Free The Players And The Game by Julian Symons

summarised in Seven Movements…
     
    He settled down to read the whole thing, and when he had finished went along to Esther’s office. She was talking into a recorder, and he heard the phrase ‘avoidance of infinite variables’ before she switched off. He decided to be pleasant.
    ‘I haven’t had a chance yet to go through your paper in detail, Esther, but it looks like a fine job of work.’ She gazed at him through the enormous glasses. ‘I just wonder whether it isn’t going to be a bit above the heads of some of the people who read it.’
    ‘I don’t think so. Job enrichment is a familiar concept in most big firms now. The problem is to get the Board to accept it.’
    ‘You don’t feel it could be put more simply? It seems to me job enrichment just means getting people to use a bit of initiative. We’re trying to do that all the time.’
    ‘Rather an over-simplification. But in any case that implies DMC. And a preliminary would have to be the setting up of work-study groups.’
    He retained the pleasantness of his manner, although with some difficulty, ‘Esther, I knew you were preparing a memorandum, but this is more like a thesis. If you were going to do something on this scale you should have had a word with me first, and we could have talked about it in detail.’
    ‘Brian Hartford suggested I should prepare it. He’s very interested in group-communication method-projects.’
    It was like talking to a multi-syllabled computer. Back in his office he spoke to Hartford.
    ‘I think you might have had a word with me first, I must say. She’s my assistant, and this must have taken up a lot of time. We’re under considerable pressure already.’
    ‘I’m sorry if you think I’ve infringed protocol,’ Hartford said. ‘I believe actually she wrote most of it at home. But she’s come up with some interesting ideas, don’t you agree?’
    ‘A good deal of it is hot air, and most of the rest we knew already.’ He regretted the words as soon as they were spoken.
    ‘I’m sorry you feel like that,’ Hartford said neutrally. ‘We’ll be considering the report at a Board meeting next week. I shall look forward to hearing your views.’
    Paul sent for his secretary and began to dictate some letters, but found that he was repeating himself and stumbling over words. In the end he left her to answer most of the mail herself.
     
    Sally was working in the Sales Division (Toys) for a few weeks. After that she would go on to Sales Division (Domestic) and then to Sales Division (Foreign). The people she worked with knew that she was the managing director’s daughter. Sales Manager (Toys) treated her almost with deference, and most of the other people in the Division kept out of her way. She had only one friend, Pamela Wilberforce, who wrote copy in Publicity. They met as they often did, in the Rest Room.
    Pamela was twenty-five, a self-assured blonde whose toughness was part of her attraction for Sally. She had already, as she was fond of saying, mislaid one husband, and meant to try out a lot of men before taking on another.
    ‘What’s up?’ she asked. ‘You look like a bit of classroom chalk.’
    ‘Louise has disappeared. It’s in the paper.’
    ‘Who the hell’s Louise?’
    ‘That girl at Rawley, you remember I told you I’d shown the mag to her and she was fascinated. She wrote a letter to that man, the one who wrote to you.’
    ‘So. What then?’
    ‘The day she disappeared, I don’t know, but I think she was going to meet him. Oh Pam, suppose something’s happened to her through me.’
    ‘Of course nothing’s happened.’
    ‘What do you think I ought to do?’
    ‘Sweet FA. Just don’t get in a tizzy.’
    ‘I’d never forgive myself if anything had happened because of me. You know, I used to laugh at her a bit. I planted her on that journalist.’
    ‘You mean the one you said had hands like wet gloves.’ Sally felt better after listening to Pam. It was nice to be with a girl who