The Art and Craft of Approaching Your Head of Department to Submit a Request for a Raise by Georges Perec

takes more than that to knock you down to your desk you do not try your luck anew the next day because the morrow is thursday and if mr x were to put you off to the day after the morrow that morrow would be a friday and mr x might scratch himself on a fish bone or get indigestion from none-too-fresh-laid eggs and in the situation that is now yours with two years and three months still to go before retirement it has become dangerous to take unnecessary risks you wait until the following tuesday which proves to be a happy day since you find ms wye at her desk at your first attempt and delighted to have a chitchat on the other hand you don’t see a sign of mr x and as your conversation peters out after three hours and fifteen minutes ms wye having lost all her good humour throws you out and asks you not to come back tomorrow wednesday you quite pointlessly circumperambulate forty-five times in a row the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the vast organisation where you eat your heart out the next day thursday you avoid meeting mr x altogether but in the ardent wish to stack all the odds in your favour you produce a weighty tome of paperwork for your engineer who deigns to say thank you the following day friday you clumsily knock the contents to wit a seafood salad and a portion of baked alaska off your cafeteria tray thereby soiling the freshly-pressed suit of your line manager mr x out of caution you allow two weeks to pass before making any new attempt then you go to see mr x but mr x is not in so you wait for him in the corridor then as ms wye seems to be still in a foul mood you circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of one of france’s most powerful concerns then you go to see mr x he is in he raises his eyes when you knock he tells you to come in and even asks you to be seated despite having lots of little red spots on his face but as you’ve been taught that you must only ask your line manager if one of his daughters has measles if he fails to offer you a seat you do not ask him about his health or the health of his loved ones you try to relax and to lay out your problem well let’s see says mr x is this a T60 issue no you say does this involve another project no you say is this about a raise yeeees you blurt now let’s see your line manager then says have you recently been involved in a major successful company project not really you say ah ah says mr x are you on good terms with your engineer yeees you blurt in triumph well and good says mr x and what can we do for you you see it’s all gone swimmingly no major incident has inflected the straight path of your two hundred and fifty-fifth bid could it be at long last that after so many years devoted persistently to this sole project you are at long last nearing your goal i really don’t think so myself but that’s not a reason for you to disbelieve in clear and intelligible speech smiling through your tears restraining the emotions that well up from your heart you explain that you earn 691 francs a month and would like to er um earn er perhaps not 6, 910 or even 6, 190 or even 1, 960 or even 1, 690 but er 961 or 900 well 850 er 800 ok 791 take it or leave it all right i’ll come down to er 700 fine says your line manager do not make the naive mistake of thinking that your line manager will answer with a yes or with a no rest assured you will not get the raise you want i mean you will not get it in the here and now just like that on the nail you will not leave the office of mr x richer by 9 francs a month you have to grasp that in a company such as the one you work for one of the largest major companies in france a raise raises very complex issues not only with respect to accountancy but with respect to all aspects of the socio-economic policies for the short medium and long term of said company moreover it is obvious that mr x does not have the power to give you a raise just