Excerpt: The Luddite Clause

All the good mood that the iced tea and lemon tart had wrought had dribbled away by the time that Linda sat down in the meeting room. The only good thing was that she wasn’t the only one running late; Nita skidded through the door a few seconds behind her, and Tori followed her another minute or so later.

Hedda, managing to make her position look like the top of the table despite the fact that the table was round, didn’t glare at them. She just smiled in the pleasantly vague kind of way that meant she was actually displeased but didn’t intend to show it, and opened the departmental meeting.

The first time around the table always dealt with external issues – trouble with typesetters, problems with printers, agitated authors and booksellers bothered by bulky booklists. Tori dominated the conversation as part of her role was as the supplier coordinator, and paper problems were as always high on the list.

‘They’re having trouble getting new paper stock in,’ she said, referring to the main printer that Buen Rollo worked with. ‘Their last batch was all recycled, which was going to be a selling point for Lin’s global warming book, but they found out that there was a nest of termites living in it that the paper merchant hadn’t mentioned. Few phone calls later and it turns out nobody had noticed, either at the merchant’s or at the printer, until the plastic got pulled off today and—’ Tori made an expressive gesture with both hands, indicating the flight path of the winged ants.

‘Nobody noticed a whole nest of termites – do they not have any sort of quality control standards?’ Hedda was tapping her stylus rapidly against the screen of her iWhatever-it-was, but Linda couldn’t tell if she was entering data or merely frustrated.

‘Apparently this batch slipped through the cracks. Or at least the termites did. It sat on a pallet overnight before being properly packed for delivery, and one night was enough for the little buggers to set up shop.’

‘What implications does this have for the production schedule for the global warming book?’ Linda asked.

Tori looked down at her notes. ‘Carlos assures me it shouldn’t put them out by more than two weeks. He’s sourcing an alternative paper supplier for this order and, after this regrettable incident, may even change suppliers moving forward.’

‘How very proactive of him,’ Nita muttered.

‘Two weeks. I’ll get cracking on this final proof and pass it on to the typesetter as soon as possible, unless they’ve got some sort of termite issues as well.’

‘Not that they mentioned, although Benito did say that someone had left a tap running in the staff kitchen and their server room was “a little flooded”.’

Hedda’s stylus was tapping again. ‘Did he happen to mention whether or not that was going to have any effect on our work?’

‘Not as such, but he did say their intranet was playing up and they’d had to buy new biscuits for the kitchen.’ Tori glanced around the table, waiting for the brief laugh that everyone felt obligated to produce.

‘Well, unless you want to divulge the brand of biscuits, is that all the external issues from you today, Tori? Yes? Nita, anything from you today?’

‘Just one author issue today, and really it’s our problem not his – Mr Sanguijuela’s latest opus arrived in our mailbox today. I nearly put my back out carrying it here.’

‘Where is it now? If we run it through a pulper fast enough, there’s probably enough material for the global warming book’s entire print run.’ Everyone laughed again, this time without waiting for any sort of cue – it wasn’t a good idea to leave Hedda to prompt a reaction. ‘Anything else?’

‘Not today.’

‘Linda?’

‘The only problem I have is that Tori’s just told me my global warming book will be at least two weeks later than schedule, since it’s already running right up against the deadlines as it is. But at least it gives us breathing room to choose a title.’

‘It still doesn’t have a title?’ Hedda sighed. ‘This is what you get when a group of scientists have to collaborate on anything, ladies; a disagreement over the minutest of details.’

‘Didn’t they argue over the font to submit the MS in in the first place?’ Nita asked. ‘I’m glad the one who wanted Comic Sans didn’t win.’