Stairway to Heaven

MaxiRam Castle, as its fictitious name implies stands as a grim fortress against the skyline, eleven storeys high. The backside building in my illustration belongs to the same corporation but prettier.

It’s actually the Fujutsu headquarters in Bracknell but while working there I wanted to write anything freely. I nicknamed Bracknell ‘Babylon Town’.

Today I got a real, as opposed to a Visitor’s, pass. I can keep it till the end of the end of the contract. It opens the car park barrier without me having to talk through the grill and ask Security. I can use it to open doors, instead of getting someone to let me out to use the Gents. It doesn’t give me access to all areas, such as the sixth floor, where Kevin works, he who created the database I’m now maintaining. But it gives me a tiny realm of autonomy.

I remain in a post where any manager can tell me what to do. Some of them are younger than my own children. Anyone on the project, or even other projects can ask questions. They expect instant answers, not just verbal ones but custom reports, investigations which might take a day or more. To help deal with the pressure, I’ve been assigned an assistant, I’ll call her Hannah. I’ll get her to design a form. Anyone who wants my attention will have to fill it in. I’ll prioritize requests by secret criteria, including how patient and polite the requesters are. Hannah’s enjoying this, especially the abrupt way I deal with those who pull rank and interrupt my train of thought when I’m designing something tricky. She snorts & giggles while they protest: “It’s only a one-minute question!”. For them, yes, but I have no one-minute answers—being still new here. Which doesn’t mean anyone’s going to kick me around. I have a secret weapon that they can’t understand: that I don’t need this job, they can’t threaten me. If anyone says “I could make sure you’ll never get a contract again”, I’ll stand up and shake him by the hand. I’ll be 65 in ten days’ time. This is a hobby and a piece of nostalgia, to end my IT career in the same company I started out in, on January 4th 1965. I’m shocked at how rude and pushy it’s become, and wonder if some avenging angel has sent me here to teach manners.

This lunchtime I took my usual hour’s walk round this industrial estate, taking advantage of the sunshine and the pure sanity of fresh air. I discovered that Maxiram have another building not far away, at the back of which is a small meadow of purple crocus. I very much liked its fire escape for the triple image created. Its steps present a repeated spiral, mirrored and shadowed at the same time, ingeniously as a Bach fugue. I returned buoyed up, refreshed, ready for anything they could throw at me. Eschewing the lift, I came up the dingy back stairs, trusty camera-bag on my shoulder, ready to start work the moment I reached my desk. But they wanted more. There’s a certain senior person (creative rather than managerial) with a double-barrelled name whom I shall call Beethoven, whom he resembles for his hair & intensity of visage. I greeted him cheerily. He didn’t instantly  recognise me, but the moment he did, he recalled that he had asked me to provide him with daily reports. It was my turn to hesitate. That part of my brain had not yet woken from standby. In my set of rules, I am employed by Maxiram when clocked on and sitting at my desk, never in my free time. I did recall that he had asked for something, but I hadn’t understood, merely added to my list to find out. I made a polite reply, and carried on up the clattering concrete stairs. He attempted to “remind” me of the details involved.

“It’s not my normal practice to do business on the stairs, when I am still in my lunch break,” I replied.

Of course he was not going to let me win this exchange. Later in the afternoon he sent one of his juniors to talk to me. I must protect myself. They try to trap me in the washroom, in corridors. They run beside me beseeching when I’m on my way home. I started work here with a proper boss, the kind that looks after his team. But he was a contractor too, left me on my own. Now I have “Al Pacino”—I see a certain resemblance. I’ve had to teach him manners too.

I suppose to them this is real, gladiatorial. I see it now as play. All the world’s a stage. There is the character, the script, and the actor. I see my role as technical: to provide a service, as efficient as I can, with my limits, playing the part of database administrator. But somehow my eyes have been opened. I respond not to the character, or his script, but the actor, the real person, the soul. I once was broken-in, but am now reverted to mustang. I shall do what is expected of me, but in my own way. I have not accepted the bridle. This creates its own sub-drama. I am not to be broken in this time, not for these few months.dc