Gösta & business

Gösta's hand trembles. This was the door, this was the house. Once, it was his life. Now, the tools. Fine. Let's go inside. Let's have a look. Gösta's chair, Gösta's desk. Gösta rummages through the documents. Gösta finds what he is looking for. The figures, the names, the locations. There will be no complications. They trust Gösta. They are expecting him at noon. He knows where to go. He knows the face he should look for. Everything is settled.


Once, it was his life. Gösta had contacts. Gösta knew things. He was around. He recalls the lunch breaks; kauppalehti and the curvy worries of the stock market. Bad Chinese food. CEO:s and delicious coffee. Coffee stomachs rumbled and the clock was ticking. Like a bad sign: time is money. You are but the embodiment of it. Deal with it, kid. They told him stories about India, the outbacks of the jungle, the endless seas. The arctic steppe. The heat of the southern sun. These stories were jokes, edification, moral guiding, professional advice - spiritual numbing. A disclosure of realism. He was driven towards it. It felt good. He surfed the wave. "If you intend to work here, you must not grow soft-feeted." said Boss, eyes of blue steel. "Don't take it personally." "This is the way it works." Boss wants them to believe they will change everything. There's endless possibilities, endless challenges. His voice is infectiously sweet, alluring, seductive. You have to leave everything behind, Gösta. Forget everything you learned. Forget everything. Step into the room and look into the light. Look into my eyes and try to look like you believe it. You want to. I know it. You do.

Gösta listens to the hum of the document destroyer. Serious business, it is. Gösta learns a word: clandestine. Gösta learns the rules: this is important shit, one step in the wrong direction, and you've destroyed everything. Everything. It will destroy you, too. This is not for the eyes of the world to see. If you're involved in serious business, you can't run around telling everybody about it. You understand. The professional knows when to keep quiet. The professional never forgets who he represents. He keeps an eye open. Keep an eye on the next guy. Close the door, will ya. Let's talk. We're in for something BIG. The whole place is in a frenzy. Nobody eats, nobody sleeps. Nobody counts the hours. It's happening.

The distinction between soft values and hard values is glued into Gösta's mind. Hard values are hard facts. Tangible, real, concrete. But we are only humans. Humans are tricky. Humans get in the way of stuff. Machines, projects, plans. Humans are silly. But they can be managed and management takes on different forms. Business is a whole, consisting of many parts. Gösta reads books about human resources. Gösta writes masterpiece reports. Team building, Capacities, integration, core values, value creation. Gösta grows deeper into nu-speak, biz-speak, no-speak. Gösta's mind is a blank. Gösta is afraid of himself and what he has become.

Gösta jots down figures. Gösta sweats and makes things up. Gösta falls asleep on his desk. A nap. Nobody will notice, too busy. Gösta drinks 8 cups of coffee. In the afternoon, he sneaks out of the office. "An errand". Gösta and Gösta's mate hole up in a cafe nearby. One of them is smoking. One of them is complaining. Gösta eats a donut. It's another quarter, Gösta. It's another round. The leaves are changing color, and Gösta realizes something. He packs the bag with the computer, the documents and his coffee mug. His Powerpoint conclusions (five points about morality & management). It's a cloudy day. There's no wind. He throws all this shit into the river. Gösta's history rests in the company of rusty bikes and rubble. Gösta walks down the street.