Totally Firm

What one might imagine to be one of the perks of working for a relatively large and self-important firm is the company conference. The firm sees this as a chance to perk up morale and tell everyone ‘well done’ while at the same time reiterating more emphatically that important message of ‘work harder’. Employees see this as a chance to get wankered and enjoy another jolly on expenses.

Nevertheless, the blooming into being of the credit cringe saw the firm go some way to cut some corners on expenditure. Support staff were left at home in Blighty while the rest of us jetted off to a four-star hotel in Monaco. But perhaps jetting off is the wrong word, given that further pennies were pinched by shipping the firm out on a low-fares airline. “I don’t see why we should have to submit ourselves to EasyBucket,” one plummy partner declared within clear earshot of the airline’s usual clientele, attracting glares from beneath shaven skulls and baseball caps. It was amusing for us office drones to see immaculately coiffeured partners, more used to a welcome-on-board glass of champagne sipped at their fully reclinable seat, elbow-jostling on with the rest of us great unpaid, squeezing past beer bellies and trying to catch the eye of Eastern European air hostesses to order drinks for their row as if in some pricey wine bar. At least they were faring better than the staff of the Hong Kong office, who were apparently saving the company thousands by being stored in overhead luggage compartments for an eight-hour flight on an economy airline that has since gone bust. “It’s fine – they’re Chinese,” one partner was overheard to say, “they love being squashed together.”

I have nothing against the cheaper airlines - it's my only hope of going anywhere, and of getting the true pre-abattoir feeling our bovine brethren experience.

Our few days there were filled with tedious seminars and cringeworthy presentations, with obligatory chuckling at company in-jokes peppering most sessions. During one group session, a partner even called me a ‘cheap asset’ with reference to my graduate-tastic wage. And indeed, we were urged to work harder, grow faster, arrive earlier, leave later, phone more often, ignore spouses, sacrifice weekends, forget dinner, skip lunch and stop wandering around the office with a bowl of muesli for all of fifteen minutes in the mornings. I had long ago decided I didn’t really share this ethic and so looked on, serenely planning my escape. I already stuck out due to my personal dress policy. The firm had agreed on business casual and of course, some of these people had never been near a pair of jeans and, more than likely, had never passed more than the time of day with any character who actually owned a pair of trainers. One associate’s outfit for the plane, some chinos and a plain shirt, was met with another partner asking if he was planning on doing some gardening. Defiant in my white high-tops and slim jeans, I did myself no favours professionally or interpersonally, but screw them, I was on holiday. And I had been planning my resignation since my first day.

The nights were given over to the excesses of inflated salaries and competitive networking. From the moment we arrived on the first evening, female associates draped themselves and their cleavage over the bar and partners’ laps, eager male researchers shook hands with anyone they could get near and minor consultants tried to outdo one another by being the last old soak to crawl up the stairs to bed at 5.30am. Given the average price of a drink in Monaco, and the prospect of having to talk to these people without being remunerated for doing so, I was quite often tucked up in my king-size bed watching French music television by a very reasonable hour. Brought up on the comprehensive school trip, I was staggered to find out we didn’t have to share rooms…

“You look jolly rough – up late?” one batty old partner asked me during a morning meeting.

“Thank you very much,” I said, before spitefully informing that I had received a full eight hours.

I was starting to feel like I was simply trapped in the office for a few days, rather than by the seaside in the Mediterranean. We did manage to sneak off for a dip in the freezing March sea, during which a fellow associate told me how she had seen a frisky old partner at the bar poking a female consultant in the nipples repeatedly until his EA had scolded him suitably.

The climax of the whole operation was a gala dinner somewhere exclusive. I found myself on the table for the ‘leftover’ staff and begun to suspect the firm was as keen on me as I on them. Wine was poured, the toilets were nicer than my family home and we were treated to premiers of the corporate videos we had spent the previous day making, turning the hotel into numerous filmsets, much to the protestations of its staff. Unable to afford the bar, I did a few rounds finishing off unattended drinks, berated in slurred sentences the partner who had called me a ‘cheap asset’ and then followed the leering and jeering crowd out for our exclusive night at Jimmyz, Monaco’s most expensive nightclub. On the way, I also watched a septuagenarian image consultant employed by the firm tumble roly-poly down a flight of stairs, landing like an upturned woodlouse with legs flailing for a surface, after slipping off a heel. She was fine and was later seen strutting her stuff among the wealthy men and Russian prostitutes on the dancefloor at Jimmyz, all lips and shouting.

Fuelled on rip-off booze, the firm shimmied and staggered to some cheesey Europop, the managing partner stalking the crowds in a gold lamé jacket and too drunk to focus, cameras flashing, bottles emptying and seasoned Monegasques staring on in disbelief. Once again outpriced by the bar and reluctant to schmooze drinks off better paid partners I normally avoided, I headed back to the sanctity of French music videos.

A brown-nosing associate on her way in spotted my overly prompt escape. “What are you leaving in search of?” she called.

“Better company,” I spat, rather pathetically, and dashed off.