Much, much, more

There have been moments in N’s career when rewards have come too easy. The discovery that often only a working knowledge of an organisation’s failings is required in order to make personal progress through its ranks has however made life less than satisfactory. It wasn’t always so. Most companies require commitment but are easily deluded. N learnt quickly how little work people actually do, and beneficial work is very rare; he knew the shocking lie that capitalism is efficient. It’s efficient at making sure capital resources are allocated efficiently, it’s that banal, but an effective use of people? A lifetime of experience told him that less is much much more.

N was thirty two years old and therefore a late developer when his enthusiasm for the task got him noticed, ideas and projects that he put forward coincided with the company’s zeitgeist, ephemeral and glib though it was. Before long he was putting in the required hours to be known as one of the ones to watch though those that conferred privileges also kept him at arm’s length. And so it went for a few years but the projects N submitted or was allocated rarely came to anything. N probably saw through the implementation of one idea across three areas of the business as he moved from role to role but as he did so he was getting further and further from what he saw as what mattered, the company’s customers and the employees who looked after them.
Like most people he came across N had stumbled into the industry. Some colleagues found railways fascinating but strangely they were derided within the company as much trainspotters are by the general public and jokers. N didn’t find railways fascinating although he had a quiet fascination for timetablers and engineers but like he wasn’t accepted by the Directors and most of the other senior managers he knew he wasn’t part of the company’s true meritocracy either. For a time he was a conundrum, recognised by many on the payroll of three thousand his name was known to pretty much all of them. Some admired his vivacity, some were quizzical about his success, and others were downright hostile implying with their ironic greetings and unreturned voicemails that they simply didn’t value his contribution and couldn’t work out why the company did either.

This was all fourteen years ago now. The senior team changed, new faces without any railway background came in and set about making things the same with an evangelical fervour. For a few months N almost pulled off the same trick but again these new managers were a different breed. The end was swift, mostly engineered by N himself he knew that clever those these new guys were they were also stupid. N believed organisational focus a fabulous concept it allowed him to operate in the Director’s peripheral vision and create a copper bottomed case for unfair dismissal. A cheque followed a few months’ gardening leave and he was free of economic ties but also free of means.