November 25, 1994
Friday
«Quit sweating it!» Zhora burst into the office. «Let’s go check out some business trends. Get some rest while we’re at it!»
The end of November is a nasty time for relaxing in Moscow, but why not? We drove to the fish restaurant beyond the Crimean Bridge, the one that had eaten everyone’s brains with its TV advertising. We parked, went in on foot, squeezed into the establishment, which turned out to be a disco. There we ran into the trade-school lads who had ridden in the carriage with me.
Zhorik nodded at them and waved a hand toward the dance floor: go on over there.
I looked around and spotted a girl propping up the wall. Scanning every man, looking sad. I used to do the same thing at discos: sizing up the girls and understanding none of them would ever stoop to me. A kindred soul!
I walked over to introduce myself, to invite a fellow outsider into conversation, but got told to go... somewhere — didn’t quite catch where, but from the way her lips moved I gathered I was roughly the same place I’d started, just with my legs hanging off it. Made me think of Regina.
Wait a second! I’ve got a wagonload of money in my pocket now. So what’s the problem this time?
Zhorik dragged me away by the elbow:
«What the hell! There’s a whole crew here, and you’re going straight for the mama! Negotiate with the little monkeys directly. Which one do you want?»
I shrugged. Zhora dove into the crowd like it was an ice hole, and surfaced with two girls. I went off to the Hotel Belgrade with one of them.
Monday morning, Zhorik was sitting in my office with a piece of paper in his hands. He announced he’d familiarized himself with Proma Impex’s structure. Verdict: jerking off into thin air, not a business.
I might have objected, but Zhora was already issuing orders:
– Gather the firm. I’ll explain how the brigade contract is sharpened among the whores. Kolya Travkin can take a rest! We’ll adopt it!
«Come again?!»
– Your managers are little Gavrilas with a regulation and an interest. The regulation is simple – don’t screw up and don’t breed losses. The interest is to pocket a little something for themselves. That’s kindergarten, trousers on a strap, compared with the whores’ contract. There the prostitutes pay the mama for a hassle-free spot and earn whatever they can. The mama stands aside, scans the public and fixes the price. On Friday a Franklin a head, on Saturday – a Grant. Kolya Travkin can take a rest. We’ll act the same way. Fix a fee for presence in the market. By the way, how was the screwing?
What was I supposed to say? Sex with Violetta had been just as mechanical as with Marianna. Probably graduates of the same vocational school for prostitutes. I hit the intercom button: «Get all the managers together in the lobby. Five minutes.»
The managers, all sixty-two of them, assembled half an hour later.
Zhorik formed the crowd into a semicircle with his hands, cleared his throat, froze. In the silence he stated: we are all grown lads, not sheep, no shepherd is needed. He was silent a moment. Then he let fly: «Proma Impex» is being restructured into a trading house of twenty-six companies. At the head of twenty-four will stand the department heads, formerly dependent organisms on a salary, and now genuine condottieri on free bread. The twenty-fifth, the management company, will be called «Trading House Proma». Yuri Shako is appointed director, please love and favor him! The twenty-sixth company, «Proma Investments», will accumulate the profit from trade and invest it in production. The director-accumulator is known to all, Roman Peskov.
The semicircle stirred, rumbled, wanted to know how the divisions would be merged into companies — that was one. And how work would be paid — that was two.
Zhorik explained the merger principle: by closeness of business line. The appliances division would merge with electronics, office supplies with novelties, housewares with household chemicals, and so on. Whoever had the higher sales numbers would be named director. Every manager would become a shareholder, receiving half the stock in their reporting company. Every company would get a credit line equal to a month’s turnover. No con games. Nobody would ever see Chicha, unless someone started acting up and causing deliberate losses.
The managers locked horns with Zhora. Some got a division with a million-dollar turnover, others sold garden-plot supplies — seasonal goods, not exactly essential. How do you split up profits fairly? Zhorik ruled: divisions with small or seasonal profits would be merged with the consistently successful ones.
How were they supposed to merge?
Breed a pack of freeloaders in the off-season, only to be torn apart come peak season?
And why would «Proma Sporting Goods» end up selling greenhouse film for dachas? Because gardening counts as a sporting hobby?
After an hour of debate, nineteen companies made it into the holding. Managers’ salaries were fixed at seven hundred dollars; senior managers got an extra hundred for the added responsibility. Performance bonuses — dividends, really — paid out monthly!
A mountain of headaches lifted off my shoulders. Only two smaller hills remained: reviewing the payment orders and tallying the funds sent from «Trading House Proma Impex» to «Proma Investments.»
Things took off like wildfire! Sales growth went cosmic — ten percent every month!
By the end of the year, «Trading House Proma» occupied every last room of «Metallsnab.» As per good tradition, we celebrated New Year’s together, and separately, both at once.
– We’ve rented a holiday hotel for the staff, let them have fun. Departure tomorrow evening, six o’clock sharp. Call everyone and let them know. It’s voluntary and free of charge! They can bring wives, husbands and children, if anyone has them. No outsiders! – Zhorik was making a racket on the morning of December twenty-ninth, briefing the secretary Ida. – The bosses have a separate schedule. Tell them the management is gathering separately at the «Terem» tomorrow at twenty hundred hours. They are not going to the hotel, let the staff relax without Blockführers. Clear? You won’t mix it up?
The veteran bosses, out of old habit, drove to the Terem in an Ikarus bus. The ones who’d been with the company less than a year didn’t know the tradition and headed to the party in taxis.
