‘So sorry to hear you’re leaving us.’ With crushing inevitability, it was Gabriel Silk, Global Blancmange’s machiavellian Head of PR, who first broached the subject.
Sally Gulliver’s eyes popped like champagne corks. ‘Come again?’
‘Sorry to hear. That you’re leaving.’ Gabriel watched Sally Gulliver’s reaction, big-eyed with ersatz empathy, examining her for some giveaway clue or reaction.
Sally stared back, bemused. ‘I’m not leaving.’
It was news to me too.
‘But after your little disagreement with the CEO... Must be very difficult...’ Gabriel glooped, apparently feeling her pain but in truth rather relishing it.
Sally Gulliver frowned. ‘Surely people disagree with the CEO all the time? Doesn’t mean they’re leaving, does it?’
Gabriel smiled tactfully, and withdrew. ‘Loved your megaphone moment,’ he said, closing the door after him. ‘Be a great story for your leaving do....’ Sally’s office door immediately opened again to reveal the small, neat figure of Agatha Hamm, the COO. ‘Sorry to hear you’re leaving,’ she said.
‘I’m not leaving,’ said Sally, her voice rising slightly at the end of the sentence.
Agatha Hamm looked doubtful. ‘Do stay in touch...’
Sally Gulliver’s phone rang. ‘Hiyaaa! This is Fiona from Plaice & Hope, the premium executive headhunters? We heard you were looking for a new position? Let’s do lunch? Be great to see yooo?’
Sally Gulliver put the phone down.
Shamila, one of her team, burst in. ‘About your leaving do. You want it in The Royal Pudding, or in Toppings? You’re more of a wine bar girl, aren’t you?’
‘I. Am. Not. Leaving.’ Sally Gulliver’s teeth were definitively gritted.
Sally Gulliver’s teeth were definitively gritted
‘Oh. Right.’ Shamila, disappointed, sloped out. But then, I believe she enjoys arranging leaving parties, an activity at which she has had no little practice over the last few years.
Jon, Sally’s Reward Manager, burst in. ‘If you’re leaving, mind if I inherit your Executive Swivelling Chair?’
He retreated hastily, followed by a fusillade of accurately-flung CIPD books.
Sally Gulliver sighed. ‘What gives, Bingleby? One difference of opinion with the CEO, and you’re out?’
‘It seems not everybody relishes the opportunity for informed debate.’
‘Not everybody relishes the opportunity for making the organisation effective, either, but it’s still worth trying.’
‘Well said.’ I was becoming increasingly proud of my room-mate. It just goes to show the power of top quality coaching.
‘And here’s another thing, Bingleby.’
‘Hmmm?’
‘There is absolutely no flapping way I am leaving this organisation.’
Next Friday: Everyone Thinks We Are In Fact Idiots
@BinglebyinHR
Bingleby was confiding in Richard Goff
Good on you Sally!
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