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Kathy knocked back a double-strength tomato juice in a single gulp and thumped the glass on the bar for a refill. Beads of sweat glistened on her forehead, and she was shivering.
"I’ve had a narrow escape," she said.
Petra nodded sympathetically. "Who was he?" she asked.
Kathy shook her head so the sweat drops ran. "It’s a course," she said. "My boss dobbed me — again!"
"Taking it, or doing it?" Emma asked.
"Doing. I don’t get to take courses. Not with St Hitler in charge."
"Why not?"
"He doesn’t like me. I know my job. I’m a threat."
"But did you have to make it so obvious that you thought he was a fool?" Sue asked.
"I didn’t. I just can’t stand that stupid crucifix on his office wall. He sits there, preaching care and concern, with this gruesome lump of torture and violence glaring down at you over his shoulder. And he thinks he’s credible. I don’t, and maybe it shows."
"So he’s diverted his overflowing milk of human kindness to more receptive arenas, I gather," Emma said.
Kathy nodded. "I’ve been sent to my own private reeducation camp," she said. "I’ve had to go to courses on every word processor and spreadsheet on the market, and one or two that aren’t. I’ve learned to write my resume fifteen different ways, and I’m word-perfect on the selection test for my own job. I know all about equal opportunity, theories of gender bias, and the repair and maintenance of glass ceilings. I’m an expert on risk management, human resources management and document management. And I’m bored stiff."
"It sounds better than putting you in an empty office with nothing to do," Emma said.
Kathy shook her head. "That’s a known tactic." She smiled. "I could get him for that."
"So how does he justify this one?"
"I’m doing a comparative survey of available courses, so I can advise other members of the department on their training needs. Except that when they ask to go, there’s no money in the training budget, because it’s already been used on me." She paused. "He thinks that’s a good thing, too, because it means his staff is there to do proper work, and isn’t wasting its time on training."
"What are you going to do about him?" Sue asked.
"Sit him out. He won’t last long. The buzzwords he spouts, and the sleazes he crawls to, he’ll be promoted in no time."
A cloud crossed her face. "Pity I stuffed this one up, though. I was going to enjoy it."
"What happened?" Petra asked.
"I booked him in on this course. Contentless. Totally improving. All weekend, starting tonight. They truck them out to some way out place on top of a waterfall, and immerse them totally in mindless experience. It’s right up his alley."
"What did it claim to be?" Emma asked. "Organisational Ecology? Client Infiltration? Total Authority Management?"
"Professional Revitalisation."
"And what is that supposed to mean?"
Kathy grinned. "You remember, in the days of the Empire ..."
"I don’t," Emma said sternly. "We seceded, remember."
"... In the Empire, administrators didn’t know anything useful. They did Latin and Greek at Oxbridge, and spoke posh. Well, these guys have got the same idea. They thought, what skill, nowdays, is so totally irrelevant to anything you’d ever really want to do that it’s a joke, but anyone who’s done it waffles on and on, so you’d do anything to get them to go away."
She looked at the other three in turn.
"Computers," said Petra.
"Economics," Sue said.
"You’re getting warm," Kathy said. She looked at Emma.
"Sex?"
"Speak for yourself," Petra said.
Kathy smiled. "Much, much more useless. Selling used cars." She paused. "But it’s not the selling itself. It’s the holistic nature of the experience that’s so educationally valuable. The self expression. The creativity. The inner confidence that the selling of an overpriced rust bucket to a blind pensioner with Parkinson’s disease can give to an otherwise unremarkable specimen of humanity."
Sue looked at her, a hard light in her eyes. "Who’s running this course?" she asked.
"That guy you used to go out with. Des something."
"You mean, he’s got a job?"
"It’s a franchise. McTraining. Kentucky Fried Courses. Some U.S. education export business, anyway. But they’re registered as a religion for the tax breaks. Which is how I snared the boss."
"So what went wrong?"
Kathy winced. "Wrong communion, I guess. Not affiliated with the Union of Respectable Religions. He must have checked it out. Because he was on the phone talking about it when I got back to the office this afternoon. I thought he was talking to one of our heavies, because he was crawling like mad, boosting the course like it was a new set of tablets, but then he went into ‘But...but’, ‘But...but’ mode, and then he said, very disappointed ‘Of course, I must accept your ruling, Your Eminence’ so it must have been some bishop or cardinal or something. And then he said, ‘I’m sure my Training Officer will appreciate the experience’, so I grabbed my bag and I ran."
"So you think he’s dobbed you?" Emma said.
"If he can’t find me, he can’t tell me," Kathy said. "And tomorrow will be too late."
Sue was watching in the mirror behind the bar as a bus pulled up outside the door. A solid male, arms hanging from his side like a gorilla, was getting off. She jammed Petra in the ribs.
"Duck," she said. "It’s Robbie."
Petra shrugged. "I can handle him," she said. "He’s so ex- now, he’s past his violence use-by date."
She watched him as he came across the room, but he wasn’t looking at her.
He was heading for Kathy, head thrust forward, scowling. He grabbed her arm. "You’re holding up the bus."
"What bus?"
"For Des’s course. He said you’d be here." He tried to drag her towards the door, but she dug her heels in. "You’ve got a date with a waterfall."
"Since when?"
"You trying to renege?"
"I’m not going."
Robbie started to twist her arm behind her back. "Then I’m gunna have to persuade you."
Emma stood up, followed by Petra and Sue. They formed a ring around Robbie, blocking his way, dazzling him with glittering smiles.
"Did Des tell you to do this?" Petra asked.
"Naa. Just said there’d be some sales resistance. And not to take ‘No’ for an answer."
"And you reckon this is the right way to overcome sales resistance?"
"Well she’s not my woman, is she? So I can’t thump her."
Petra looked at Emma, who looked at Sue.
"This guy needs some training," Emma said. "Social Rehabilitation."
"Based on something so totally useless that everybody regards it as a joke," Sue said.
"Like etiquette," Petra suggested.
They looked at Kathy.
"Reckon you could do it?" Emma asked.
Kathy nodded. "With pleasure. But I want Des in the class, too."
Copyright © D.W. Walker, 1994