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

like that by clicking his fingers the most he could do is write a letter of support to the head of human resources who after consulting the appropriate authorities could propose as a part of an overall recalibration of the wages component of the company’s outgoings a recalibration intimated moreover in the fifth national economic plan to put forward your name to an upcoming meeting or one of the subsequent meetings of the board of directors to sum up mr x though unable to meet your request on the spot can either give you to understand that your initiative not only does not surprise him but makes him wonder why you have taken so long to come up with it because he has always gone shted 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