My career at the Castorian National
Broadcasting Corporation (CNBC) was short, but illustrious. Or maybe
that should be “illustrative.”
On my second day as research assistant
for the noon hour radio show at the corporation’s flagship centre, I was
summoned to the office of the venerable, but gruff Harry O. Doyle, General
Manager of Trans-Castorian Communications and Official Procedures.
“You wanted to see me, Sir ?” I asked
surprised that an executive of Doyle’s rank and continuing classification level
would even know who I was.
“Yes, Mr. Swallow, it is time for your
annual performance-review,” the burley, flush-faced manager barked while
pulling a bottle from a brown paper bag on his desk. “Pull up a chair and have
a drink.”
“But, Mr. O., I have only worked for
the corporation for one day,” I said as I grasped my glass with a shaky hand.
“I’m not sure there is much to review.”
“Yes, it’s just your fortune to be
hired at this point in the performance-review cycle,” O. Boyle explained. “In any case my colleagues tell me that they’ve seen enough – they say you’re an
exceptionally creative, hard-working and dedicated employee - so we’d like to
fire you.”
“Fire me ? - but ... but I
just started,” I said, dropping my jaw and my glass in unison. “Please, sir, I aspire to have a young family, and I burned my bridges at my last job in order to start
here on the prescribed date.”
“Don’t get all twisted, Swallow, and let
me finish,” he said pouring a replacement drink. “We want to fire you so we can
rehire you under a private contract for four times what you get as a salary.”
“What ...??”
“What ...??”
“The Minister wants us to fire more
people using his new
system of fluxuating performance objectives, daily evaluations, written assessments, hourly recording of progress toward objectives, and
other intensities aimed at weeding out bureaucracy and inefficiency,”
O. Boyle said, referring periodically to a prepared statement and a copy of a
government news release.
Recognizing what he said as being
somewhat unfair, I regained my composure and became emboldened enough to
challenge this decision.
“I’m not sure about this,” I said. “I
think I’m going to get a lawyer and talk to my union.”
“Now, hear me out,” O.Doyle said patting the air with his hand as a signal to calm down. “Since we don’t have any cause to fire you, involving the union and lawyers will just mess things up.”
“Now, hear me out,” O.Doyle said patting the air with his hand as a signal to calm down. “Since we don’t have any cause to fire you, involving the union and lawyers will just mess things up.”
Over the next ten minutes, the great
broadcasting administrator detailed the process that would see me duly fired,
guided in creating my own private broadcast consulting company, and then
granted an exclusive contract to provide junior research assistant services to
a to-be-specified daily radio program.
He was very complimentary and
repeatedly said that the corporation could not afford to have bright young
talent like me within its increasingly bureaucratic, performance-measuring,
objective-rejigging, report-writing walls and had to move them out to the creative liberty of contracting back to government.
“Yes, I guess you have a point,” I
conceded. “In the 24 hours since I joined the corporation, my job description
has been changed three times, my work has been audited four, and an independent
evaluation was conducted of me by a committee of consultants who were expert in
not having the toxic understandings of government experience.”
“You forgot about the two corporate
restructuring initiatives and the change in hosts part way through yesterday’s
show,” O. Doyle interjected.
“All right, I will do the getting fired
thing,” I said. “But how can I be sure this contract will come through after I
do it.”
O. Doyle smiled thinly and looked to
the side.
“Don’t worry Swallow, just trust the system.”
