Risk

The Inspection

Martin’s cubicle was near the kitchen, where he put his lunch in the fridge Tuesday morning and poured himself a coffee. He sat at his desk and turned on his computer. The mystical alignment of the office supplies had been disturbed by the cleaning staff, so he moved the stapler back into its place as anchor to the holy trinity of stapler, calculator, pen holder. He tore yesterday’s page off his daily vocabulary-builder calendar to reveal the word of the day:

Recondite - (reh’kondeit) a. Secret, hidden, or unknown... removed from ordinary understanding or knowledge, deep or profound.

“Deep or profound. Merlin’s secret scrolls were considered to be quite... recondite. Merlin’s recondite scrolls of magic.”

“What’s that you’re mumbling, Marty?”

“Word of the day, Dave.”

“Okay, just as long as I know you’re not going bug-eyed crazy and muttering and drooling over there.”

“Not so far. Check with me after lunch.”

“I tell you, Marty. It’s just a matter of time for us all.” Dave was a ‘glass is half empty’ kind of guy, who would also take pains to point out that there were smudges all over the glass and a lipstick stain and wasn’t this a crack in the side and where did they get this water, anyway, a swamp? Dave's hair was lazy, not conforming to any shape or style. A borderline scowl and his curly, wind-scattered bed head look were always complemented with clothes that just skirted the limits of the company dress code: a turtleneck sweater technically is “a shirt with a collar” and hiking boots are not sneakers per se. His expression was one of perpetual disillusionment, as if he were hearing the last part of a carney's sales pitch and was itching to walk away.

The day’s quotes lay stacked in his IN box and he surveyed them thoughtfully, making a few notes, setting a few aside to decline, and then putting the rest in a pile for the underwriting checks. He then read his e-mail, which was just the usual internal memos and broker correspondence and a joke about two sailors and a pissing contest. He pulled a folder down from his pile of renewals and set to it. Had a second coffee and began to come to life. Quoted a few, took a few phone calls, did the suck-up thing with the brokers. The majority of the insurance business in Canada was written through brokers and many companies wrote their business exclusively through them. It was like having a sales force that was entirely independent and could choose to sell any customer on your particular coverage or go to any of your competitors instead. So keeping brokers happy was a daily challenge.

Dave came around the corner of Martin’s cube just before lunch. “Unbelievable. I just told George Simpson that I wasn’t renewing that shit hole of a repair garage, and he said he’d ‘pull the whole goddamn book’ if we didn’t do it.”

“No way!” said Darlene, coming around from the other side of Martin’s cubicle.

“Oh, yeah. Second time in a month he’s threatened me with that shit. Well, you know Gerry’s going to approve it now. And the whole place is going to burn to the ground tomorrow, I guarantee it.”

“Why don’t we call his bluff?” said Martin. “He’ll just keep pulling that trick until we do.”

Dave shook his head sadly. “No, no, Martin. Now you know this is a growth year, and head office is on us to write more business, not chase it away.”

“There must be something in the water out there in broker-land. I just had a producer ask me if it was okay to put an airport on ‘some kind of package,’” said Darlene. “Hello? Is anybody home?”

“At least that’s just stupidity and not some fucking broker power play making us do something for the wrong reason,” said Dave. His scowl was working overtime.