Office towers, like Egyptian temples and Sumerian ziggurats in other times, are where the present waits to be discovered and interpreted by future archaeologists and historians. But for many that work in them, their current significance is unambiguous. They represent tiny corners of Agincourt, the Somme or Stalingrad. Even after sunset.
Jessica met Maserov at his office and told him that the room next to Frank Cardigan’s room on the floor below was now empty. All he had to do was creep in there undetected and listen. In the best-case scenario Cardigan would never know Maserov had been there and Jessica would leave his office unharmed and unthreatened.
‘How will I know if I’m meant to come in? We need a signal or something, don’t we?’
‘Okay,’ she suggested, ‘if I need you to come in I’ll tell him I’m thinking of buying a new car and ask him if he thinks I should buy a VW Golf.’
‘Does he drive a VW?’
‘I’ve no idea what he drives. But if you hear me say VW or Golf in a loud voice, louder than the conversation had been previously, you should come in the room.’
‘What should I say?’
‘I don’t know. It will depend on the circumstances. If he’s taking his pants off you could say, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing taking your pants off in the workplace?” If he’s doing anything less egregious, just introduce yourself and tell him you’ve been looking all over for me ’cause you need me urgently for the thing you’re doing for Mr Torrent.’
Maserov waited for two minutes after Jessica left before going to the room next to Frank Cardigan’s. For a moment he had trouble with the door handle but it was just a matter of aligning the deadbolt with the hole in the strike plate on the other side by slightly lifting the door a few millimetres via the handle. It took only seconds for him to figure this out and enter but it was long enough for him to break into a sweat. Sitting there with the lights out and the door slightly open he could quite clearly hear Jessica’s voice and that of a man he took to be Frank Cardigan.
‘Frank, sorry I couldn’t be with you sooner,’ Maserov heard Jessica say.
‘No matter, please sit down. Okay, let’s get down to it; leadership, specifically my leadership.’
He heard the soft sound of a chair scraping against carpet and assumed this was Jessica sitting down across from Frank Cardigan with a desk in between them.
‘How can I use my idiosyncrasies to become a better leader? That’s it, isn’t it, idiosyncrasy credit?’
‘No, that’s not what idiosyncrasy credit is.’
‘What is it?’
‘It refers to why some people can get away with behaving in a certain way when others would be criticised for behaving that way. If someone is considered a leader, not only will that person’s behaviour be tolerated, it will be emulated.’
‘Oh yeah, that’s right. So to determine whether I’m a true leader I need to get them to emulate my behaviour.’
‘No, you can’t get them to emulate your behaviour.’
‘No, I probably can, Jessica. I know you no doubt think of me as a friendly, kind of hunky, easygoing, successful type of guy, rising rapidly up the Torrent chain of command but, I have to tell you, the guys in my department are scared of me. I can probably get them to do almost anything. I think I’m a true leader.’
Cardigan’s narcissism was remarkable, Jessica thought. Real presidential material. ‘But Frank,’ she replied, ‘that’s not how idiosyncrasy credit works. You’re misunderstanding . . . I mean . . . that’s a misunderstanding of the concept. It can’t be used with compulsion. You have to deviate from group norms and then see whether, without compulsion, without threats, inducements or promises, people in your department follow your lead.’
‘How do we do that?’
‘So . . . you need to do something that’s a little unusual and see whether anyone follows you, whether anyone emulates your behaviour.’
‘What sort of unusual thing should I do? I mean, everybody knows I’m a pretty regular kind of a guy, other than, you know, my leadership and charisma.’
‘Let me ask you, Frank, what time do most people in your department leave for the day?’
‘Oh, I’d say . . . most guys around here knock off between six and six-thirty.’
‘What if you knocked off earlier? That would be unusual, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yeah but —’
‘What if they saw you leaving at, say, four o’clock?’ Her voice rose with enthusiasm.
‘They’d probably just think I was going to a meeting.’
‘Maybe once or twice they’d think that. But what if you started leaving the office at four o’clock every day, day after day.’
‘Leave at four . . . every day? But what about my work?’
‘We won’t do it for long. It wouldn’t test your productivity, just your leadership credit.’
‘So you’d want to see if any of the other guys were copying my idiosyncratic style of leaving work early?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay, well, how long do I have to keep leaving early?’
‘Well, we can’t know that at such an early stage of the test. We have to be flexible in our design.’
‘This is a real psychology thing, is it?’
‘Oh, yeah, I can show you papers on it. There’s been a lot written about idiosyncrasy credit. But I thought I’d save you all the hassle of doing the reading yourself by doing it for you and presenting you with the concept and a plan to test yours.’
‘My what?’
‘Your idiosyncrasy credit.’
‘Right, of course. But there’s one thing that still puzzles me. If I’m leaving early . . . every day . . . how will I know how many of the guys are copying me? How will I know who’s copying me? How will I even know if they’ve noticed . . . that I’m not there, that I’m leaving early?’
‘I’ll tell you. I’ll be your eyes and ears.’
‘Could you do that for me?’
‘Of course, Frank.’
‘Well, when should I start?’
‘As soon as possible.’
‘So . . . tomorrow?’
‘You could start now.’
‘But it’s late. Everyone’s gone. If I just get up and walk straight out the building, there’s no one here to see.’
‘Frank, you’re a hard worker. Everyone knows this. You’re not going to find it easy to just pick up and walk out of your office and out of the building at four o’clock every day. It will feel strange. So I want to condition you to being able to just pick up and walk out of the building.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that. So that tomorrow, when the time is right, you can just get up and leave and show the guys below you in the department just how idiosyncratic you are. Show them you can do it, that you’re not afraid to do it.’
‘Oh, I’m not afraid.’
‘Go on then, walk out. Go to the elevator, press the button.’
‘This is great, Jessica. I’m feeling really fired up about this whole “leaving at four” thing.’
‘Great.’
‘You want to have a drink with me?’
‘That wouldn’t be scientific.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I won’t be having a drink with you when you walk out at four tomorrow. Or the next day. I will never have a drink with you . . . out of commitment to the project.’
‘So if I don’t go ahead with this project?’
‘You’ve just got cold feet. But a real leader . . . See if you can do it, Frank. Get up now. Go. Walk away.’
Maserov heard Jessica leave first. A minute or two later, he saw Frank Cardigan walk with purpose past the partly open door. Then he heard the elevator bell ring, and some seconds after that, its doors opening and closing. Frank Cardigan had left.