And so the start of another working day fell upon Global Blancmange, in rather the same way a telephone directory falls, with a sickening thud, upon a flat surface.
Except this day was different. This day was the first day of new CEO Mark Temple’s Global Blancmange career.
Sally Gulliver and charismatic headhunter Harry Aske stood next to me at the window, looking down at the front of the building. ‘Here he comes… Good God!’
Mark Temple had arrived if not in style, then very much in his own style. Gliding in on a Segway two-wheeler, he achieved a graceful sweep in front of the building before bringing the machine gently to a halt in the CEO’s parking space, where it rested like a large upright tick.
Some minutes later the door to our office burst open and Mark Temple appeared, a little flushed. ‘So the thing is’, he said, as if continuing a conversation, when it quickly became apparent he wasn’t doing any such thing, ‘The thing is, exactly how global are we, here in Acton?’
Sally and Harry Aske boggled at him politely before answering as one. ‘Eh?’
‘We’re called Global Blancmange. Global Blancmange,’ he emphasised triumphantly. ‘And yet we have barely any non-UK offices, the product only sells in a small number of countries and the packaging sounds as if we only want to sell to housewives in Surrey in the 1950s. Do we only want to sell to housewives in Surrey in the 1950s…?’
Sally and Harry Aske shook their heads dumbly.
Mark Temple nodded. ‘Thought not. Right then, better do something about it, then, hadn’t we?’ He literally rolled his sleeves up and sat down expectantly at Sally’s desk. Then something occurred to him. He squinted at Sally. ‘Has he asked you out yet, by the way, or are we all still pretending you’re not attracted to each other?’
He smiled beatifically.
Next Friday: A Pot of Shrimps Could Lead People Better Than This Lot
@BinglebyinHR
Bingleby was confiding in Richard Goff
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