matter which, take some water or coffee, whatever, so you’ve got something to do when it gets too dreary, don’t doodle, tell them you’re keen for this, that or the other to happen, but don’t dig any graves for yourself, don’t say that you want his job, or, correction, if you know he’s in the crap anyway, just for the crack, say that you see yourself doing his job anytime soon, say yes to any training that takes place in a city and indoors with lunch and drinks included, make sure you get in an immediate point blank refusal to anything which takes place outdoors and in the countryside involving canoeing or climbing anything or running around in the pissing rain having to find your own dinner which some bastard’s hidden under a fucking hedge and then cooking it yourself, or backing off mountains suspended from a bit of string tied to a masonry nail or anything like being elected captain of a team of arseholes, who have to get across a river for no sensible reason whatsoever other than that some twat of an instructor is waiting on the other side, with the aid of only a plank, two bicycle wheels, a bucket of sand and a paper chain.”
Tim drew breath and beer. Johnson’s air matched that of a child who’d just been mugged for his dinner money.
“So, when he asks me what I think about him?”
“Tell him he’s doing a great job.”
“Just that?”
“Wake up, Johnson. Haven’t you been listening to me? What else are going to tell him?”
“Then it’s pointless. It really is just a pointless exercise,” Johnson sighed.
“You have been listening, haven’t you? Good. Let‘s go and get something to eat.”
They sat at small table for two in a gloomy Italian restaurant. Tim had insisted on a litre carafe of the house red, which sat on the red check tablecloth closer to Tim than to Johnson. Tim held his wine glass up to whatever light he could find, grunted, and splashed it full to the brim, he drained half of it before refilling his glass and finally passing the carafe to Johnson. He shot Johnson what Johnson regarded as a superior look. Well, thought Johnson, he does know more about this stuff than I do. As they waited for the food, they talked. Tim talked.
“You see, we haven’t got the inventory and skills matrices in place.”
“Eh?”
“What I was hoping was that, well if I could leverage your influence we might be able to raise the bar.”
Johnson knew he was looking blank, but couldn’t seem to snap out of it.
“I’m really stuck at a roadblock here,” Tim went on.
“Oh I see,” said Johnson. He didn’t.
“Good, Johnson. I can see you’re starting to think outside the box. Out of the box thinking that’s what we need here.”
“I get it,” said Johnson. This time he did.
“You’ve got to be proactive, Johnson.”
“It is all bollocks isn’t it?”
“Good lad. Now just one thing.”
“Go on,” encouraged Johnson.
“If anyone ever asks you to take a psychometric test…”
“I’ve done one.”
“Idiot. Never mind, here’s the food. We’ll have lesson two some other time.”