The Toymaster’s Castle

I never thought I was going to find a job like this - in fact, I wasn’t really expecting to get any sort of job at all with the permanent depression the economy had been in for the last couple of years.

And Marchwood Enterprises was an absolutely stunning place. Their offices were totally amazing; right at the top of one of the biggest, poshest tower blocks in Canary Wharf… one of the most impressive addresses in the whole of London. You could see for miles and miles and I could have just stared out of the windows for hours. Luckily, the little desk they’d given me was right by the glass door to the lobby bit by the lifts. That meant I couldn’t see any windows which was probably a good thing or I’d have never got anything done!

And everybody was so smart and stylish… I really didn’t feel like I belonged there!

I was working with somebody called Mandy. She was one of the super glamorous ladies that seemed to be floating around everywhere but I was quickly getting the impression that she didn’t really have all that much idea what she was doing. She was trying to persuade their super high-tech printer-copier thing to print out the staff handbook for me and she was making a complete mess of it.

“Should I have a go?” I suggested cautiously. I mean… I wasn’t feeling exactly comfortable in those super swish offices and I didn’t want the posh people to think I was being pushy or anything.

“Yes please!” she replied and she sounded quite ridiculously grateful… I guess I didn’t have to worry about that anymore.

So I went over to the machine and printed out the handbook… pages folded in half and stapled with a different colour cover sheet. I mean… I’d always found that sort of thing pretty easy in my ‘Office Technology’ course at college but, for some reason, most of the other kids seemed to have real problems with it - particularly the girls.

The machine was right outside the big boss’s office and, as I was busy doing the printing, I got the feeling I was being watched and, when I looked around, he was giving me a bit of a funny look. He was on the phone so he couldn’t say anything but, when he saw I’d noticed, he did this funny twitchy eyebrow thing in my direction.

He was a lot younger than I’d have expected for such an important person and he looked quite amazingly smart in a suit and tie and things and, for some reason, the idea that he was watching me did funny things to my tummy.

So, when I was done, I scurried back across to Mandy who was just sitting there and messing about with her fingernails. She was basically amazed and told another couple of the girls who made a complete fuss about it and generally gave the impression that I’d just performed brain surgery or something.

Then she asked me to make coffee for the big boss guy. Luckily, the lady who taught the ‘Office Technology’ course had worked out that, even though it wasn’t on the syllabus, it would be a good thing for us to know how to produce ‘executive quality coffee’. So every lesson, one of us would get to practice!

Of course, it might just have been an excuse to get a nice cup of coffee made for her!

So I produced a cup of my finest brew and carried it along to his office.

He was busy on the phone so I sort of hovered by the door, kind of secretly inspecting him.

He was a big man - tall and broad and, though he looked pretty solid, he didn’t seem to be carrying too much extra weight around with him. He had long, fair, slightly wavy hair and a couple of days of stubble on his chin. His eyes were blue and, just at the moment, they were sparkling with irritation.

But, when he saw me, he gave me various hand wavy type instructions which basically told me to come in, put the coffee down and wait.

And, as I was waiting, I took a sneaky look around - his office was even more posh than the rest of the place with a thick carpet and beautiful wooden furniture. He even had some sort of small palm tree behind his desk. And his chair basically looked like a leather throne!

Of course I couldn’t help earwigging in on his phone call… and, because he was leaning back in his chair and using a speakerphone, I could hear both ends of the conversation.

“Angus,” he was saying - and he sounded pretty narked. “What the fuck were you thinking when you decided that this contract was in a fit state to pass along to me?”

The guy who had interviewed me had been called Angus. It had been a bit of a funny experience… not that I’d been to all that many interviews before… I almost got the impression that there was some sort of joke going on that I didn’t understand. And I’d heard something about him being this guy’s brother or something.

“What contract?” the Angus guy asked.

“The one you forwarded on to me last night and said was in a fit state for sign-off.”

He took a sip of the coffee and gave me a thumbs up to let me know he was happy with it

“Oh yeah,” the Angus guy replied. “That one. What’s up with it?”

“It’s a steaming pile of crap. That’s what’s up with it. As you’d have noticed if you’d even bothered to look at the thing.”

“Oh! OK.”

“Just get it sorted and get it back to me by nine o’clock tonight.”

“But it’s the staff quarterly this evening. We sit down to dinner at eight.”

“Then you’d better have it in my inbox by seven,” the boss guy said. “We need to get it out tonight and nobody is leaving until I’m satisfied with the thing.”

He rang off without bothering to wait for an answer and then I felt his eyes on me.

“Look at me properly, please,” he told me and I realised that I’d basically been staring at the floor.

“I’m sorry, Sir.”

“Apologies are not required when I tell you something for the first time… however, I do not appreciate having to repeat myself.”

I knew I was turning red but managed to say, “Thank you, Sir.”

He inspected me for what basically felt like forever and I was horribly conscious that I just didn’t fit in those super posh offices with my cheap clothes and everything. But then he took another sip. “Excellent coffee,” he said. “Just as I like it: high quality, freshly ground beans; strong, black and hot; and made with a cafetière not an espresso machine.”

“Yes, Sir!” I was pretty surprised that he could spot all that.

“Not that I’m fussy about my coffee or anything!” he added with a smile and, in spite of the fact that he was the big boss and I’m just me, I found myself smiling back at him.

“And served in a proper cup, not some paper monstrosity.”

“Of course, Sir!” We shared another smile. At least we agreed on something!

“I’m Daniel Hampton,” he told me. “And what’s your name, please?”

“Constance, Sir. Constance Butterfield”

His eyebrows did the funny twitchy thing again but he nodded. “And have you joined us straight from school, Constance?”

“Yes, Mr Hampton… well college.”

“Daniel, please!”

“Yes… Daniel.” It felt pretty odd to be calling the big boss by his first name but that was what he wanted.

“Is this your first day with us?” he asked.

“Yes, Daniel.”

“And are you coming to our ‘quarterly’ tonight, Constance?” he asked.

“Erm… I don’t know,” I stuttered. “It’s really not my sort of thing.”

“I would like you to come, please.” He gave me a look which basically made it impossible for me to say no. “It will give you the opportunity to meet people in a less formal setting.”

“Oh… OK,” I mean… I couldn’t exactly say that I’d rather stick pins in my eyes even though it was true.

“That will be all then, thank you.”

I turned to leave but my eye was caught by the absolutely amazing view. He had a corner office with floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides. We were on the top floor of a super swish office block on the southern end of Canary Wharf. So on one side, you could see up to Tower Bridge and the old City of London and, on the other, you could look down the river to the dome and the cable car.

But I was shocked out of my stunned state by a voice from behind me. “Yes, Constance, it is a particularly impressive panorama,” he agreed, “but could you buzz off now, please. I need to get on… and would you close the door behind you.”

“Yes, Sir. I’m sorry, Sir,” I said as I hurried to do as I was told. “I mean… Daniel!”

He gave me a little smile to let me know that I’d got something right.

For the rest of the day, I was quite spectacularly busy. Once people learnt that I knew how to operate the photocopier, there were piles of tricky stuff that people had basically been putting off forever. And then Mandy discovered that I knew what I was doing with spreadsheets and another mountain of work appeared as I tried to sort out the complete mess that she had made with the office inventory system.

I was hard at it when she appeared with a sandwich for me. I hesitated at first but she said, “Daniel saw you were busy so he told me to get something for you.” Then she looked around and added in a sort of whisper, “which meant that I could put it on expenses - mine too!”

We sat together for a bit as we ate and I tried to show her what I was doing with her spreadsheet but I got the impression that she really didn’t have a clue what I was going on about… or, to be more precise, that she just couldn’t be bothered to make the effort to understand it.

I found myself wondering how on earth she managed to get the job. It was as if she had just been taken on for her looks or something!

And then another couple of the girls discovered that I knew how to use spreadsheets… including some of the trickier stuff like formulas and pivot tables. So there were even more requests for help - where ‘help’ basically meant doing all their work for them!

And I was still busy when word went round that the coach was waiting to take us along to their ‘quarterly’ company meal.