Sign of the Times (31 page)

Chapter Forty Seven

“Maria, here is a list of messages for you,” Czeslawa said.
 
It had only been a few weeks, but Maria already noticed a vast improvement in her English.
 
Czeslawa had chosen the intensive English course.
 
She was very hard-working and Maria was pleasantly surprised by Czeslawa’s progress.
 
She was a very determined young woman.
 
It was almost as if she were proving to Maria that she had made the right decision.
 
After some initial hiccups, the other staff counted her as a valued member of the team.
 
In fact, Sandra had even commented that she didn’t know how she managed before Czeslawa came along.
 
Praise indeed, as Sandra didn’t normally bandy compliments around.
 
With the amount of work they’d taken on recently, Maria knew they couldn’t have coped without Czeslawa’s contribution.
 
In fact, business was growing at such a rate, a nice problem to have she knew, that she might have to consider taking on yet another person.
 
She’d make a decision in a few weeks.

The three children had become inseparable and as a result, Czeslawa and Maria spent more and more time together.
 
They had a lot in common, both were well read and liked quality literature, not necessarily heavy-going and dark, but something requiring a bit of thought.
 
Their tastes in music were similar and they had an aptitude for cooking.

*

A few weeks later, Czeslawa arrived at the door, a little upset, dragging Angelika with her.

“Maria, I am very sorry to ask, but I have a problem.”

“Come in, what is it?” Maria escorted them in out of the rain.

“Can I borrow your car to pick my brother up from the airport, please?
 
Wojciech is stuck in traffic and there is no time for him to get here and give me the car and because he is stuck, he cannot even go to the airport to pick Anastazy up.”

“Of course.
 
I’ll look after Angelika,” Maria suggested.
 
Czeslawa took the proffered car keys and was off.

An hour and a half later the doorbell rang.
 
As Maria opened the door, she got a shock, as she’d expected to see Czeslawa.
 
However, Czeslawa was retying her shoelaces, so Maria was greeted by the sight of a six feet tall, dark-haired, stubbly chinned vision, wearing a black leather jacket and faded jeans.

“You must be Maria,” he said, smiling at her.
 
“Anastazy.
 
My sister has told me all about you.”

Momentarily dazed she then shook his hand.
 
“Nice to meet you. Come in,” she said, as Czeslawa straightened up.
 

Maria offered them tea, which they accepted gratefully.
 
It was a horrible night.
 
They were chatting animatedly when they heard a scream from upstairs.
 

“Mummy, Amy’s hurt her head,” David cried.
 
Leaping up, Maria sprinted up the stairs with Czeslawa close behind.

“Oh my God,” Maria felt sick.
 
There was blood pouring from Amy’s head and she was very pale.

“What happened?” she tried to remain calm.

“She jumped off the bed and landed on the edge of David’s garage,” explained Angelika.

“Amy, Mummy’s here.”

Czeslawa passed Maria a damp face cloth she’d taken from the bathroom.
 
Maria dabbed at Amy’s head.
 
Czeslawa ushered the other two children out of the room, as they were screaming at the amount of blood.

Instinctively Maria knew it wasn’t a superficial cut.

“I’ll need to take her to Yorkhill,” she said to Czeslawa.

“The children’s hospital?” Czeslawa asked.

“Yes.”

“I will look after David.”

“Thank you.”

They went downstairs and Czeslawa rapidly conveyed to Anastazy what had happened.

“I drive,” affirmed Anastazy.
 
“You need to stay with your daughter.”

Czeslawa, David and Angelika watched them set off into the rainy night.
 
Czeslawa started praying, as she beckoned the children away from the window.

Chapter Forty Eight

Antonia – VIRGO

Practical, no-nonsense.
 
Talkative and communicate well.
 
Not interested in idle chit-chat.
 
Critical.
 
Well-groomed and tidy.
 
Obsessed with detail, analytical, intelligent and hard-working.
 
Good organisers and multi-taskers.
 
Perfectionists.
 
Humble.

As the girl she’d just dressed down beat a hasty retreat back to the relative safety of her pod, Antonia wondered why HR sent her people who didn’t have the confidence to work in this environment. You couldn’t have namby-pamby people working in a contact centre.
 
It was all about being confident, competent and a little bit hyper, she thought.
 
Glancing at her diary she saw that she was meeting HR at twelve thirty and her team leaders at quarter to two.
 
Whilst she tried to find someone for the vacant team leader slot, she had to fill in and do appraisals, which would take the rest of the afternoon.
 
Sighing, she picked up her phone and called down to the canteen for a baked potato to be delivered to her office at half one.
 
With approximately an hour to go through her one hundred and ninety five emails, Antonia started sifting through those requiring attention.

Dear all

There will be a meeting of all Directors and CCMs in the Dublin office on 21
^st
August to outline the plans for the next fiscal year.
 
Please see Judy as usual for accommodation and flights.
 
This will be an all day event, with a dinner on the evening of the 20
^th
.
 
Attendance is compulsory.

Best regards

Seamus O’Leary

Chief Executive Officer

Antonia picked up her PDA, withdrew the stylus and with a few touches, input the dates.
 
Next email.

Hi everyone

As you know the European Train the Trainer(s) day had to be postponed.
 
Here are some dates I have available for welcoming you to the Munich office.

22
^nd
August, 29th August, 8
^th
September.

Please reply by return with your availability.
 
Course is two days.
 
I need four members of staff to represent each call centre.

Thanks

Arnie

Flipping through her calendar, Antonia saw that the 22
^nd
would be out as she would still be in Dublin.
 
The 29
^th
was fine for her, but the 8
^th
was no good, as she was on holiday.
 
She opened Outlook to look at her group’s holiday planner.
 
She intended to send Noel, Chloe, Rajit and Amanda, as they were good operatives and had the right disposition for training.
 
Fortunately none of them had requested holidays for those dates.

She banged out the following:

Hi Arnie

Seamus has booked all the CCMs in Dublin for the 21
^st
, so the 22
^nd
is out.
 
My team could do the 29
^th
August.
 
Please advise as I am blocking all annual leave until I receive your confirmation.

Regards

Antonia

Twenty minutes left, before her meeting.
 

Hi guys

Please provisionally block out on your calendar 28
^th
and 29
^th
August.
 
It looks like these might be
the dates
for the TtT event.

Regards

Antonia

Short and to the point.
 
Antonia browsed the rest of her emails, sending some quick replies and making notes in her diary for those which needed some research first.
 
She hesitated before deleting company reports not directly involving her department. You never could tell when you’d need something and she didn’t like to look stupid.
 
It wasn’t something often attributed to her.
 
At forty-seven, Antonia was highly regarded.
 
She’d worked for Insureall for five years.
 
Prior to that she’d been headhunted by an electricity supplier, where she’d worked for four years and before that she’d held various positions within IT.
 
With a wealth of experience in contact centres, she loved the challenges her roles set her.

Her staff knew she was married to Jack, but she didn’t share any information on her home life with them.
 
Those who read the quality newspapers saw snippets of her life, when Jack and she were occasionally photographed at a charity event or opening of a new arts institute, the Arts being a passion of Jack’s, which she shared.

Antonia looked up and saw the time.
 
It was twenty five past.
 
Time to get a move on.
 
She was never late and loathed tardiness in others, as it insinuated they were infinitely busier than you.
 

“Hello Gina, how are you?” Antonia greeted her HR counterpart.

“Good thanks. You?”

“Not bad thanks.
 
Did I see Dougie the other day at La Traviata?”

“Yes, he was there with some colleagues.”

“Ah, right.
 
The performance was wonderful, such passion.”

“Yes.
 
I need to have a look and see what the next opera is.”

“Well I think Madame Butterfly is coming in September,” Antonia told her.

“Oh really.
 
Well, that would be good. I haven’t seen that.”

They settled
down, as Gina’s colleagues joined them.
 
There was some talk about Performance Management, recruiting and even potential redundancies in other departments.
 
This was news to Antonia.

“We’re keen to see where we can redeploy staff, so we’ll be implementing a hiring freeze,” Gina spoke authoritatively.

“Well, I must say this
is
a surprise.
 
The business appears to be going well, really well if I’m honest.”

“Yes, but some of the Finance functions are going to be centralised in Paris, so at least half of our Finance and related personnel here will have to go,” Gina clarified.

“What, and you think they’re going to be happy being offered contact centre jobs?

“We understand there may be some scepticism and we are looking at other departments where they can be reassigned too. What I’d
like to do is discuss with you, in say two weeks time, some potential candidates for your department.
 
Since we haven’t actually told those who need shuffled or let go, it goes without saying this conversation is highly confidential.”

“Of course,” Antonia muttered, her back up a little.
 
She felt as if she were being dictated to and as if she were going to be lumped with unsuitable staff.
 
She knew most of those in Finance or Sales Prevention as the sales team called them.
  
She couldn’t think of a single one who could cut it in her department.
 
It was very high pressure, as opposed to the life of Reilly that Finance led.
 
On the rare occasions when she ventured out for coffee, there was always a gaggle of Finance girls round the drinks machine, sipping coffee and gossiping.
 
No, she was not happy about this at all.
 
Surely Management could see that certain cost-cutting exercises simply didn’t make sense for the overall good of their business unit?
  
She left most dissatisfied.

Fortunately her baked potato and latte were waiting for her.
 
Twelve minutes until her next meeting.
 
She scooped up some of her baked potato and scanned her Inbox.
 
Damn, she’d forgotten they were doing this Outward Bound day.
 
When was that again?
 
She scrolled down.
 
Early September.
 
At Arrochar.
 
Team building.
 
Too much team building, not very much work getting done, she felt.
 
There was an email from her boss.

Subject: Impromptu meeting

Antonia

I need to see you in my office tomorrow at ten.

George

His emails were even shorter than hers.
 
Sign of a busy person.
 
In some industries, the higher up the tree you climbed, the less work you did and the more you delegated, not George.
 
He was very hands-on.
 
He had responsibility for the entire Scottish operation.
 
She didn’t grudge him the job.
 
She was ambitious, but she knew her forte and heading up the organisation wasn’t it.
 
Sometimes she longed to be back on the phones.
 
Now her life was about making decisions.
 
She told George she’d see him at ten.

Time up.
 
She strolled towards the conference room.
 
There were two hundred and fifty people under her care, including fifteen team leaders.
 
She knew all the staff, including the newest recruits.
 
Francisco Rodriguez who started last week, originally from Bilbao in Spain, lived in Paisley with his four children.
 
He intended to be here three years and then move back to Spain.
 
She’d heard that often enough.
 
Most of the foreign nationals they recruited remained longer than expected.
 
Only the Poles were now starting to buck the trend and return home, due to the stronger zloty, weak pound and the glut of work in Poland.

All of their conference rooms were named after Scottish islands.
 
When Antonia reached the Skye Room, her team was already assembled.
 
She liked to be last to arrive and was unamused when any of her team was late.

“Hello everyone.
 
How’s it going?” Antonia was friendly, but her team knew not to go into detail. She wasn’t here for a chat.

One of the team leaders handed her a copy of the agenda.
 
The nine women and four men who currently made up her team listened carefully.

“OK, before we start on the agenda, I have something to say.”

Her team looked back at her expectantly.
 
They knew what it was about, but they didn’t know the ins and outs.
 
One of the team leaders had been fired this morning and Security had escorted him from the building.

“We had a rather unpalatable incident this morning.
 
As you probably know, Geoff is no longer with us.
 
I don’t know if you know why, so I’ll fill you in.
 
He was downloading pornography,” Antonia’s glance fell on each member of her team.
 
Many looked shocked.
 
Others bore the masks of those who knew, but did nothing. Antonia missed nothing and made a mental note to have them checked out too by IT.

“As you know Insureall has a No Tolerance attitude towards downloading pornography and therefore Geoff was instantly dismissed, despite being here seven years.”

She waited for this to sink in.

“I’ll circulate a memo reminding everyone about the use of email.
 
The memo will also explicitly mention accessing pornographic sites, although it’s unclear how he managed to get past the firewalls.
 
That is being looked into.
 
I need you to be extra vigilant regarding each member of your teams.
 
If any of your team is involved in such an activity, you will be held responsible too.
 
It’s a team leader’s business to know everything about their team. OK, let’s turn to the agenda.”

Agenda

Key Performance Indicators

Recruitment

Statistics

Salary review

Conversion rates

New products

New scripts

AOB

“Most of you have done your KPIs.
 
I’ve done Melanie’s team, since we still haven’t replaced her.
 
We’re now going to have to find two new team leaders.
  
I’d rather recruit from within, so would welcome suggestions for potential candidates.”

A hand shot up at the back of the room. “Yes?”

“I think Anne Marie McGuinness might be ready. She’s been here eighteen months and is desperate to get up the ladder.
 
She’s good in training too.
 
Patient.”