Tarquin elects himself leader of The Open Plan Office Opposition.  He begins the campaign by asking The Boss to spend an hour in the Typing Pool, to see how much work he can get done.   We are confident that this will put an end to the open plan nonsense, but to our dismay, as soon as he sits down, a hush falls over the desks, the likes of which has never been experienced before…..

“I don’t know what you’re moaning about,” he tells Tarquin, later.  ”They were as quiet as mice whilst I was out there.”

“Well, I suppose they would be, wouldn’t they?  You are their boss; they are scared of you.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“How marvellous!”

Tarquin sighs, realising the tactical error.  “It will be a different matter,” he reasons “When you’re holed up inside your glass palace.”

“I doubt it,” The Boss counters, “Not with you out here, keeping order.”

“It is not my job to keep order!  It is my job to manage cases and earn fees; two things I shall not be able to do it I am surrounded by – ” he stops himself.

“By what?”

“By -”  he hesitates.

“Go on.”

“By women!”  There, he has said it.  He can’t abide the thought of being near females.

The Boss lets out an enormous guffaw.  “Well, there’s got to be a first time for everything!”

One woman would be a first.  Ten would be a miracle.

“I didn’t mean!  I am not!” he splutters, but, too late, The Boss has seized the baton and is sprinting away with it.

“I know what you meant,” he gives him a manly shoulder slap.  “It’s unfortunate that you don’t have much experience of the fairer sex.  Would you like me to send you on a training course?”

“No!” he squeals. “I would like you to give me my own office!”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to have better grounds than that.  Fear of women won’t cut any ice with The Management Board.   They have to deal with Jeannette on a daily basis!”

“I am not afraid of women!”

“No, of course you’re not,” he nods. “Just a little intimidated, perhaps?  Don’t worry, I am too.  To be honest Jane scares the pants off me.  But you can’t let them get to you; not in this day and age.  You have to be tolerant; let them participate on an equal footing.   And, believe me, they will be as irritated by you a as you are by them.”

More so, in my experience.

I have been listening to this behind the safety of the (closed) door but, prompted by suspicious looks from Lynnette I decide to make my move.  I march in clutching the post and pretend I have no idea what they have been talking about.

“Ah look Tarquin,” The Boss smirks. “A female is approaching….”

He stares at me in horror. 

“You haven’t developed another one of your nasty allergies have you Tar?” I ask. 

“No,” he scowls.

“Tarquin was just discussing the open plan proposals,” The Boss informs me. “I have told him he should be looking forward to sitting amongst all the fragrant ladies out there.”

Melinda and Danielle, fragrant?  Feral, more like.

“Oh?” I ask, innocently. “Why is that?”

“Well,” he sighs. ”I think he needs to mingle more, with the opposite sex.”

“What has the opposite sex done to deserve that?”

“You see!” he laughs  “I told you, Tarquin, the women on this team are not afraid to stand up for themselves, but that is not a reason to resist going open plan.  Embrace it I say!  Embrace them!  You might even enjoy it.”

He might.  We certainly won’t.

“I don’t think this is really a gender problem,” I point out. “Tarquin may have, well, certain, issues in that department, but Dan certainly doesn’t and even he is resisting this move.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“But why?  Why are you all so resistant to change?”

“For the same reason as you are.”

“I’m not at all resistant to it!  Life moves forward Helen, there’s nothing you or I can do to stop it!”

“Moving forward’ for you means an espresso machine and views of the Nat West Tower.  For us it means freeze-dried cappuccinos and strip lighting!”

“Is that so terrible?” he ponders. “When people all around the City are losing their jobs?”

He flashes us that look he’s perfected to make us feel guilty.  But it doesn’t work this time because the intelligence forces have been at work.

“It’s pretty appalling when one considers that this team made a 40% profit last year!” I point out.

This surprises him.  “How do you know that?”

The truth:  Jane sneaked into his office and stole a copy of the litigation accounts. 

My response: “Miranda let it slip.”

“She did?”

“Uh huh.”

“She has no place giving out information like that!”

No, and I hope you will discipline her later.

“Well, the point is that it seems a bit unfair to downgrade our working conditions when we’re all earning you a great deal of money.”

“Yes!” Tarquin recovers from his stupor. “Helen is right.   We are the engine room of this firm at the moment and if we are made to go open plan we shall all leave!”

“Oh really?”

“Yes,” we nod.

“Well, perhaps that is my plan…..”

If he was capable of forethought it might have been.  But we know better.  We are, for the first time in our legal careers, a valuable commodity.  

Although, no one would ever know it.  Proving themselves as important assets seems to be the least of everyone’s concerns at the moment.

“How many of those do you have?”  I peer at the Matterhorn-sized mountain of Curly Wurly’s Liz is stockpiling on her shelf.

“One hundred and thirty two,” she says, without looking up.

“What are going to do with them?”

“Eat them!” she rolls her eyes.

“So many?”

“A hundred and thirty two isn’t many.”

Perhaps not, if you’re Giant Haystacks, but Liz is five foot four…

“It’s a conservation programme,” she adds, seeing the puzzled look on my face, “in case Kraft changes the recipe or – worse – stops production all together.”

“Do you think they will?”

“I’m not taking any chances.  I was caught out when they removed the Purple One from Quality Street; I’m not letting that happen again.”

I examine them.  “How many are you aiming for?”

“Four a day, or as many as I can buy.”

“You  eat four a day?!”  Jane exclaims.

“On average.”

“If I ate that much chocolate a day, I would have been hospitalised a long time ago.”

“That’s because you mix it with unnecessary things like cereal, bread and salad.   It you ate nothing but Curly Wurlys you would be fine.”

“If you eat four a day and live ’til your eighties,” she points out, “you’ll need about seventy thousand.”

“And bigger storage facilities,” Alex looks around. “Especially when we go open plan….”

“We shall never go open plan!” Jane declares.  “We shall fight them at The Management Board, we shall fight them in the Personnel Department; we shall fight them at the Employment Tribunal but we shall never surrender our offices!”

“How are we doing to do that?” Liz asks. “Stage a sit in?  Refuse to leave?  Tie ourselves to the railings?”

“Perhaps.”

“Wc could just resign,” Alex offers.

“That’s defeatist talk,” she warns. 

“I don’t care.  I’m fed up with working for people who view me as a chargeable unit, rather than a human being.”

“Me too,” Liz agrees.

“We are pretty valuable chargeable units at the moment,” I point out. “Being fee earning machines might, actually, be our saving grace.  If we can present a business case for keeping the partitions, we could be safe.”

Jane considers this. “Helen’s right,” she agrees.  “We must present it to them in cold hard figures.  It’s the only language they understand. ”

I leave them to put her scheme into action and head back to my desk with plans of my own.   Outside, I find Melinda and Danielle busy with colour wheels and paint charts.

“Sunny Sunday is nice,” says Melinda. “But I like Tangerine Temptation better.”

“Nah,” Danielle dismisses these. “I prefer Ruby Secret.  It’s got the best name.”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to be choosing colours because we like their names,” I advise.

They look at me in disgust. “What grounds are we supposed to be choosing them on then?”

Taste?

“On the ground that we have to live with them on a daily basis.”

“I could live with Tangerine Temptation,” Melinda smiles.  “It’s the same colour as my living room.”

Good lord; with her penchant for tanning she must disappear into the walls.

“No, it’s not,” Danielle disagrees. “Your living room is pink.”

“It is not. It’s orange.”

“It’s pink.”

“Whose living room is it?”

“Yours, but you must be colour blind.”

“Oh, that’s rich, coming from someone wearing lime green and scarlet.”

“Its sage with strawberry, if you don’t mind!”

“Whatever!  You look like you got dressed in the dark.”

“I do not!”

“You do too!”

Why on earth did Clive entrust the two people in the team with the worst fashion sense (bar Malcolm) to choose the decor of the new office?  

“I wanted to give them something where they could cause the least amount of damage,” he whispers.  “I thought paint was better than electrical equipment.”

“I shall remind you of that when you’re surrounded by Tangerine Temptation.”

“Do you think it will be so bad?”

“It will look like the lunatics have painted the asylum.”

“Oh dear,” he bites his lip.  “This is not as easy as I thought.”

“Well, perhaps there should be a little less consultation on colour schemes and a little more on office lay out?”

He has the sense to look sheepish.  “Dare I ask how the open plan proposals went down?”

“Like a lead balloon.”

“I thought they might.”

“There’s lots of talk of resignation.”

“Really?!”

“Yes.  I have never seen the assistants so upset.  You can take freeze their pay, ration their coffee, take away their biscuits but make them socialise with their colleagues and they’ll be gone quicker than you can say call centre.”

“Oh dear…”

“Indeed,” I nod. “It’s pretty bad timing, with all these big cases going on.  I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes if Liz and Alex left,” I twist the knife.  “Imagine all that disclosure you would have to get through.  Ten thousand documents is a lot of paper for one man……”

“We would recruit.”

“Perhaps, but it will be hard at the moment, with litigators being in such short supply.”

His face is suddenly filled with concern.  What will the Chief do if all his Indians escape?  Our eyes meet and a flicker of understanding passes between us.

“Jane is putting a business case together,” I tell him.  “Perhaps you would be kind enough to work on the partners?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he agrees. “No promises, mind you.  We don’t have much power over The Management Committee.”

“You might not, but your figures will.”

“Do you think so?”

“I’m certain of it.”

By the time we have finished with them, they will speak for themselves……