EPISODE XX
“The point is that not only the Loser Titan wanted to bid farewell to the remaining staff but also to retired employees, those who had left the company well pissed-off with the boss”.
Public-oriented emotional Scandal: Written outcry from one person suffering from emotional disorder addressed to another person to whom he attacks on his morale and good intentions, which accounts for the reactions and psychic effects brought out by its publicizing, whether it be intended or accidental.
Cali, Colombia, From 20th to 25th January 2018
It was a tradition in Bio-Rasta for every departing employee to have a farewell. The office was located three kilometres away from Cali in the same place where the boss lived, a rural establishment riddled with coatis, with toads and little monkeys wandering around the organic garden alongside fruit trees and tubes for rain-water harvest. Beside the front door after climbing the stairs -yet outside the office-, there was a roofed entryway where the person in charge of the housekeeping arranged, to honour the outgoing employee, a convivial meal which they called Farewell appetizer. Depending on budget and how popular the team-worker of honour had become, either beer&snacks or a sumptuous late lunch was organised, which for many meant an early supper and not to have to cook at home in the evening. At the same ceremony, the departing employee´s digital fingerprint was to be removed from the attendance control device; likewise, the desk was to be cleared for the next occupant (The Loser Titan had spared this task by misappropriating his working tools), and ultimately the guest of honour would exaggerate his/her nostalgia by waving to the remaining staff while saying the almost always false cliché: “this is au revoir not a goodbye”.
The payroll of Bio-Rasta notwithstanding, was almost non-existent by the time the Loser Titan resigned. People´s diaspora began on July two thousand sixteen, when cash-flow shortage tormented Treasury as to the payment of salaries in due time was concerned. Married with children, unmarried, young engineers, mostly all of them emigrated in search of better employment conditions; with regards to foreign employees who had been brought to Colombia under the promise of an exciting career plan, either they would decide to get back to their native countries or to tread Latin America as backpackers forced to take a sabbatical in the hope of being hired by farmers, in return to housing and food. The workers over fifty of age couldn´t help but to grit their teeth, for they knew very well how difficult job-search would have turned out to be, taking into account that the labour market always favours the recruitment of recent graduates. Under this scenario, The Western Andean outcrops could not bear witness to the farewell meeting of the employee Adolfo Sammartino, the outgoing Financial Manager. The last one to quit the company two months earlier, a Belgian agronomist unpaid for his last two years of work, had simply evaporated, disappearing without trace from the places he used to be found. Having cooled down his fugitive instincts, perhaps in a burst of repentance for his conduct he sent an email of apologies three months later, excusing himself for his ghostly escape, thus formalising his farewell.
The point is that not only the Loser Titan wanted to bid farewell to the remaining staff but also to retired employees, those who had left the company well pissed-off with the boss. If the accustomed convivial meal belonged to a bygone era, then a new idea should ensue: human being´s brain and imaginings, so long as they work coupled, crave for innovative ideas.
Isis-instigated exile made the Loser Titan go live in a small loft next to the banks of Lili River, one of the seven running through Cali city, distant five hundred meters from the office. The loft was erected beneath a Gadua bamboo small forest, with cement and wood as raw materials. It consisted of a twenty squared meters construction which included a kitchen, a lounge, a bedroom, and a literary corner, all of them assembled in a space without internal walls. Walking down the stairs on the way to the river are the laundry room, the external bath, a barbecue, facilities laid down on a concrete-made spacious deck, perfect setting for outdoors activities.
The literary corner was made up of a wooden dark brown desk with an L-shape, and a swivel chair covered with imitation black leather, whose wheels enabled the Loser Titan to describe concentric circles when the need to think over something specific arises: since January fifth he used to revolve around while mulling over the different possibilities for his farewell. In order to detach himself from the position he had occupied in the company, a preliminary detachment-phase was executed any such day between January twentieth and twenty fifth: during a burst of rage, he threw away all of the stationery he had brough from his ex-jobsite: bank tokens, pens, scratch paper, notes written on the firm´s letterhead, monetisation of foreign currency, staplers, etc, dumping them in Lily River. No leftovers from his period in Bio-Rasta would be admitted at home, though he made an exception with the computer, giving it as a present to his stepson Juan José who, since long ago, needed one for school homework. How can I afford a new equipment if I am not getting paid at all? -the Loser Titan excused himself before the sure-fire Titan. No doubt the looting had encompassed an assistance aspect: to have met a filial demand. The Loser Titan invested a great deal of time reflecting on the farewell issue at good speed, turning round from his swivel chair. Meanwhile, he swam at the club. One day early in the morning, a light went on in the Loser Titan´s brain and consequently he wrote, in six frantic minutes, a moving farewell note which is exposed hereunder:
Cali, Colombia, January 26th 2018
TO: Ex colleagues, the retired, those betrayed and deceived, those inspired by ambivalent sensations, to the violently nonaggressive people. I am addressing to my ex-boss as well:
On January fourth, namely, three weeks back, at the end of a conversation with an idiotic fool whom I shall not name, the unmentionable (I refuse to write down his name here) concerning the options available in the market to pay off the debts of the company, after several attempts from my side to create in him awareness about his utter unproductivity, after several failures from his side as for answering my emails, after refusing to talk with two possible investors I managed to find, I resigned to the position of Corporate Financial Manager. All of a sudden I cut off the skype meeting I had been holding with my ex-boss (the coward fled to Malaysia, what a wimp) and before shutting down the camera I said to him: “I think, Monsieur, there is nothing left to talk about. Then I indulged in anger, I displayed the fury of the semi gods, for Argentinian Gods are still to be found.
By sending this letter I say farewell to you all and also to each of you. It´s been nine years carrying the flag of the company. Nine years working together means a lot for me. As to you, Monsieur, I remember that you´ve never missed out the chance to state: “Since I take companies for living beings, we are a family”. So, it´s worth working out: Why you, son of the bitch, sent us out to the stake, since not only was it possible to eke out a living but also to have our glory days back? Why do you experience joy at watching your company survive with the help of an artificial respirator? Or perhaps the climax you reach out of your living being´s artificial breathing can never be reproduced in the intimacy with your wife? Oh shit! I should stop here, because I am becoming emotional.
For your kind perusal let me inform that the trigger of my resignation was a last email I sent to the Unmentionable, in which I asked him -not with a high degree of politeness actually-, in my quality of Financial Group Manager, for the undeclared account payables of shell and ghostly companies, since the declared account payables were in my possession already. Why? because this sixty-years-old CEO caught me by surprise four months ago. We met in Brussels for work and, as I was having breakfast with the Unmentionable, I realised that He and his university fellows had turned their back to the Financial Group Manager and created a ghost company on the side. From then forth, I kept on thinking about the retired employees still waiting for their severance pays, while our ex-boss, instead of giving priority of payment to wage claims he fundraised 8.000 euros so to create an off-shore company. I am not certain whether the partner of Monsieur the Unmentionable, the Latin America Project Manager, knew anything about this clandestine undertaking; I think he did. In short, the off-shore company had a paid-up capital amounted to 8.000 euros, whereas the retired personnel, in whole, still remained a liability for the mother company. Trade payables rose up to USD2.700.000 at 31/12/2017. I couldn´t -or didn´t know how to- stand such an abuse, such managerial indolence. How dare a professional guy who often boasted of his sophisticated neuronal processing capacity, to mount a ghost company which, everyone knew beforehand, was doomed to bankruptcy. It seems ridiculous to me; I could hardly believe it. When the Unmentionable toured Isis and myself Waterloo battle-camp, where Napoleon had surrendered, it was clear to me that my boss was an idiot. The prime cause of my resignation, the beginning of the end, was hatched that September 13th 2017, and it did take its definite shape in the same place of Napoleon´s giving up on June 18th of 1815. To Monsieur the Unmentionable the fact of setting up companies from out of the blue, has always been child´s play, in the end his nonagenarian father, in the know of his son´s ineptitude to keep a business thriving, come to rescue him every time his son´s managerial misbehaviour in South America becomes notorious, in addition to bestowing him with a comfortable lifestyle. That´s why, among many other things, the day I resigned I told Monsieur the Unmentionable that, from then on, I would take the boss position and he would be downgraded to mine, that of the employee. Therefore, before leaving I put into practise my new faculties by arranging a bank transfer of USD2.400 to a Honduran employee, while 1.000Euros were wired to myself, all this after my brother´s refusal to lend me USD10.000 to fly to Kuala Lumpur so to settle accounts with Monsieur the Unmentionable in person. On January fourth 2018 through skype, I said to Monsieur the Unmentionable while looking him intensely in the eyes, that the handover of my post ought to be done in Kuala Lumpur, even if I had to swim across the ocean. And afterward I should have to give him a beating, I added. Nothing mattered anymore, life or death, who cared? It is to be expected at all events, that a brave man should die for a good cause. I could have beaten him should my brother had lent me the funds to afford the trip. I looked forward to confronting Monsieur the Unmentionable and see if he had the galls to tell me, face to face, the reasons of not answering to my emails and WhatsApp messages: it has not been a case of overwork, that is for sure. He is an unengaged person feigning industriousness; he idly became a well-paid parasite.
I am still hopeful to travel to Malaysia to have the scores settled.
Needless to say, that through skype I fired him a beautiful myriad of obscenities (it´s as plainly justified to mouth them off to whom deserved them, as it is justified their presence in the dictionary). In the peak of my “restrained” quitter´s unkindness, I treated him as idiot, and when cuss words began to spiral out of control, I left open to suspicion his closeted homosexuality. Who hasn´t ever lost his/her temper and fired off any sort of well-chosen words?
I extend you apologies, Monsieur the Unmentionable, for the insults I let fly in a fit of anger which, as incredible as it may seem, still endures.
Well, as to my present life, I have to tell you guys that I am staying home with no money in the pockets, waiting for the debt-repayment miracle come true, which in my case accounts for USD15.000 of unpaid fees.
My friends: there was a second catalyst for my resignation, which ensued from a team work requested by Monsieur the Unmentionable to the meagre staff, related to an outlay from the European Community intended to assist the Peace Process in Colombia. In the final analysis, we couldn´t meet the requirements. Once again: his delirium tremens remains coloured with horseshit, probably due to his ongoing brain mummification. Monsieur the Unmentionable: a child prodigy that derailed before the rails existed.
Afterward, on January 24th 2018, I also resigned to my position as Financial Manager of the Colombian distributor of the products of the Belgian company. Which Company? Which products? - you might want to know. Where can we find the inventory of these products? And now, as most of you, I follow the line waiting for my severance to be paid, even though I am severely fucked-up. Despite this, boys and girls alike, I am happy, I have enough spare time to compose songs and to make progress on book-writing too. Fortunately, I´ve learnt how to wait and always have faith.
I am thankful for the patience you showed towards the company, I am proud of the friendships I gained over these nine years. We´ve gone through troublesome situations together, from which we came out safe and saved from our vitalist CEO, the pretender for the boss´ position. Because I was the piece of the machinery to blame on for the financial crash, for I occupied the Financial Manager post, things messed up between us but we finally managed to strengthen up our friendship beyond what one can imagine.
I had in mind the fresh embarrassment caused by the agronomist leaving the company without notice -somehow, he had become the putative son of Monsieur the Unmentionable-, whose name I am not going to write because all of you know who I am talking about. Unlike him, I do say good-bye to all participants of the fascinating -yet storming- professional journey in the smallest multinational of the world.
I hope you can shake off the fury you are carrying, to let out the anger that assailed me like a raging bull as a result of Monsieur the Unmentionable´s misconduct. You can make it, I am struggling for a new and fresh and soothing life, being the best achievement to forget Monsieur the Unmentionable.
I guess my brother is coming to Cali to make an assessment on my psyche gone astray, there is no expectation that he brings the USD10.000 along, donations of whatever currency are therefore accepted so to get to Kuala Lumpur. Once there I shall shut my contract down while shutting Monsieur the Unmentionable´s fucking mouth. In doing so my journey in the company will be over. Even if I emailed my resignation and there is a hard copy of it, not to mention the resignation submitted through skype, I prefer to close this chapter in person.
Although violence finds no place in my nature, sometimes we came across with people like Monsieur the Unmentionable, master of tiring us out with his door-to-door imbecility. When you stumble upon a man of this kind, even when he is someone you care about, if the aforementioned stupid is someone whom I consider a friend because he invited me to his fiftieth birthday on July 18th 2010, I would never say that my fury was justified (my fury was as stupid as his imbecility, so much so that I came into contact with the Sicilian Mafia). Now you are up-to-date: Monsieur the Unmentionable threw the rope around his neck, he is being hunted hence, his smooth breath would be in danger if and when an attack against my life is perpetrated. That being the case, Monsieur the Unmentionable´s life would be a penny´s worth, much lesser that the present value of his ruined company.
Lastly, just one more thing: no one gets truly angry with someone he doesn´t care about, it can therefore be deduced that Monsieur the Unmentionable has great significance in my life.
Sincerely and rebelliously revealingly
Adolfo Sammartino or Balou
Cali, Colombia, January 26th 2018
P.D: I remind you, Monsieur the Unmentionable, my trip to Sicily on march 2012, when I took time to renew contact with the chiefs of the Mafia and their nervous trigger finger lads, contacts which were lost after my great-grandfather´s sudden death in 1925.
PD: I am not scared of death, especially if it comes up for the sake of justice.
For the second time in less than a week a looming threaten from the frightening Sicilian Mafia has fallen upon someone.
As soon as he clicked send with the mousse, he was haunted by a peace of mind largely lost since he had met Valentina. The time has come to sleep for at least fifteen minutes.
