Keith Waterhouse - Office Life

'So let me see. Taking it step by step, the first step is to send out the pink check-list—'

'— to all heads of departments.' Hugh Penney, probably from life-long habit, finished Gryce's sentence.

'That's only if they haven't sent back their white checklists,' Charles Penney reminded him.

'— which the majority are doing automatically,' supplemented Hugh Penney.

So far, so good. The white check-list required heads of departments to make a return of their stocks of obsolescent items by ticking off a series of boxes. The pink check-list was a duplicate of the white check-list, plus an urgent reminder, underlined in red, that the request was mandatory. Contrary to what Hugh Penney had just told him, it was apparent to Gryce from the thin file of flimsies that the majority of heads of departments were not returning their white check-lists automatically, for the reason that they had never received them. But he had already privately decided to save himself labour by despatching pink check-lists willy-nilly.

'And in the event that the pink returns are not forthcoming?' he asked next. Despite the invisible cloud of pollution enveloping his desk, he was determined to familiarize himself with every stage of the procedure. He envisaged that there would be yet further check-lists, of varying hues and increasing degrees of urgency, that the Penney twins had not shown him yet.

'Ah,' said Charles Penney.

'Personal representation!' intoned Hugh Penney, mock-dramatically.

'You chase them up,' said Charles Penney.

Gryce had an instant and pleasing vision of himself drifting about the building during the long afternoons, pausing for chats and making new friends as he chased up his pink check-lists from department to department.

There was one snag he had better dispose of.

'According to the Big White Chief — he nodded towards Copeland's cubby-hole — 'the direct approach is somewhat frowned on. "Memo in, memo out", if I quote his golden words correctly.'

The Penney twins simultaneously brought their heads closer to his, releasing a pot-pourri of noxious fumes.

'Brother Copeland,' murmured Charles, 'doesn't have our problems.'

'He doesn't have to deal with our friends on the tenth floor,' sighed Hugh.

'— who are not only still using holiday rosters et cetera et cetera that have been out-of-date since the year dot—'

'— but which,' concluded Hugh, losing his brother's syntactic thread, 'were superseded by a whole range of forms we're now calling in!'

'Pre-obsolescent obsolescence, eh? Sha! I like that!' joked Gryce. Carte blanche, then, to amble about the place as he wished, starting with the tenth floor. He was already savouring his new responsibilities.

'And from there on, working from the completed returns, I send out a requisition calling-in such obsolescent stocks as are held?'

'Broadly speaking, yes—'

'— and no.' The Penney twins spoke grudgingly. They seemed reluctant to concede that Gryce had mastered their joint skills in less than twenty minutes. Serve them right for having bad breath.

'You send out two requisitions, after consulting your master check-sheet—'

'Yes, I meant to say two requisitions, I understand all that,' said Gryce, a shade testily. They really should see a dentist, the pair of them.

Hugh Penney, taking up the baton from his brother, plodded on regardless.

'Requisition A directs the bulk of the material back to Stationery Stores for recycling into rough memo pads—'

'— but sensitive documents, such as obsolete pay slips, accident reports—'

'— anything that could be used unscrupulously, in other words—'

'— everything you see here marked with an asterisk—'

'— they come under Requisition B— '

They'd ploughed through all this already.

'Yes, I know.'

'— and must be consigned to the shredding machine.'

'Yes. Thank you. I've got that. And the final step is to notify you that, as it were, all has been safely gathered in?'

'You notify us—'

'— in writing—'

'— on a blue slip.'

'Until, that is, the fatal day arrives,' said Gryce, leaning back with a smile, 'when the blue slip itself is called in as obsolescent. Sha!' Another little joke of his, this one with a purpose to it. It was meant to indicate to the Penney twins that their business with Gryce was concluded, and that after a pleasantry or two they should feel free to return to their desks.

They showed no such inclination. Gryce was very much afraid that they had allocated the entire afternoon to showing him the ropes and didn't mean to be done out of it. After laughing at his sally — 'Haaark!' they had cawed in unison, exposing twin sets of ulcerated gums — they began to shuffle through the specimen white check-lists, pink check-lists, requisition forms A and B and blue slips with the obvious intention of going doggedly through the whole gubbins for a third time.

To forestall them, Gryce cut in quickly with a question that had been puzzling him rather, not that it was any of his business.

'After I've called-in obsolete stocks say, for the sake of argument, from our antediluvian friends on the tenth floor, it's up to them to apply for, again for the sake of argument, say replacement holiday rosters?'

'Yes,' said Charles Penney.

'From us,' said Hugh Penney.

'It's not done automatically?'

'On the contrary—'

'— they have to make application.'

'Yes, I thought so,' said Gryce, thoughtfully. 'They make application on a stationery requirements form, correct me if I'm wrong?'

The Penney twins, who had suddenly begun to twitch and avoid one another's eyes as if suppressing giggles, both nodded vigorously.

'But surely the stationery requirements form is one of the items we're calling-in as obsolescent?' He'd noticed that when running his eyes down the white and pink check-lists. It was what had given him the idea for his joke about the fatal day coming when the blue slip would itself be obsolescent.

'You could say that, yes. The stationery requirements form has been revised—'

'— or modified.'

'Oh, would you say modified?' Charles Penney asked his brother in a waggish sort of voice, squinting at him over Gryce's shoulder. 'I'd have said revised, personally.'

'Let's say revised and modified,' Hugh Penney said, also with waggish undertones. They seemed as if they were trying out their hands at being some kind of double act.

'Then as I see it,' Gryce pursued, with the flicker of a smile to prove that he was enjoying this as much as they were, although he was blessed if he could see what was so amusing, 'they can't get replacement stationery of any kind until they've filled in a revised, modified, call it what you will stationery requirements form. And since the wretched stationery requirements form is itself an item of stationery—'

'Ah,' said Charles Penney, tapping his nose.

'Catch 22,' said Hugh Penney, folding his arms.

Composing their faces owlishly, both men winked at Gryce. At the same time — it was presumably something to do with the way the facial muscles interacted — they breathed out heavily through their nostrils, releasing a poisonous stench. Gryce wondered if Seeds had ever dubbed them the Two Bad Penneys.

Gryce had forgotten to ask the Penney twins who exactly were the pink check-list backsliders on the tenth floor, and now that he had managed to extract himself from their company (as members of a biscuit-eating school composed of themselves, Mrs Rashman and Mr Hakim they had repaired to their own desks during the afternoon tea break) he certainly didn't intend to retrace his footsteps. Mumbling something to Seeds about there being no time like the present and striking while irons were hot, Gryce had gulped down his tea and headed for the lifts.