Storytime with Houdi – Herr Flick…

Yes Houdi. Cuppa! Cuppa! Wanna cuppa?

Gearóid always spoke in whispers and started his conversations with yes and finished with honestly or I swear on the bible. Every conversation.

Yes, George Best is dead.

Yes, your stock result is bad, honestly it is.

Yes, Alex Higgins is dead, I swear on the bible.

Yes, any holidays?

Yes, it’s not raining.

In the early nineties we both worked for a major Irish retailer that launched an expansion programme. The man originally earmarked for a position on the development team left the company unexpectedly. Consequently, Gearóid filled this position by default, rewarded with a brand new car.

Gearóid stared at his tea.

Yes it’s a Ford Granada, honestly.

What is Gearóid?

My new company car. It’s diesel, honestly it’s a diesel

That’s nice Gearóid’.

Yes, it has alloy wheels, honestly.

People steal them Gearóid be careful.

Yes, I know Houdi, but it has security nuts on the wheels.

Theft won’t happen, honestly.

Is there much talk about me?

He assumed everyone in the building knew that he had been promoted, had his own office above my branch and supplied with a car. A diesel car. A Ford Granada. I swear on the bible. Most people didn’t know, but those that did, knew he was going to be a veritable haemorrhoid traipsing around my branch annoying everyone.

Yes, I have asked Mr Mc Birney to give you a step up, honestly.

I’m not interested in it Gearóid as I have my own store to run, I’m too busy.

Mr Mc Birney, the provincial General Manager was a dead ringer for Sergeant Bilko from the 1950s TV series The Phil Silvers Show. Gearóid was that far up Bilko’s rectum he could have been cast in the show himself.

Gearóid was an incongruous individual possessing oversized arms like Popeye. A feature that rendered him not unlike a human crab in his five foot two inch frame, but paradoxically unlike a crab, he didn’t walk sideways. In fact he was more reminiscent of the motorised miniature robots in the Duracell battery adverts. Strutting about the shop-floor swiftly turning at ninety degree angles, sometimes walking backwards, shoulders moving upward as if satisfying an itch. Consequently, his colleagues called him Herr Flick after the Gestapo officer character from the TV sitcom ‘Allo ‘Allo.

In the years I worked with him I never once saw him eat anything. Not even a biscuit with his bottomless cups of tea or a single chip for his lunch. He was however, an inveterate smoker, devouring four Rothmans per morning break. Twelve on his dinner hour. Honestly. One cigarette lasted only three drags as his face turned puce, his jugular vein pulsating as if a gerbil had violated his neck. I swear on the bible.

In addition to speaking in whispers, Herr Flick used only monosyllabic phrases or tiny closed sentences. A mixture of natural shyness in tandem with his Machiavellian nature in trying to create the illusion that he was an oracle of the business decision making process. Some colleagues believed his personality disorder was the upshot of a lack of formal education which he cleverly disguised with a Pseudo posh accent. He tried twice as hard as every other executive to be an irritant. He succeeded with distinction. Honestly.

Months passed. Every week I watched him strutting around the workplace like a peacock. Clipboard in his left hand, Parker pen in his right which he held nib facing downward towards his chest and the clicker end outwards, moving it deliberately like a surgeon. I thought I was in a chapel confession box as he gave me my penance:

Boneless chicken wings. None. Unacceptable.

250g Cooked wings. None. Unacceptable

Family pack sirloin. None. Unacceptable

Houdi. Today’s delivery received – yes or no?

No

Actions please?

(Actions!! Actions!! Was this a statement or a question? Maybe it was an invitation to do handstands on the shop floor or perhaps trapeze across the checkouts).

I rang their head office Gearóid.

Who did you speak to?

Some girl on the desk.

Some girl is unacceptable.

Pardon?

I need facts, Houdi facts. Sales are being lost. Honestly.

I know.

Is this acceptable?

No.

Correct. It is not.

Houdi, honestly, right is right. Wrong is wrong.

For the previous five years I was Herr Flick’s boss. I would walk him around the supermarket pointing out areas for improvement, illustrating potential sales opportunities, where he lacked the coaching skills to reduce absenteeism. Even back then he was an automaton. On the Nixdorf computer he used one finger on the keypad to type his department orders. When he was ready to send the order into cyberspace he would raise his right forefinger in the air like Eric Bristow after scoring 180, straightening his torso proprietorially in the chair looking at me as if waiting for a thumbs up or down like I was Julius Caesar. He would hit SEND removing his forefinger immediately as if suffering an electric shock, or having just launched a missile attack on the head office of Stewart’s Supermarkets Ltd.

When working in areas a good distance away he would arrive back in my store not his usual officious self, using his time with me as an unwinder, regaling me with stories of the sales potential of thick T-Bone steaks. If only the company would follow his lead.

Prepackaged meat is the way forward Houdi. Honestly.

The gerbil now scurrying around his neck, as he sucked the dying breath from a Rothmans. I feigned complete interest is this discourse despite feeling my eyes glaze over. Steering the conversation on to TV series or movies was futile. His only interest was retailing, the important role he had in it and his Ford Granada. Yes, it was a diesel. It had security nuts on the wheels. I swear on the bible. He told me that a new store was opening the following week across the border. All branch managers were expected to attend the official opening. He was travelling with Bilko. That’s how important he was. I’d have to travel in my own car. Honestly.

The new store opened very successfully, with all branch managers present. In fact all company senior personnel were in attendance. Executives, buyers along with their assistants and of course Herr Flick’s mate Bilko.

Yes, everyone was there.

Everyone except Herr Flick.

Who arrived at the store four hours late, his hands black with car oil, crisp white shirt blotched in tar like a psychiatrist’s Rorschach ink blot test card. He approached Bilko, his head bowed in shame like a mendicant monk. Before he could speak, the passenger who replaced Herr Flick in Bilko’s car, an obnoxious female sycophant wannabe executive started laughing

Oh Gearóid, was that you we saw on the dual carriageway trying to change your wheel? Did you not see us waving at you?

Bilko’s face grew more crimson as Herr Flick turned the colour of chalk.

The next day back in my own branch Herr Flick practically camped in the canteen, the smoke circling the air like an Apache wigwam as he inhaled unfiltered John Players cigarettes.

Honestly, Houdi, I got a flat tyre.

Yes, I tried to change it.

But the locking wheel nut wouldn’t budge.

I swear on the bible.

I couldn’t get it off.

 

I thought you were travelling with Mc Birney Gearóid?

He should have stopped to help you.

Perhaps his eyes were on other things in that car?

Making no comment, he mercilessly sucked the death out of poor John Player, as the gerbil metamorphosed into a python in his throat. I don’t know if his silence was out of embarrassment of Bilko leaving him stranded on a dual carriageway or his personal shame over unrequited loyalty for his boss.

A year later, the arrival of Sainsbury’s, Safeway and Tesco sounded the death knell for the store development team. It wasn’t about expansion now. It was about survival. For the next year Herr Flick was following me around my store, except now, I was holding the clipboard. I had the Parker pen. I was his boss again. He needed to step up. Honestly. No more cuppas. No more John Players unfiltered. No more mind numbing conversations.

He had to give the car back to the company.

I swear on the bible.

Did you know it was a Ford Granada?

A diesel model.

Nuts, isn’t it?