A few days rolled by and I realised I was not missing my mother only; I was missing my father too. He was spending nearly all his time in his study, not even coming out for our ritual family meals.. So that day, when the cook had prepared his inner tray offered to take it for her.
My father’s study is a room almost as familiar to me as my father himself. Dark wood, deep greens, the smell of cigars, paper and in; always neat and always masculine. Except that day, it was not neat. I placed the tray on the table and then picked up several pieces of paper scattered on the ground. I flicked through the pages to gauge what they were about and file them away, but one caught my attention. “Papa, you’re not seriously considering laying off forty workers are you?” “Unfortunately I am. It’s this bloody new tax-30% per unit sold, plus 55% of business profits. Any higher and we’ll start losing money. That’s one of the best solutions I have come up with to cut costs.” “A short term solution. Surely, the government will drop this tax, and you will want to increase production again. But if you lay off your skilled workers you may find yourself spending more money to train new ones.” My father grumbled a bit, and made a show of eating his food “Maybe I could implement a two part tariff. Pass those papers here. Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” I left quickly, worried about my discovery.
Dewdew · Mon May 12, 2008 @ 07:20am · 2 Comments |