Chapter 3B

The next fortnight turned out to be hectic. I spent a couple of days sorting out the CareSpan project plan, mapping out initial impressions of staff strengths and interests (from their CVs) against the organisations targets and ambitions. These would feed into the early scoping interviews with senior staff and thereafter the CastList model that would eventually produce the bulk of the outcome. Simultaneously, I was dealing with Debbie at PCW and beginning to engage with the American side of the operation. The former simply involved arranging a move in date and ordering stuff for "my" new offices at Hertford Square- basically a couple of PCs for the Linux side of things and some white boards. (PCW being PCW these turned out to be the interactive, electronic variety: Apparently they didn't know there was another type.)

As for the States, actual conversations turned out to be limited - I quickly realised that Carla was even busier than usual - but e-mails were extremely frequent and from a bewildering number of different people in C's organisation. Virtually all of these concerned money and corporate technicalities which I simply didn't understand and frankly I asked Debbie so many questions that she finally just got me to forward them on to her to deal with. Which delegation worked surprisingly well - at least for me - until the thorny issue of the details of corporate structures finally had to be resolved.

At this point I also became aware that at some point I had been allocated a basic salary of € 100k, which Debbie had helpfully negotiated up to 150k - plus bonuses. Which was OK: I couldn't possibly imagine spending that much in a year but I knew that there were loads of charities around who undoubtedly could, so...

It became a problem, though, when I suggested that the operation should be as far as possible worker owned. OK, Carla and PCW had put up a lot of dosh, but future activities - and the return on their investment - would depend on the people doing the business. Specifically, me and the people working with me. So I thought it was only fair that they should have a stake in the thing - preferably at least a fifty per cent stake. And, I felt, there should be a strict limit on the salary range within the team - a crucial word, from my point of view - so that no-one could earn more than five times more than anyone else. This last went down like the proverbial lead balloon.

Even Carla - who presumably had a better idea of where I was coming from than most, given that she'd got me into this in the first place - seemed appalled that we could be employing a photocopier assistant on € 30k a year. Personally, I couldn't see why we would be employing a photocopier assistant in the first place - the things aren't that complicated - but it was a matter of principle for me, and thus non-negotiable.

I'd already had my feet under the (trendy, solid ash) desk and my bum on the all singing, all dancing executive chair for a few days when all this came to a head. Actually, I'd just shown CareSpan's Head of Finance out of the office (why use their place for interviews when I had such a nice space available?) when Debbie came in. Specifically, Debbie came into the office looking unusually severe, with a crease to her business trousers you could have cut yourself on and a look on her face that would have terrified a lesser man. Or maybe just a more observant one.

"Have you seen this?" she said, brandishing an e-mail print out.

"Umm, no, probably - I thought that was your job. The detail stuff, anyway..."

"My job, Dave, is to maximise my employer's shareholders' returns." I was impressed that she managed to keep a straight face. "Not", she went on, "to wipe your bloody arse!"

OK, it was serious. I'd never seen Debbie lose her rag before. I stopped scrolling through CastList code and sat up facing her, looking for a clue as to what the problem might actually be.

"Your American friends are sending some guy called Zhu Lui over to meet with my bosses to, and I quote, 'finally resolve outstanding difficulties'. From this, it appears that he might just get round to meeting you at some point as well. It looks to me, though, like politics hereabouts have just shifted to a higher plane ... and we're not in a particularly brilliant position."

Brilliantly, my brain focused on the 'we' for a moment - quite a happy moment - before engaging with the issue at hand. I took the e-mail from her, quickly read it. We had a week, basically, I mused. Not a lot of time for politics, even if I wasn't committed to spending so much of my time with CareSpan - in fact I was due to meet their Chief Exec, May, that afternoon. I decided to do what I do best in a crisis: Delegate.

Debbie didn't look remotely surprised when I asked her what she would do.

"Think, obviously. Which requires both caffeine and nicotine on both our parts. So I suggest a quick trip to Romano's - let me just let the boss know that I have some more than usually complex hand holding to do and won't be back for him to patronise..."

She made the call on the way down the street, while I took the opportunity to get hold of May and suggest that she try the cafe first in case I wasn't back in time. Debbie bought the coffees - it occurred to me that I was now possibly earning more than her, though for how much longer was in some doubt - and thus gave me time to write a short list of options, which I handed to her as she sat down.

"Hmmm ... OK. Lets see. Three options, then?", she said, glancing at me over the paper. "Give in, walk away or come up with something brilliant." She paused. "You know, I think this may be quite the best strategic options paper I've ever seen. And produced so quickly, too."

Even I can recognise sarcasm - or was it irony? - when I hear it, so I felt the need to explain. Which I did: I felt that I could simply agree to be an employee of a conventional company - at least in theory - or I could just go back to doing what I'd been doing before, which is to say broke but almost completely unstressed. Alternatively, I thought it might be possible to pull some sort of force majeure in the next few days. Getting a few employees in on binding contracts might complicate the matter a bit, I thought, and there were Carla's frequent references to my being 'indispensable' to the operation - and presumably to PCW, too. Though admittedly the latter was not something I actually wanted to rely on, while the former would be difficult to do and - even if successful - would simply make things difficult in the future.

Debbie thought so, too. "Actually, you'd have difficulty in recruiting at the moment - the corporation doesn't legally exist until all this stuff is sorted out. Not to mention the fact that we'd have to find people in days. Against that, though ... frankly I don't see what the Lords and Masters back at PCW see in you [she did smile, slightly, as she was saying this] but I can tell you for a fact that they wouldn't touch you with a bargepole if they didn't think there was money in it. So you do have that as an edge. Shame that the basic software this is all based on is in the public domain, of course - you may - or may not - have some unique skills, but there's always someone else out there willing to bodge things if you don't."

She paused, sipped her coffee and took a drag on the roll up. "You could just compromise, of course. You'd still end up rich and might still have some sort of positive influence - you know, humanising global capitalism and all that bollocks you were talking when we first met."

I shook my head. "Bollocks or not, the Unique Selling Point, so far as I can see, is precisely that this is a different approach to managing people. Which I think necessitates practising what we preach. Actually, I don't think that: I know that. I would rather walk away completely, let them either drop the idea or have someone else balls it up, that's up to them."

She looked thoughtful. "Yeah, I thought that would be the line." Shrugged. "Actually, I'd have been disappointed if it hadn't been. I'd hate to think of you as just another bullshit merchant, talking the talk right up to the point that serious money enters the equation."

She paused and I began to interject - something self effacing, lovably modest, you know the score - but she went on, resignedly. "I've been working with you for a week now and in that time you haven't patted my bum, stared at my tits or even developed sudden deafness when I made a suggestion. Ten years at PCW and that is one hell of a breath of fresh air, believe me ... So, I'd like to help any way I can."

"And sod the shareholders' returns? That might not be a brilliant career move if/when this whole thing goes pear shaped."

"Sod the shareholders, the management, the executive, the subsidised sodding staff canteen." She laughed. "Yeah, even unto the highly generous Pension Plan and comprehensive private health care."

Which was a bit of a turn up for the books. I thought for a second - my coffee was untouched but cold, I noticed - then acted on impulse.

"If you feel like that about PCW, why not relocate to Hertford Square, at least pro tem? I mean, you could tell your lot that it was necessary in a last ditch attempt to get me back on track - no point in burning any boats - while I could use someone competent around the place at the moment. Also, it would be nice to work more closely with you while we have the chance..."

She gave me an old fashioned sort of look, saying merely, "Why, Dave, and I never knew you cared..."

"Oh, shit..." I said, quickly " ... Sorry. I mean, if that sounded like some sort of chat up line ... like I was coming on to you ... well, look, I'm sorry..."

She leant forward, cupped my chin in her hand and asked seriously, "And quite would that be such a disaster, Dave?"

I didn't get a chance to respond. Her eyes flicked away from mine, looking over my shoulder. I turned and saw May coming into the cafe, smiling happily and waving at us both.

Debbie left to go back to PCW after all, and I finally got to drink a coffee with May, who was in expansive and relaxed mood. She'd just come from a management team meeting, she explained, and people were already excited by the way the project was going: How the questions we'd been asking had made them think, some of the new ideas it had suggested. I pointed out that it was early days yet and that the proof of the thing - actually, the interesting bit - was involving the more junior staff, given that the executive worked closely together and might be expected to agree on a lot of things.

I probably sounded a bit glum in saying this because she asked me what was wrong - and why I was sitting in a cafe in the first place. So I explained some of what had been going on, and the decisions that needed to be made. Unsurprisingly, she agreed totally that "selling out", as she put it, was not an option but didn't come up with anything brilliantly new, either. I did reassure her that the work I was doing with CareSpan was not a problem, though, given that I didn't have an exclusive contract - any contract at all, actually - with my putative other employers and anyway could be presented to the latter as a useful exercise in honing the CastList toolset. So we went back to the office and talked about CareSpan.

Which was a useful meeting - we got the CastList matrix pretty much resolved, at least in an alpha version, and had a perfectly pleasant afternoon to boot. I kept one eye on both my e-mail in-box and my mobile but there was no further contact from either PCW or California - it seemed I was definitely out of the loop, a fact that bothered me a great deal less than it probably ought to have done. In fact by the end of the afternoon I was feeling about as relaxed as I had for some weeks: May was very easy going company - how did she ever get to be a chief exec, I wondered? - but I was also firmly back in my comfort zone, doing stuff I knew I was good at, making a contribution I was sure of.

I was more than happy to take up her offer of a drink at the end of the day, again, so we walked back down to the river, going to the Barrowboy, a barn of a pub just on the south end of London Bridge but which had friendly staff and was close to May's train home. That it was just over the road from PCW's offices only occurred to me as we were on our way but once it did I thought I'd give Debbie a ring on the off chance she fancied a quick half, too.

She did. In fact, she was at the bar when we arrived, fending off the attentions of a bunch of guys who turned out to be from PCW, too. OK, so it was a poor choice of pub after all. And maybe I should have mentioned that May was going to be there, too. Still - an interesting exchange of dirty looks - from the PCW gorillas at some hippy usurping their evening's plaything and, more restrainedly, from Debbie towards May. Well, I thought, file that one for future reference, however unjustified. We repaired to a conveniently vacant table, supped drinks for a while in companionable silence. Or silence, anyway.

I broke the ice with some formal reintroductions but May saved the day by being exceptionally charming - probably, I realised, the secret of her success, professionally. Debbie relaxed very quickly and was soon sharing her news: Her boss had agreed to the suggestion that she should relocate for the immediate future - with a subtle barb or two about her risking going native or otherwise being tainted by the experience - and had also implied that things were even less rosey than we had thought, in terms of PCWs attitude to the project. Apparently, they really had only bought into it on the basis that Carla was so enthusiastic and now found themselves dealing with less convincing people over the water - I guessed the mysterious Zhu Lui - while I was acting like some sort of anarchist and ... well, they had a bad case of cold feet. Possibly to the chilblains stage. And not showing any signs of improvement.

All of which was hardly promising news but was at least a significant increase in the data we had to go on. We toasted the spy - discretely, the gorillas were still at the bar, albeit involved in an interminable arguments about (what else?) football - and got down to discussing options.

I'm not quite sure how May got to be so centrally involved with the discussion, or why she was quite so interested in how everything panned out - the work I was doing for her would be completed regardless - but she turned out to be a veritable fount of ideas, and of common sense, both of which we needed. After a lot of debate, we agreed that I would make a concerted effort to actually talk to Carla directly and get her back on board - I had to explain the details of my previous relationship with the woman, which got me a couple of pointed looks - while Debbie would do what she could with PCW. Central in all of this, we realised - OK, May rather forcefully pointed out - was using the CareSpan work as a practical demonstration, given that no-one else involved had ever actually seen a completed CastList project. And, conveniently, it was a big enough charity to draw useful parallels between its experience and the corporates our "partners" were targeting.

All of which felt good, and would have done even without the alcohol that had liberally fuelled proceedings. When May left for her train, she got a hug from both of us, hugged both of us just as enthusiastically back. Debbie and I lingered on the pavement for a while, smoking. I tried phoning Carla but got her voice mail again. Debbie took a call herself, wandering a few paces away as she talked to whoever and then returned smiling slightly bashfully.

"Sorry about that ... just..." she paused..."A Friend." Another pause. "But anyway - I really should be going. One thing, though? Tomorrow morning, given that I'm going to be seconded to you, what's the corporate dress code?"

"God knows - there isn't one and isn't going to be one while I'm around." My turn to pause, looking carefully at her now slightly rumpled suit. "Personally, though, the dominatrix look never did anything much for me, so..."