I’ve just got to blog about this today. It’s long, but abit of drama got lah. It began at 9.00 am, just barely after I checked in. I signed the register, part of the childish imperative of the higher-ups no doubt for keeping track of us worker bees. Anyway, not a minute after I settle down in my cubicle than I get the call: our morning appointment had arrived.

I got my boss (good boss, the friend boss) with whom I had worked a case. The details of the case itself must remain private for non-disclosure reasons, of course, but it’s nothing dramatic lah nothing hush-hush and definitely no national secret (you’d have gotten the point by now). The hush-hush bit about the case was the fact that we suspected foul play.

There were many, many questions left unanswered. When the case first came up, we spent close to 3 fucking weeks sweating in overalls, pottering around… um… places. I got my knee busted at one point, screamed at my good boss and made like a high-rope trapeze act balancing on.. stuff at one point.

Anyway, it was hard work and it paid off. I remember blogging about it before I closed my old blog sometime back, and I remember writing about how all that dirt and grime made me feel like a real man. Oh, the folly of men who will remain boys, I can hear my friends moan. Bah, fuck ‘em. It was manly, I felt I had (and do have) hair on my chest and all the cuts and bruises made me feel like a derelict soldier newly come home from war. What a mouthful, but ya lor.

Anyway, we were bloodhounds on the trail. We stalked, we staked out (so Starsky and Hutch, ya?) and we interviewed the hell out of the parties involved. Our work didn’t go unrewarded; it was the most impressive piece of work performed that year, to me at least lah (ha! fuck ‘em ALL!).

This morning was another in a series of long drawn-out verbal clashes with our client. The conference room was like a fish tank, all boxed frames and double-glazed glass for privacy but open for all to view. Our previous meetings had frightened some of our colleagues, because while they didn’t hear us, they saw our violent reactions (hand gestures, pointing mostly, and not with middle fingers, no).

Today was different. He looked like a man defeated. His face was one you’d use on a milk carton if only to incite pity, if not riots. My boss had a great deal of sympathy for our client (let’s call him “SA”) and for good reason: our investigations showed he was a victim, firstly of competitors, then of creditors who hated him. Mostly, though, he was the victim of his own stupidity. I don’t mean this maliciously, of course. But that’s the only way to describe it: plain stupidity.

His opening salvo was a fucking plea, lah.

That just put our backs up because we were expecting new evidence, new documents, new something; his plea was, by then, a well-worn defense. And a particularly vague defense because his pleas were almost always open-ended. My boss got the ball rolling.

“Mr SA, you said you were going to bring documents to show us,” my boss said.

“It was too early, my office not opened yet,” SA said.

“So what was the point of this meeting,” my boss said, arms spread wide and clearly exasperated. I could see veins, arteries and blood pumping all over my boss. He was quickly working himself up to an operatic tirade.

“We can’t do much if you didn’t bring anything to show us,” I said, as gently as I could.

“But why do you need those documents? Our company had wound up already, you don’t need those documents,” SA said.

“If your only purpose was to tell us we don’t need those documents we asked you to provide yesterday evening,” said my boss who had to endure a 45-minute lecture on decency, “then we should just stop it here, and have another meeting when you do have those documents”.

“But that figure I cannot accept. It’s too low, how do you expect me to construct the whole building back?” he said, an obtuse and sudden change in topic. We pressed the document point over and over, and after the 5th (I kid you not) iteration of SA’s take on “unfairness” we gave up.

“It’s either that or zero. If you don’t accept it, the alternative is a LOT more questions which will lead to a big fat zero,” my boss said.

“How can you say this? Where is the fairness? How can you say from this figure back to zero huh? How can?” and at this point, the decibels rise.

“What you mean how can? SA, do you know what you’re getting is a good will offer you know? They don’t have to give you anything!” my boss replied. His decibels started to rise, too.

“Mr SA, I think you came today with one purpose only, to complain about the figure. For the past 1/2 hour you have been focusing on the figure. We are trying to tell you the situation,” said I; I couldn’t take it anymore, and I was on the verge of heaving my bulk across the table to strangle some goddamn fuckin’ sense into that 50-something man. When he heard that, SA leaned back in his chair and looked away with a tremulous sigh.

Now, when I use the word tremulous, I mean tremulous. Mr SA has the disposition and appearance of a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Every sentence that issues forth from his mouth is couched in a suitably-quavering tone of voice, droopy eyebrows and puppy-dog, “I’m about to cry” eyes. So imagine the effort my boss and I were expending in containing ourselves.

“What documents do you need,” he said unexpectedly, “I got invoices for those products”.

At this point, I balled my fists and grit my teeth. That bastard was holding out on us for 2 full fucking years. During the initial stages we were at a loss, we tried begging, cajoling, pleading for fucking invoices, but oh no, SA said he had none. My boss and I had poured over documents we had painstakingly obtained through our “discrete” sources trying to piece together shit, and this bastard suddenly ups and admits he’s had documents all the while.

My boss was stunned into silence, I was stunned into silence, to be rudely slammed with yet another plea for leniency: “Please what can I do with this figure?” I knew what he could do with the figure - he could shove ‘em up his lily-white arse, that- that- argh!!!

My boss lost his cool.

“You are looking at the figure. We are looking at the situation. If you wish to pursue this further, take it up with your clients. We deal in facts. You have provided none. If you wish to ignore the situation, by all means proceed. If you want to go to court, we will see you in court. If you want to complain, by all means. Then we will present our information, your clients will present their information, and you will be wishing you accepted the figure before this is over”.

“Ok, ok, I don’t want to make things difficult. I thought we could discuss this and compromise-”

“Mr SA, you came today not to compromise, you came today to insist that you are right. We have told you our side of the story. We don’t deal in ‘compromise’, we deal in facts, please understand,” I said.

“Ok, ok.. I will give you my answer in a month’s time,” he said, again sighing tremulously.

Neither my boss nor I had the slightest interest in seeing him out.