The Art and Craft of Approaching Your Head of Department to Submit a Request for a Raise (2 page)

In the ‘prose’ as in the ‘radio’ version of this simulation of a flow-chart in action Perec pursues the exhilarating potential of repetitiveness and recursion, but he does not stick to the mindless monotony that a real computer would experience (if it could be said to experience anything at all). Enthralled as he is by writing with rules and with the exhaustive completion of self-devised schemes and grids, Perec seeks in these ‘logic’ texts as in all his works to communicate a human experience of the world. Each of the standard formulas he devised to represent the fixed steps in the recursive procedure is repeated often enough with precision to make the variations that he introduces at some stage both comic and significant. As time goes on, the supplicant for a raise grows older; the world around him changes ever so slightly; and the story – for there
is
a story buried inside – speaks to us in the end of entropy and human mortality.

Perec reused the material of
the art and craft
one last time in Chapter 98 of
Life A User’s Manual
, where he gives the topic of obtaining a raise in pay a different and more novelistic turn. Even so, the character of Maurice Réol is distinctly familiar to anyone who has read, heard or seen any one of the many versions of the project whose true original is translated here.

Translating a text which is close to being unreadable in the original is a paradoxical but not a particularly difficult task, since ordinary readability is hardly an issue. Assuming a willing explorer of this strange and wonderful corner of the universe of Georges Perec, I sought to replicate in English most especially the humour and the underlying rhythm of the French text. With that aim uppermost I chose to introduce variations on the formulas where they worked best in English, not always in exactly the same place as in French. I also took some pleasure in using a word that is not attested in any dictionary that I can find but which was taught me by my Latin master, Jim Brogden. ‘Circumperambulate’ is a word of English spoken, heard and understood by pupils and teachers at Westcliff High four and more decades ago. It really should have been logged by a lexicographer by now.

David Bellos
Princeton, 10 October 2010

h
aving carefully weighed the pros and cons you gird up your loins and make up your mind to go and see your head of department to ask for a raise so you go to see your head of department let us assume to keep things simple – for we must do our best to keep things simple – that his name is mr xavier that’s to say mister or rather mr x so you go to see mr x it’s one or t’other either mr x is at his desk or mr x is not at his desk if mr x is at his desk it will be quite straightforward but obviously mr x is not at his desk so all you can do is stand in the corridor waiting for him to come back or come in but let us suppose not that he never comes in that case there would be but one solution to go back to your own desk and wait for the afternoon or the morrow to launch your campaign afresh but as is often the case that he takes his time in which case all you can really do instead of walking up and down in the corridor is to go and see your colleague ms y whom we shall call henceforth ms wye to give a touch of human warmth to our schematic demonstration but it’s one or t’other either ms wye is at her desk or ms wye is not at her desk if ms wye is at her desk it would be quite straightforward but let us suppose that ms wye is not at her desk in which case seeing as you have no desire to carry on walking up and down in the corridor while waiting for mr x either to return or to come in whichever may be the case the only course now available to you is to circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the organisation of which you are an employee then go back to see mr x while hoping that this time he has indeed come back or in it’s one or t’other either mr x is at his desk or mr x is not at his desk let us grant that he is not so you await his coming back or his coming in by walking up and down in the corridor sure but let’s just suppose he’s taking his time in this case you go and see if ms wye is at her desk it’s one or t’other either she is in or she is not if she is not the best thing you can do is to circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute

the whole or part of the organisation of which you are an employee but let’s rather assume she is at her desk in this case it’s one or t’other either ms wye is in a good mood or ms wye is not in a good mood let’s suppose for starters that ms wye is not i mean really not in a good mood in this case you don’t let it get you down and circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the organisation of which you are an employee then go back to see mr x hoping he has come in it’s one or t’other either mr x is at his desk or mr x is not at his desk are
you
at your desk no so why expect mr x to be at his maybe he is at
your
desk expecting to give you a drubbing when you get back or maybe he is walking up and down in the corridor outside
his
boss’s office that’s mr zosthene whom we will henceforth designate as mr z so mr x is not at his desk and as a result you look out for his coming back or coming in while walking up and down in the corridor outside his office we grant without reservation that a certain length of time may elapse before mr x comes back or comes in we advise you that in order to cope with the boredom that your monotonous pacing could easily prompt you should go have a chinwag with your colleague ms wye provided of course not only that ms wye is at her desk if she is not you would not have much of a choice save to circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the organisation of which you are an employee unless of course you were to go back to your own desk to wait for more auspicious times but also that she is in a good mood if ms wye is at her desk and in a bad mood circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the organisation of which you are an employee but let us rather assume to keep things simple – for we must do our best to keep things simple – that ms wye is both in her office and a good mood in this case you enter ms wye’s office and you have a chinwag with her at any rate it’s one or t’other as time goes by either you spy mr x coming back or going in to his office or else you do not see mr x coming back or going in to his office let us assume the most likely outcome namely that you do not see mr x for the good reason that mr x does not come that is to say we are ruling out a hypothesis that would have been disastrous for our demonstration namely mr x coming back or going in without your noticing it from being engrossed in conversation with ms wye in this case you would have to carry on chatting with ms wye unless of course by misfortune your conversation had put ms wye in a bad mood if this latter circumstance had arisen you would have had no choice but to circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the organisation of which you are an employee then wander back to your own desk lost in thought and awaiting happier days but in the end there has to be a moment while chatting with ms wye when you see mr x go past on his way in to or out of his office you must then act with speed and skill by finding a good excuse for getting out of ms wye’s office otherwise you might ruffle her feathers and next time she won’t even let you have a chinwag with her which would oblige you to circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the organisation of which you are an employee in perambulations that would eventually become suspicious and maybe even annoy your head of department which is obviously not what you had in mind so you find a good excuse for getting out for example i have to pop out to feed the parking meter or i’m afraid i swallowed a fish bone at lunch or excuse me but i must go and have a vaccination against measles you go and see mr x with every reason to believe that since you just saw him going by mr x is now well and truly at his desk we shall suppose to keep things simple – for we must do our best to keep things simple – that mr x is indeed in his office although we should never forget as eugene ionesco once said that when there’s a ring on the doorbell sometimes someone is there and sometimes not the truth lying somewhere between the two so mr x is in his office and as mr x is your line manager you knock before entering then await a response obviously it’s one or t’other either mr x raises his eyes or mr x does not raise his eyes if he raises his eyes that means at least that he noticed your knocking and intends to respond to it either positively or negatively a mystery that will soon be solved by a decision that we could then subject to analysis but if he does not raise his eyes but carries on talking on the telephone reading his file refilling his fountain pen in short doing whatever he had been doing at the point when you knocked on his door that means either that he hasn’t heard and yet i’m sure you knocked clearly and firmly or else that he doesn’t want to hear in any case that comes to exactly the same thing from your point of view because if he has not heard your knocking it would be quite inappropriate and even unseemly to persist so if he does not raise his eyes you go back to your desk and decide to try your luck afresh in the afternoon or tomorrow or next tuesday or forty days later obviously when you do go back

to see mr x he will have to be in his office if he is not then you would await his return in the corridor and if he were to be a long time coming you would go see ms wye and if ms wye were also not at her desk you would circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the organisation which toys with you then you would go back to see mr x if he were still not there you would await him in the corridor or else go to see ms wye on condition not only that she be there but that she also happened to be in a good mood otherwise you would circumperambulate the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the organisation of which you are an employee then you would go back to see mr x and if he were not in you would pace up and down in the corridor while waiting for him and if he were to be a long time coming you would go have a chinwag with ms wye until you espied mr x coming in or back to his office the simplicity of this conditional loop permitting us to imagine the hypothetical situation which is not really exceptional though relatively infrequent in which mr x is in his office at the moment you go to see him thus relieving you from waiting in the corridor from assessing whether or not ms wye is in her office from making the always unreliable judgement of ms wye’s disposition and from circumperambulating the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the organisation of which you are an exploitee so mr x is in his office and since mr x is your line manager you knock before entering then await his response obviously if there is no response you have no choice but to begin all over again so we shall go so far as to grant in our noble desire to keep things simple – for we must do our best to keep things simple – that by exceptional good fortune when you knock mr x who was indeed in his office really did raise his eyes and that definitely means that he heard you but does not mean at all that he wishes to see you right away in fact the wide range of signs and therefore of communicative intentions that can accompany his response may be divided into three main groups that call for three strategic responses on your part first by moving his head two or three times on the horizontal plane from right to left and left to right or else by a dagger-like glance that speaks volumes about his unwillingness to co-operate or by violently blurting out a verbal string he may indicate that he has no intention whatsoever of seeing you now or soon or ever but you are right to reckon this an unnecessarily pessimistic and frankly destructive hypothesis so we will not pursue it any further on the other hand it would be far too optimistic nay dim-witted to think that your head of department will by moving his bonce in the vertical plane up and down and down and up or else by issuing the most gracious smile will i repeat ask you to come in straight away in fact this hypothesis is so implausible so contradicted by quotidian reality that we shall reckon it being as impossible as the prior hypothesis and that obviously takes us to the third consisting of a message in articulate speech concocted for your exclusive use by your head of department serving to put things off by granting you the status of visitor at some unspecified and more or less distant future point in time let me put his cards on the table your head of department cannot or does not want to see you straight away but he has nothing against hearing what you have to say and he requests you most politely to be so kind as to accept an appointment to see him at 2:30 pm seeing as it is 9:30 am right now as i speak obviously you are not going to wait for the clock to strike the half of three in the corridor or in ms wye’s office or in a circumperambulation of the various departments which taken together constitute the whole or part of the organisation of which you are an employee so you go back to your desk and reflect that it is indeed the case that your oh so magnanimous head of department has told you to come back at 2:30 pm you know that your head of department is a man of his word otherwise he would not be your line manager you know that he certainly does not use words lightly but you are sufficiently accustomed to the diciness of life not to mention the rubicons of existence to know full well that in the firm that pays your rent and bacon it sometimes doesn’t take much for a line manager’s mood to change despite his also being the nicest man in the world and that a given proposition uttered at half past nine may not be worth a penny come two-thirty if only because in the intervening lapse of time will arise the always crucial episode of lunch a ceremony whose more or less satisfactory outcome always has a more or less unfortunate impact on your interlocutor’s inclinations thus you have every reason to glean what information you can on the staff cafeteria menu and to keep an eye on the dietary behaviour of your line manager during his midday meal several circumstances may obtain each of which requires an appropriate response from you so let us suppose that today is friday it’s one or t’other either the cafeteria is serving an egg dish or it is serving a fish dish let us suppose the cafeteria is serving fish it’s one or t’other either your line manager swallows a fish bone or your line manager does not swallow a fish bone let us suppose that your head of department who is also your line manager does swallow a fish bone in this case do not commit the almost fatal mistake of turning up at your head of department’s office at 2:30 pm but wait until tomorrow which is not very practical as the day after friday is saturday and the office is closed on saturdays but this is a tricky issue we plan to cope with later on so we shall assume to keep things simple – for we must do our best to keep things simple – that your head of department likes eggs and we will posit that the problem of distinguishing between degrees of offness in eggs has been solved now let us also suppose that it is not friday there are many reasons why that is preferable the cafeteria is less likely to be serving fish or eggs and your head of department is less likely to swallow a fish bone or to get food poisoning from rotten eggs moreover if your head of department makes an appointment for the next day that next day cannot be a saturday which makes your task much easier but all the same do not make the mistake of believing that if it is not a friday the lunch problem can be set aside in fact we could easily be in lent in which case it’s one or t’other either there was a fish dish for lunch or there was an egg dish for lunch if there had been fish either your head of department swallowed a fish bone or your head of department did not swallow a fish bone if he did not choke wait quietly until the afternoon if he did swallow a fish bone keep as calm as you can while waiting