Growing Pains of a Hapless Househusband (19 page)

'I don't see what's so funny!' said Mrs Sincock.

'I'm sorry . . .' I started to say, but it was impossible. I
laughed so hard I felt as if I might rupture a stomach
muscle (that's if I have any).

'I think it's best if you just leave,' said Mrs Sincock. 'I
don't see why I have to put up with this!'

We pleaded. We begged forgiveness. We almost got
down on our knees, but it was no use. I even found
myself saying 'We promise to behave,' but it was no
good. Mrs Sincock wanted us out, and within ten
minutes we indeed were. As soon as we were outside by
the car, Dom left me in no doubt whose fault it was.

'For fuck's sake,' he said. 'That's gone and totally
fucked our schedule.'

'So it's all my fault, is it?'

'Yes it is. First of all you announce you're an atheist.
Then you blaspheme. Then you actually steal food from
the mouth of their daughter. And, finally, you laugh at
her.'

'We all laughed at her!'

'I admit that, but by then you had dug us in too
deep.'

Dom had a point. In fact, he had some points. I
decided that there was no possibility of defending this
particular flank, and it would be easier simply to attack
him back.

'Anyway, they were a totally inappropriate family to
use,' I said. 'Those children need a psychiatrist and
medication, not a TV crew to take the piss out of them.'

Dom held up his hands and then let them fall in
histrionic despair.

'Holy fuck,' he said. 'I thought we had been through
all this taste shit.'

'Yes, but now I'm faced with the reality of the
situation, and I don't like it.'

'But you always knew what the reality of the fucking
situation was. I bloody told you!'

'I know, but I've got my doubts.'

'You're a bit bloody late for doubts. About ninety
bloody grand late! If you don't want to do this programme
you can simply give me the money back, and I
can find someone else.'

'Oh yeah? Who?'

'Any number of failed management consultants.'

This enraged me.

'So you're calling me a failure?' I asked.

'Well, generally people who are out of work tend to
be failures.'

'I decided not to go back to work. It was a matter of
choice.'

'That's not what I'd heard,' said Dom.

'Really? From who?'

I paused.

'In fact,' I continued, 'you don't need to answer that.
Why don't you go and fuck yourself, and then fuck
Emily, in that order. Fuck you both.'

Dom didn't say anything. Instead, he was pointing
over my shoulder, and had the look of a man who had
been pointing over my shoulder for a while. I turned
round.

'Hello Mr Holden,' said Mr Sincock.

In the end, Dom sorted it. He promised another grand
for the church roof, and said that I would be on my best
behaviour. Mrs Sincock didn't like it, but her husband
apparently gave her a lecture on forgiveness, as well as
on water damage in thirteenth-century churches. When
we turned up the next morning it was as if nothing had
happened, although I was suitably apologetic, up to the
point at which Mrs Sincock said there was really little
need to go on about it, and that everything was
forgotten.

We then spent most of that Tuesday morning
watching the children run wild once again, and Dom
was delighted with the footage we were getting. As I
watched, I decided that the only way to handle the
Sincock episode was to treat the whole thing incredibly
seriously. These children were unstable, and it was clear
to me that Mrs Sincock was not applying the same sort
of discipline to them as she had done to me. She had
given up ages ago, and when she was confronted by my
naughtiness she had really let rip, knowing that I was a
(relatively) sane human being, who responds to reason.
(Sometimes. Sally would dispute this.)

At lunchtime Dom, one of the Emmas and I went off
for a meeting to discuss how to handle this family. Much
of the air from the day before had been cleared, and as
we sat in the pub enjoying a couple of pints and not
enjoying the food, I told them that I didn't want to be
seen as taking the piss out of a couple of children whose
behaviour was a function of a condition rather than of
poor upbringing.

'Nobody is asking you to take the piss,' said Dom.

'All we want you to be is yourself,' said Emma.

I supped my pint. As you do. (You never sip pints, you
always 'sup' them.)

'That's the problem,' I said. 'I think that being myself
inherently takes the piss.'

'Out of whom?' asked Emma.

'Out of them, of course,' I replied. 'The family.'

Emma nodded.

'I wouldn't worry about that,' she said.

'Exactly,' said Dom.

'You really sure about that?' I asked.

'Absolutely.'

Another sup.

'Anyway, what's your management plan with the
Sincocks?'

'I've been thinking about that,' I said, which indeed I
had. 'I want to create a system of proxy incentivisations
and disincentivisations.'

'You mean like carrots and sticks?' Emma asked.

'Not quite. Carrots and sticks are actual incentivisations
and disincentivisations. What I'm looking to
create is a system of representational incentivisations
and disincentivisations.'

'I see,' said Emma.

'You mean sort of pretend incentivisations and disincentivisations?'
asked Dom.

'Exactly,' I said. 'Pretend incentivisations and disincentivisations.'
'What good would they do?'

'Encourage them to behave, of course.'

'I see.'

'I'm a little lost,' said Emma.

'Why's that?' I asked.

'Well, I'm not too sure what poxy incentivisations and
disincentivisations really are.'

'Proxy incentivisations and disincentivisations,' I
corrected.

'Fine, but what exactly are they?'

'Proxy incentivisations and disincentivisations?'

'Yes.'

'Well, they're the function of a strategy for implementing
a system of non-financial rewards and
penalties. In this way, employee performance can be
ascertained and improved within the same co-current
holistic process, resulting in a potential maximisation of
human resources.'

'Right,' said Emma, who now looked as if she had
been awake for two days.

'Clear as day,' said Dom. 'Another pint?'

'Why not?'

Dom went up to the bar. I turned to Emma.

'I'll need a chart,' I said.

'A chart? What sort of chart?'

'One for the incentivisation and disincentivisation
strategy.'

'But what do they look like?'

I took out a pen and paper from my laptop bag and
drew two 2 10 grids, one marked 'Incentivisation
Totems' and the other marked 'Disincentivisation
Totems'.

'Whenever Michael or Mary do something good, we
want to further incentivise them to carry on doing good.
Therefore we apply a cross on the incentivisation chart.
If they do something bad, we want to disincentivise
them from doing more bad, and we put a cross on the
disincentivisation chart. One crucial element of the two
charts is that their products are mutually inclusive.'

'What?'

'They, um, cancel each other out.'

'Aaaah, now I've got it!' said Emma.

'Excellent!'

'We used to have this at my primary school.'

'Really? That must have been a very advanced school.
These charts represent the cutting edge of
management-consultant thinking.'

'Not at all. We just called them blacks and golds.'

'Blacks and golds?'

'Yes. You got a black if you were bad, and a gold if you
were good. The blacks cancelled the golds, and whoever
got the most golds at the end of the term won a prize.
Isn't that basically the same as your system?'

'Er, yes.'

'So why does it have be called disincentivathing-ummyadoodah?'

'Because that's what it's called. But it's more than just
your blacks and golds.'

'Really? How?'

'It's structured.'

'Right.'

I decided that I didn't want to listen to any more of
Emma's questions. Sometimes it's hard to defend
management consultancy. To the outsider it looks like
a load of crapola management speak, but really, it's not.
I was cynical at first, deeply cynical, but when I saw how
well management consultancy worked on some of our
clients, my doubts were swept away. The systems and the
strategies that we put in place would reap huge
dividends, and would sometimes make our clients some
money as well.

However, I didn't want to go into all this with Emma,
so instead I just said, 'If I explained it all in detail, you'd
be very very bored.'

Emma smiled and took my grids from me.

'I'll get Ted to make some nice charts for you this
afternoon.'

Mr Sincock was around that afternoon, and as a result
the children were slightly better behaved. This is not to
claim that they were well-behaved, as there was still an
enormous amount of disobedience and breaking
things. After teatime I tried to explain the purpose of
the incentivisation and disincentivisation strategy, and
the family looked blankly at me.

'This sounds like pluses and minuses,' said Sincock
after I had shown them my presentation.

'Quite,' said Mrs Sincock. 'We used to call them
merits and demerits when I was at school.'

'I'm glad you're aware of the principle,' I said
through gritted teeth.

'What's this shit anyway?' said Michael. 'It sounds like
BOLLOCKS!'

'Bollocks!' said Mary. 'You're bollocks!'

'Quiet you two!' went Sincock. 'That's quite enough
of that language. You shall go to your rooms if you use
it again!'

'Aha!' I went, slightly too triumphantly. 'This
represents an excellent opportunity to introduce the
charts. Clearly we wish to disincentivise bad language,
don't we, so now we should award a disincentivisation
totem to each of them.'

I then took out my red marker pen and filled in a
disincentivisation box on each of their charts, which
brandished spankingly smart
WonderHubby
logos.

'There,' I said, admiring my handiwork. I think I
might have even put my hands on my hips, as though I
were surveying a drystone wall I had just spent several
hours making.

Everybody looked at the two little red squares,
transfixed. For a moment or three, silence did actually
reign.

'What a load of bollocks!' said Michael.

'BOLLOCKS!' shouted Mary.

Sincock started to open his mouth, but I beat him to
it.

'Ah! Ah! Not so fast!'

I grabbed my red pen again, and filled in two more
disincentivisation squares on their charts.

'You see?' I said to Mary and Michael. 'Every time you
say bollocks, you get another square!'

'But you just said bollocks!' shouted Michael.

'Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks!' screamed Mary.

'Yes, but that was an accident!' I insisted.

I looked at the parents, hoping they would see the
funny side, but alas no. Instead, they looked on grimly,
unimpressed so far with my exciting new method. I then
addressed the children.

'But do you see how it works?'

They nodded.

'Every time we say bollocks you draw a red square,'
said Mary.

'That's right,' I said. 'But don't say it again, or I'll
have to give you another red square. And that goes for
any other rude words or bad behaviour.'

'What sort of rude words?' asked Michael.

'You know which ones,' I said.

'Shit is a rude word,' said Mary, straight-facedly.

That earned another red square.

'So is crap!' said Michael.

That earned Michael square number three.

'Poo!'

'Willy!'

'Turd!'

'Piss!'

'Cock!'

'Fuck!'

'Right!' said Sincock. 'To your rooms, now!'

'Please,' I said, as I struggled to match the squares to
the language. 'Please just give my system a chance!'

'Can't you see that it's encouraging them?'

'There will of course be an initial excitement
scenario, which will dissipate when the full reality of the
chart sinks in.'

'How, exactly?'

'Just you watch – it will take some time, but the yields
are surprisingly high.'

By the end of the day Michael had earned 24 disincentivisation
points, and Mary 26. Miraculously, they
had earned 3 incentivisation points, all of which were
for turning off the TV (although it should never have
been switched on in the first place).

All I could say to the Sincocks was that 'it will be fine'.

It wasn't. By the end of Wednesday Michael and Mary
had earned 87 disincentivisation points between them,
and no more incentivisation points. I had told Mrs
Sincock that we had to stick with it, and that she was not
to worry, because the system was bound to work.

'These are not normal children,' she said, close to
tears.

I caught Dom's eye over her shoulder. He was
rotating his hand to indicate that the conversation
should continue. Gormlessly, I couldn't work out why,
and frowned back.

'They're perfectly normal children,' I said. 'They're
just a little high-spirited, that's all.'

'You mean you don't believe in ADHD?'

'Not really.'

'Well, it's real, and if my children haven't got that,
they must have got something else.'

Dom scribbled something on a sheet of paper and
held it up behind her.

MAKE SURE SHE CRIES

I couldn't quite believe what I had just read.

'No,' I mouthed.

Dom's eyes did the Tube-logo thing. He then
underlined the words, and made throat-cutting actions.
I weighed my options quickly. I would go to hell if I
followed Dom's order, but then as I didn't believe in
hell . . .

I turned back to Mrs Sincock. I put a gentle hand on
her shoulder.

'I'm so sorry,' I said. 'But you must remember that
underneath all that naughtiness are the tender souls of
God's children.'