When in Rome... by Gemma Townley

He is always talking about strategic business propositions and win-win partnerships—he and Nigel use that language when they are discussing what they ate for dinner last night, for heaven’s sake. So why is everyone looking so shell-shocked?
    We all troop back and I immediately corner Nigel.
    “Nigel, what was he talking about in there?”
    Nigel looks at me mournfully. “Well, under the merger with Horowitz Gold there’s going to be some inevitable structural realignment,” he says.
    “Structural what? And what merger? Nigel, tell me what’s happening in proper English. Why were they talking about redundancies?”
    “Weren’t you listening?” Nigel looks as if he’s about to give me a lecture and then a sort of “oh, what’s the use” look appears on his face. “We need to be able to compete on a global scale, but we haven’t got the capital or resources to enter the U.S. market, so we’re merging with HG, a U.S.-based company. We do broadly similar things.”
    I still don’t really get it. “But why redundancies?”
    “Look, Georgie,” Nigel says slowly. “You’ve got two companies, and they merge. In each company you’ve got marketing people, IT people, research people, salespeople, and you’ve got products. Now, what you want to do is combine the two companies’ strengths and sell more products to all the customers, but without spending so much. Which means that you won’t need as many salespeople or IT people or marketing and research people.”
    Shit. This sounds quite serious. What if they have really good research people in the States who know what they’re talking about and don’t spend their time surfing around on the Internet?
    “And when will we find out? If we’ve still got a job, I mean.”
    “Not till the merger’s gone through,” says Nigel. “If it does.”
    “So it isn’t certain then?”
    “Nothing’s certain till signatures are on a legal document. But it’s unlikely they’ll call it off.”
    I long to call David and ask his opinion—he knows all about this sort of stuff and will be able to tell me first who HG are, and second what I should do about it. But we’re still not talking after Saturday night’s argument—at least he hasn’t called to apologize and there’s no way I’m going to be the first to call him. So instead I do a search on the Internet for Horowitz and Gold. There’s a lot of stuff.
    “They’re huge!” I exclaim. “They’ve got offices all over the world! I thought Guy said they were based in New York?”
    “That’s where their head offices are.”
    “So will we get to go over there? For research purposes, I mean?”
    For a moment, the whole merger thing starts sounding a bit more interesting. Monthly meetings in Manhattan, that sort of thing. I visualize myself stepping off a plane, being met by a group of serious-looking people in suits. Going to HG’s amazingly cool offices and giving major presentations on the latest research techniques and developments. I wonder if I’ll get any time to go sightseeing—I’ve never been to New York and I’ve always wanted to go up the Empire State Building.
    “Georgie, by the time the merger has all gone through, we’ll be lucky if there’s still a research department in the U.K.”
    “You don’t mean that. Tell me you didn’t mean that.”
    “Sorry,” Nigel says. “I didn’t really mean that, you’re right. I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
    No one does any work for the rest of the day. We’ve all been sworn to secrecy, but word spreads pretty quickly. Denise spends the afternoon applying for jobs, and everyone else seems to spend their time lurking in corridors having hushed conversations. All anyone wants to talk about is: did anyone know about this; what is the management team planning to do; and who’s in the firing line. Most people seem to think IT will be the first to go, but I think that’s because IT aren’t on our floor, so people can say that without risking offense.
    Guy has asked us to do some in-depth research on HG’s brand in the U.K.—how well they are