bout de papier, Vol. 16, No. 4 (1999-2000) — Winter 1999-2000 // Hiver 1999-2000, pp. 46–48
Gesturing out his office window, Chief MacBannock explained, “They’re covered by the Labour Relations Act, so we have to let them picket. But the Centre is covered by the Official Secrets Act, so we can make them do it in code.” Detective Chief Superintendent de Toombs (on detachment to the Federal Unit for Detecting Gratuitous Excess), looked down in some confusion. Tramping out a furrow in the snow by the main door of the building was a long line of men and women carrying signs with incomprehensible messages. “But how,” said the man from FUDGE, “do you know what they’re saying?”
“Easy,” replied MacBannock. “Management and the union have a code book that covers all the phrases that might be needed. For example, the one out there that says DHFLV KCYND, I happen to remember, means ’Wage War on Wage Cuts’ ’. And the one that says KKIIY UPOPO NMKDR means ’For a Change — Downsize Management’ and so on.”
“What’s that one over there?” asked de Toombs, pointing at a tall abstracted-looking man with a sign saying GGGSR NOOIM. MacBannock consulted a thick metal-bound book, paled, looked sharply at the man, relaxed and said, “Well, the sign actually reads ’MacBannock is a toad’. ’, but that’s old Jacoby carrying it. We had to retire him from the code room a few years ago when someone noticed he was dyslexic. He almost started a nuclear war with one little transposition. But I know he always reverses the last two letters of his groups. So what he actually meant to write was GGGRS NOOMI. That means…. “ He turned a page in the codebook, ’’MacBannock is a Furbish Lousewort’”
Turning an interesting shade of mauve, he threw open a window and yelled, “I am NOT a lousewort!” Just behind Jacoby, a woman stepped out of a car and hoisted a sign saying ’OH YES YOU ARE’. MacBannock gasped, “Hilda! In plaintext!” and rushed out of the office to confront his wife, a large grey-haired lady with a taste for bombast and bombazine, considerable smarts and a caring heart.
Forgotten in the rush, de Toombs was joined a few minutes later by ace logician LDC Liebnitz and Chief Administrator Lydia Krantz. Seated around MacBannock’s meeting table, they got down to business. “You’ll remember,” the Superintendent began, “that the talks over the new contract broke down when management offered an economic increase of only one percent and the union walked out.” Liebnitz, whose union sympathies were barely tolerated, nodded glumly. Lydia, who thought unions barely tolerable, smiled.
“The unions then started lobbying Cabinet for a fair deal,” de Toombs continued. “So the management negotiators, a cracked team from the Government Office for Treasury Hacks, decided to try pulling a fast one. GothCan drew up a revised offer that was so complicated, they figured no one would understand it. The offer looked good at first glance, but worked out so no one got any increase at all – some people even got cuts.”
“Or at least, that’s the way it was designed. But they’d goofed, and it turned out that one worker in the whole place would actually qualify for a raise under the proposed system — the same 1% they offered before. You’d think they’d let it go, but the loophole threw GothCan into a complete panic. They decided that the only way to avoid what they saw as a reckless squandering of taxpayers’ money was to take out a contract on the unfortunate officer, a contract for $50,000.” Said Liebnitz, “Let me get this straight. They paid $50,000 to avoid paying one worker a one-percent increase on a base salary of maybe $30,000 — and justified it as saving money?”
“I know, I know,” muttered de Toombs. “They said it wasn’t the money, but the principle. Or maybe the interest. But the toughest thing was convincing them that murder was more than an accounting correction. And by the time I managed that, someone had slipped out and shredded all the records of the deal, so they couldn’t even tell me who the prospective victim was, or how to find the killer.”
“Which is where you come in, Liebnitz. It you can untangle the bargaining offer and work out the personal data that allowed one officer to slip through the net, then Ms. Krantz can run the result through the MindSoft People Program on her computers and tell us who it is. FUDGE can then see that the intended victim lives long enough to let us stop the hit. Although GothCan of course refuses to pay the cancellation clause in the killer’s contract without an Order-in-Council.”
Lydia passed the ace logician a sheet of paper with GothCan’s revised offer. It read:
Calculate your pay increment using the following instructions.
1. Start with I point for every 5 completed years of service (to a maximum of 6 points).
2. Add I point for every 5 completed years in current grade (to a maximum of 6 points).
3. Add I point for every full year past your sixtieth birthday.
4. Divide the total to date by 2 if you were born in Ontario, Manitoba or Nova Scotia OR if you are under 30 OR BOTH.
5. Subtract 5 points if you are not married OR if you were born in what is now Nunavut OR BOTH.
6. Add five 5 points if you are a member of a visible minority.
7. Divide the total to date by 2 if you were born in Saskatchewan OR if you are between 31 and 45 inclusive BUT NOT BOTH
8. Subtract 7 points if you were born in 1950 or before.
9. Multiply the total to date by 2 if you are left-handed AND EITHER a native of Newfoundland OR between 46 and 49 inclusive BUT NOT BOTH.
10. Subtract 10 points if you were born in Alberta or the Yukon or New Brunswick OR if your age is a perfect square OR BOTH.
11. Subtract 10 if the combination of your age and your completed years in service is greater than 50 OR if your birthday is between April I and August 31 inclusive OR BOTH
12. Add 10 points if your age is a prime number AND you were eligible to vote in the 1972 Canadian federal election BUT NOT if you were born between January I and February 28 inclusive. Divide the total to date by 10 and subtract 2 points. The result is your percentage pay increase or decrease for FY 2000.
Notes: (a) Ages, years of service and years in grade are to be calculated as of January 1,2000. (b) Step two does not apply if you were born in BC, PEI or Quebec. (C) Step six does not apply if you were born in March or between September I and December 31 inclusive. (d) Step nine does not apply if you were born in the first half of the fiscal year. (e) Step twelve does not apply if you were born in a British colony.
“Ingenious,” noted Liebnitz. “We have to take into account the fact that all the officers in this bargaining unit were born in what is now Canada, started work on their 21st birthdays and have to retire on their 65th birthdays. Also that you have to have been in grade four years to be considered for promotion. Hmmm….
Within a few minutes, he had cracked GothCan’s fiendish enigma and spotted the loophole allowing a single officer a one-percent raise. As Lydia strode off to find the prospective victim’s name, de Toombs added sombrely, “You know, top people in the Centre must have had some inkling of what was going on. But what kind of managers would put appeasing GothCan ahead of their workers’ welfare?” Just then MacBannock bustled back into the office, querying querulously, “Why are you glaring at me like that?”
Can you duplicate Liebnitz’s feat by determining where and on what date the intended victim was born, ascertaining his/her age, specifying when (if ever) he/she was last promoted, and listing the other three characteristics that entitled him/her to the one percent? bout de papier will decide the winner by drawing from a box containing all correct entries received by April 30. The winner will receive a book prize autographed by A Aalto.
Darrelas and fill timon
The Chips are Down winner:
Alan Bones, Ottawa
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 16, No. 4 (1999-2000) — Winter 1999-2000 // Hiver 1999-2000, pp. 46–48. Read the rest of this issue →
