Hmm, it's not your birthday, so did your new co-workers buy you something thoughtful? Perhaps a t-shirt reading "I caught COVID and all the CDC didn't burn was this lousy T-Shirt"? I'm now back in the UK after an uneventful flight, if you ignore the guy in the seat behind who went through several 10 minutes periods of bumping the back of my chair. I think he was a little taller than the legroom allowed for and was trying to get comfortable, but it was tedious nonetheless.
A thoughtful gift The papers were every bit as dull as Fabian was expecting; they never changed their format much. There was a thin stack of pages of things that were actually interesting and a much thicker set of pages of things that had been said at the meeting and had had to be recorded. Even when what had been said was off-topic, stupid, and often both. He sorted them into the pages that needed attention, those that didn't, and those that looked like they didn't but actually did. He was very used to the tricks that the secretaries and Minister for Directors played now, and knew to look for paragraphs seemingly out of place, or offering commentary on some tedious or ignorable comment, that turned out to be a proposal or decision in disguise. There seemed to be fewer of them this time, which he put down to the need to put the two main proposals in for the vote. The more he read, the more his heart sank. The main proposal was only to add an Audit office to the Museum and nowhere else, which meant everyone would vote for it just to avoid looking like they were afraid of the Assessors. Which meant that the first order of business for him would be to raise an objection that the Museum couldn't take all the glory of an Imperial office addition as that would make it seem more important than other Directorates. The Minister would be expecting this and would therefore almost certainly endorse it, and that would then panic the other Directors. Fabian paused, and then pulled his tablet over to him. Actually, far better to have them all panic now, he thought. He quickly put together an email to the Directors and cc'd the Minister pointing out that it was of great personal pleasure to him, but clearly unfair, that the Museum be singled out for such an honour, and that while he agreed completely with the Minister's estimation of the Museum's importance he felt that realistically it should be an honour that was either shared by all Directorates or none of them. Rather than risk the unspoken ire of other Directors he proposed a small amendment to the existing proposal that would establish an Assessor's office in each Directorate. He almost tapped Send. Then an evil thought occurred to him and he added another paragraph at the end; a thoughtful gift for Cass, he hoped.
Indeed, the value of this proposal is such that I would worry that my colleagues might disagree with assessing (pardon the pun) the Museum as the most important of the Directorates, and I would welcome a vote on the order in which the Directorates should establish their Assessment Offices. He grinned as he tapped Send. Now even if they tried to call his bluff by voting to agree on the Assessment Offices they would have to determine an order and the fighting over that and not wanting to be first should be enough to exhaust the entire five hours allocated to the meeting.
Even though Cass wasn't on the email list or even bcc'd, it took her somehow less than thirty minutes to appear in his office with what he felt was a look of grudging admiration on her face. "That email is nicely done," she said, sounding just a little bit peeved. "I should think that the Museum, though obviously deserving of being the first for such an honour--" she couldn't quite keep her mouth from twisting a little in disgust at the idea of having Assessors in the building full time -- "will be shouted down and overruled by everybody who think they're more important." Fabian smiled, and accepted that this was the closest to a thank-you that Cass was likely to achieve. "Plan B," she said, almost as though talking to herself, "was to let you arrange Fire Drills with them and the Fire Officer." She left on that note, leaving Fabian to wonder what exactly the threat in her words was. "Do Assessors burn?" he sent to Dread, only half-joking. Assessors never looked human to him and he wouldn't be entirely surprised to find out that they were immune to fire. "Don't try and find out," was Dread's response.
Greg - no, but that would have been an amazing gift. Also: thank you for the reminder of why I do not miss flying.
Hah, this is a surprisingly light-hearted entry into this tale and I greatly enjoyed it. Nice to see Fabian rise to the occasion and I don't suppose it's particularly surprising to find that Cass knew the details so quickly...
3 comments:
Hmm, it's not your birthday, so did your new co-workers buy you something thoughtful? Perhaps a t-shirt reading "I caught COVID and all the CDC didn't burn was this lousy T-Shirt"?
I'm now back in the UK after an uneventful flight, if you ignore the guy in the seat behind who went through several 10 minutes periods of bumping the back of my chair. I think he was a little taller than the legroom allowed for and was trying to get comfortable, but it was tedious nonetheless.
A thoughtful gift
The papers were every bit as dull as Fabian was expecting; they never changed their format much. There was a thin stack of pages of things that were actually interesting and a much thicker set of pages of things that had been said at the meeting and had had to be recorded. Even when what had been said was off-topic, stupid, and often both. He sorted them into the pages that needed attention, those that didn't, and those that looked like they didn't but actually did. He was very used to the tricks that the secretaries and Minister for Directors played now, and knew to look for paragraphs seemingly out of place, or offering commentary on some tedious or ignorable comment, that turned out to be a proposal or decision in disguise. There seemed to be fewer of them this time, which he put down to the need to put the two main proposals in for the vote.
The more he read, the more his heart sank. The main proposal was only to add an Audit office to the Museum and nowhere else, which meant everyone would vote for it just to avoid looking like they were afraid of the Assessors. Which meant that the first order of business for him would be to raise an objection that the Museum couldn't take all the glory of an Imperial office addition as that would make it seem more important than other Directorates. The Minister would be expecting this and would therefore almost certainly endorse it, and that would then panic the other Directors.
Fabian paused, and then pulled his tablet over to him. Actually, far better to have them all panic now, he thought. He quickly put together an email to the Directors and cc'd the Minister pointing out that it was of great personal pleasure to him, but clearly unfair, that the Museum be singled out for such an honour, and that while he agreed completely with the Minister's estimation of the Museum's importance he felt that realistically it should be an honour that was either shared by all Directorates or none of them. Rather than risk the unspoken ire of other Directors he proposed a small amendment to the existing proposal that would establish an Assessor's office in each Directorate.
He almost tapped Send. Then an evil thought occurred to him and he added another paragraph at the end; a thoughtful gift for Cass, he hoped.
Indeed, the value of this proposal is such that I would worry that my colleagues might disagree with assessing (pardon the pun) the Museum as the most important of the Directorates, and I would welcome a vote on the order in which the Directorates should establish their Assessment Offices.
He grinned as he tapped Send. Now even if they tried to call his bluff by voting to agree on the Assessment Offices they would have to determine an order and the fighting over that and not wanting to be first should be enough to exhaust the entire five hours allocated to the meeting.
Even though Cass wasn't on the email list or even bcc'd, it took her somehow less than thirty minutes to appear in his office with what he felt was a look of grudging admiration on her face.
"That email is nicely done," she said, sounding just a little bit peeved. "I should think that the Museum, though obviously deserving of being the first for such an honour--" she couldn't quite keep her mouth from twisting a little in disgust at the idea of having Assessors in the building full time -- "will be shouted down and overruled by everybody who think they're more important."
Fabian smiled, and accepted that this was the closest to a thank-you that Cass was likely to achieve.
"Plan B," she said, almost as though talking to herself, "was to let you arrange Fire Drills with them and the Fire Officer." She left on that note, leaving Fabian to wonder what exactly the threat in her words was.
"Do Assessors burn?" he sent to Dread, only half-joking. Assessors never looked human to him and he wouldn't be entirely surprised to find out that they were immune to fire.
"Don't try and find out," was Dread's response.
Greg - no, but that would have been an amazing gift. Also: thank you for the reminder of why I do not miss flying.
Hah, this is a surprisingly light-hearted entry into this tale and I greatly enjoyed it. Nice to see Fabian rise to the occasion and I don't suppose it's particularly surprising to find that Cass knew the details so quickly...
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