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It's not the hours that count
The moment she slit the envelope open with her maroon leather-handled steel letter opener, unfolded the official paper creases and glimpsed the figures in the printed statement inside, her jaw dropped - albeit for a mere nanosecond only, but it was long enough for her colleagues to notice.
- By Kevin Martin, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:42 November 12, 2008
The moment she slit the envelope open with her maroon leather-handled steel letter opener, unfolded the official paper creases and glimpsed the figures in the printed statement inside, her jaw dropped - albeit for a mere nanosecond only, but it was long enough for her colleagues to notice.
To add to it, her lower lip, of its own volition, started trembling ceaselessly and this in turn switched on the waterworks as both eyes filled with tears that threatened to leap over the thick black eyeliner ledge. Somehow, summoning up superhuman effort, she silently commanded the waters to recede.
Very gradually she recovered the use of her tongue - for speech had, momentarily, deserted her - her of all people, who could talk - as they said - till the cows came home, delivered their milk and went out again to graze.
All around her, was a general buzz of excitement. Others were slitting open similar envelopes and emitting little murmurs and grunts of contentment before turning to the workmate immediately next to or adjacent, only to hear a similar satisfied glottal expression. Office workers everywhere rarely break out in lively, overt celebration the moment they open their bonus slips - even if they've been compensated handsomely.
After the general excitement died down, everybody returned once more to the work on hand - PC mice began click-clicking, Windows pages were opened, shut, minimised, maximised and plans were taking root and shoot in the garden of the mind, under the heading: How the money is going to be spent! A holiday, a house, an education, a mortgage, a cruise. She alone, now in control of her external appearance, sat "rigor mortis" rigid before her screen, seeing the print but not taking in a word. Could it have been a mistake, she was thinking. A computer oversight by some enthusiastic newcomer up in Finance? A glitch? Zero, it said. Zero dollars.
Her reward for coming in early and often working late when the lights had come on and the boss had returned once more to work in quiet in his glassed-off office on his diary for the next day. He must have seen her, surely, a hundred, thousand times. Toiling away. That was, admittedly, one of the reasons she hung back, worked so late. To be noticed.
And now, Zero dollars! An agonising knot began to form in her stomach, twisting the self-pity till it hurt. The interview with personnel, a day later, was a bloody encounter.
She had gone in, as planned, with - metaphorically speaking - guns blazing. But by the time the ice maiden at HR had finished with her, she felt herself fortunate to be able to scrape a little dignity off the floor and limp out. She had no idea how meticulously and scrupulously HR went about gathering and filing information on every employee.
Sign-in times, sign-out times, hours logged at work, hours spent at your work seat, hours spent away from your work seat (this was damning in her case), time spent on the telephone (to clients, to private numbers, to the employees' home - this one damned her severely, too).
And to cap it all, that memo from her boss to HR, "It's not the hours that they put in, but what they put into the hours that interests me."
Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney.
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