A Free Lunch [Some words from Liar's Kingdom]

There's no such thing, I hear you say. Perhaps there isn't. In implementation, lunches are costed against undertime – an important factor in overspend in the world of implementation. Say an organisation needs product x and service y, it is not enough that x and y arrive at the gates of your organisation. Oh no; x and y most certainly must be implemented. Why not get the company which provides the product and/or service to implement them within said organisation? That would never do. Implementation is always in-house, for it is less effective. Becoming less effective with more and more people is the raison d'être of all large organisations. Undertime is essential to ensuring cost over-runs and inefficiency - a vital part of any organisation.

Say your large organisation provides a service to the state: this is the ideal. Undertime – essentially – is time when you are paid for doing less, or ideally, nothing. What has this to do with lunch and its being free, you ask? Well, it isn't free, but if you can get someone else to pay for it, it might as well be. Everyone must have lunch. It's the law. It has been over a decade since eating 'al desko' was a thing. Indeed, I have neither seen anyone doing it, nor heard anyone saying it in five years. Thank God. All employers must provide lunch. All employees must take lunch. The catering department must also have lunch. In large organisations, this means lunch is very much a moveable feast.

Except, it seems, in The Archives.

Several possible lunchtimes come and go.

In implementation, our "midday" meal break – to be taken in the works canteen, by far the biggest department in the building – was 11.55 a.m. until the next department arrived. We were bacon-sandwiched between Maintenance and HR. Whilst we were punctilious in our punctuality. HR were always early, believing that their undertime was more valuable than anyone else's in the organisation. I assume this meant they did/do not leave when the next department arrived.

I ponder the meaning of life, when I get bored with that I live the meaning of ponds. Checking more cabinets seems too much like work, so I decide to take a rest from box-file roulette at least for a while.

I fall asleep …

To be shaken awake by the last person I expect to see. Yes, Ms Chakrabati from HR. Could it be that she has come to rescue me from Purgatory – or at least The Archives?

Her arrival is, of course, a truly remarkable event. Drudges are summoned to HR. Even Ms Chakrabati's minions do not venture out of the department – except for lunch. No, indeed. We drone bees are summoned to the hive of inactivity that is her domain. She looks flustered, perhaps uncertain as to how to behave outwith her own fiefdoms.

'I'm looking for the new Archival Retrieval and Disposal Operative.' she says. At the moment we are quite alone.

'Yes,' I say, 'about that. I'm a clerk, I worked in implementation until today. I think there's been a mistake.'

'No. No mistake. We do not make mistakes.' She looks at her tablet. I remember when people like Ms Chakrabati carried clipboards. Now it's tablets. With the swipe of one finger they can change the world, ruin a life and book a holiday in Benidorm. Probably all at once.

'Do you have a name? I have ARDO #1 and ARDO #666 down here? Are you ARDO #666?'

I tell her I'm pretty sure I'm not either of them. Although I have a pretty good idea of who at least one of them is, I keep it to myself.

'But you must be! It says the only soft-machine assets down here are ARDOs #1 and 666. Unless… ' Her voice is now a whisper – 'You're an Anomalously Redeployed Sanitation Executive …?'

I cannot recall ever being re-assigned to this particular role, but am secretly satisfied at how apt its acronym might be for many of my fellow toilers in The Organisation. Not least Ms Chakrabati, who – despite being blue-eyed and very fair-skinned – identifies as being of South Asian ethnicity. We in The Organisation are scrupulous about respecting her wishes. Of course, no-one is ever fired, but I have heard it whispered that there is somewhere worse than The Archives to be banished to, if you are foolish enough to cross the threshold of the HR Department and say to the woman herself,

'I'm looking for Ms Chakrabarti'.

I've heard it called The Re-Education Hub, but that's just too ridiculous for (other) words. I should point out that Ms Chakrabarti is unmarried, although how anyone found that out without asking yet another banish-able question, I don't know.

Sometimes I wonder if HR can read our minds. Ms Chakrabarti tells me in no uncertain terms that there are worse fates than The Archives. I believe her. I believe everything anyone from HR says.

'In that case,' I sigh, ' I suppose I must be ARDO #-something-or-other. It's just nobody has told me which.'

Ms C fixes me with a steely glare, her Nordic baby blues having turned the grey of a near-grown cygnet.

'I think you must be #6. Yes, that's it. You are #6'

I remain un-convulsed by my own silent laughter. There is no point in explaining the reason for my hidden amusement. Nearly 40 years separate us with a gulf as wide as any culture gap.

Ms C turns and leaves. I reflect that at least I'm not an ARSE.