Tobias passing - Page 2
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 25: After the Crisis
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Brett Caldwell
I RETURN TO WORK on Monday morning. Tobias and a HR acolyte bivouac in the conference room. I avoid them with busy work and phone calls. At the photocopier I speak quietly to Sam, a veteran of the last great cull. He provides sage advice. ‘Say as little as possible. Be confident. Don't ask questions. Just give them the numbers. Oh, and under-commit – it sounds more realistic.'
Sam and I walk to Psychedeli, a nearby coffee shop. I am a voyeur; my usual seat is next to a window where I can watch the streetscape. My table is also close enough to the caffeine crowd for me to hear snippets of gossip and smidgens of conversation, but today nobody seems to be talking much.
We chat quietly. Sam and I have worked together for several years; he is one of the best sales guys in Canberra, an ex-submariner though he seems too tall to have poked about in small spaces aboard some of the most powerful and dangerous machines invented. He has four years left until retirement. Sam's a lucky bugger: his patch covers Centrelink, a major account. He's confident the selling season will pick up; Centrelink needs to expand to meet the expected influx of customers from hard times.
The café is my refuge. Great and failed expectations cast me upon its shore. In 2004 a good friend started a domestic grey-water treatment company. The drought and harsh water restrictions shrivelled gardens and house values, so the market seemed primed for the product. Avarice and thrill called me to join them on the venture – how could I resist? The technology was brilliant and the business vision clear. We won accolades and prizes, grants and contracts. The New Inventors hailed our grand design and the New York Times wrote about us. We installed our grey-water systems in homes, a prison, a youth-detention centre, a residential college at the ANU, and in office and apartment blocks. Investors and carpetbaggers, at times indistinguishable, courted us with their promises. We schemed and plotted: we dispatched a team to California; we made inroads in the Middle East to treat the water used in mosques; we pitched to Chinese mega-companies – but the tide of wealth never rolled in. As the manufacturing costs climbed, the technology coughed and spluttered. Our sea of credit soon dried up, leaving us in a land void of hope. Fear and failure morphed into blame and retribution. We turned upon each other, like dogs fighting over a poor man's food scraps. I jumped ship and scuttled back to the superficial familiarity of IT. Six months later the company went into voluntary administration. Now it's gone.
SAM AND I FINISH OUR brew and return to the office. The dreaded meeting arrives too soon. Tobias Fox sits on the far side of the wide conference table. He doesn't offer his hand in greeting, or smile when I joke about the weather. He explains he wants ‘Just the facts.'
Tobias has tight skin and Arctic-blue eyes. He grills me for an hour about my accounts, clients and opportunities: quarter by quarter, month by month and deal by deal. I search the spreadsheets but they remain void of the magic numbers I need. I stop struggling and sink to the muddy bottom as Tobias takes notes. I'm sure he knows I'm a fraud and should have been sacked months ago.
After the interrogation I drive to a meeting but my enthusiasm has waned. I pass the sprawling campus of the ANU and the iconic buildings around Lake Burley Griffin's shores: the National Library, the High Court and the National Gallery. A wrong turn brings me to Old Parliament House and the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, with its flags flying proud amid a collection of ragged tents and demountable buildings.
Finally, I arrive in the foyer of the client's department. A security guard protects the reception desk and takes my details, handing me a pass. I call my client's mobile and she answers quickly but is busy, locked in a conference and unable to meet today. Apologising, she promises to send an email to rebook the meeting. I tell her not to bother, and hang up. Then my mobile beeps: it's an SMS from the office. Tobias wants to see me. Now.
ON THE WAY BACK TO the office I call my wife and tell her I'm about to be sacked. I'm still on the phone when I almost drive into the back of a stationary taxi, drawing the attention of a small tribe gathered in front of the Salvation Army coffee shop. I see them there most days when I walk past on my way to lunch or a business call in my pinstriped, sunglassed superiority. I recognise the windscreen washer, with his scruffy beard and broken, stained teeth. I recognise the ice-faced young woman, an occasional busker whose violin resonates with artful beauty. I wonder what she thinks about before she falls asleep.
I glimpse my car's reflection in the coffee shop's window and see a tired old fool in the driver's seat. He should be driving a Winnebago, heading for baby-boomer nirvana, not running around Canberra selling stuff to public servants. I hope I get a redundancy payout.
The mood in the office is sombre. Tobias calls me into an empty office and asks me to sit down, then comes to the front of the desk and sits near me. There's nothing between us except cold air. He explains calmly that times are tough, the toughest he has experienced in his thirty years in the industry.
Sweat dribbles down my side, soaking my white shirt.
Tobias believes that even tougher times lie ahead and that the recession is yet to sink its teeth into Australia's hide: ‘When it does, the damage will be brutal.' However, he also believes that Canberra will survive the mauling better than most cities. Nonetheless, he explains that he has made five people redundant.
Sam is one of them. I am not. The news shocks me. I'm a fraud and he doesn't know it. I shake his hand, promising not to let him down. He says, ‘Just make your numbers,' and leaves.
Tobias Fox and the recession pass out of the building.
I spy Sam heading for the basement car park, struggling to carry a large cardboard box. I take his briefcase and walk beside him; he looks pale and seems shorter. He says, ‘Mate, who would have thought this would happen?' I point out that he'll have no problem getting a new job and suggest he should celebrate a little – after all, he got a very generous package. We travel in silence down to the basement.
As we get out, I ask him to meet me at Psychedeli some time. I want his advice about how to handle the Centrelink account. He calls me a lucky bastard and walks away.
After a few paces, he turns back and throws me his security pass. ‘Mate, hand this in for me. There's no hurry, though – it doesn't work anymore.' ♦