De Administrationibus

Finally, my business was doing so well that I could lease my own new computer—but the joy didn't last long, because the manufacturer, in its overzealous cost-cutting efforts, had apparently driven out the wrong people, and the low-paid staff who were allowed to stay couldn't cope with either the customers or the software. Between you and me, the administration was in a real mess.

My dilemma was multifaceted. On the one hand, I was a paying customer and refused to accept such appalling treatment. Furthermore, I had projects using computers from the same manufacturer and couldn't very well criticize my own company. Thirdly, I was the editor-in-chief of the one and only truly excellent newspaper maintained by the fan club of this computer series. Of course, the term "editor-in-chief" might be a bit of an exaggeration for a one-man operation, but what's true must remain true.

That was the fourth problem. It was true that this manufacturer produced the best computer of its time. But it was also true that some of its administrative staff were clearly completely overwhelmed and deeply angered customers. The newspaper had to report on it, but how?

Necessity is the mother of invention; so I asked my friend Quintilius Tertius Faber from the Latin provincial town of Vindobona for a guest commentary. Little did I know that this humorous piece would be my undoing as editor-in-chief...

by Quintilius Tertius Faber, Unio COMPUTANDI Latina

Quintilius Tertius Faber amici sui ad Unionem COMPUTANDEM salutat —

Apollonia, the first-rate of all wives, actually had the idea: "The association is your lobby, your powerful..." she quotes from some scrap of paper she probably got handed at the market or somewhere else—in reality, it has nothing to do with us, you can bet on it. "Besides," she sniffs, "the previous editors have all disappeared, so now we can finally fulfill the request to write about our experiences!" Yes, we. We, that's me.

A word about myself: I head the complaints department of our small company (ours here means Apollonia), she manages everything else. From design to production to delivery. She only consults me occasionally on legal and business matters (excluding marital issues). As her husband, I have a somewhat vague, but not quite defined, role in her company.

My favorite thing to do is sit in my office, in the complaints department, and watch the cemetery sparrows. Apollonia urgently instructed me to definitely mention our company in this article; you never know. I might.

I would have loved to become a master parachute tailor back then, yes indeed, but then I met Apollonia, the daughter of a wealthy stonemason, and I put down my thread and awl. I'm so bad at saying no, goodness knows! So, here we are, Apollonia and I, with our FABER GRABSTEIN CONSULTING GmbH. We deliver promptly and free of charge (well, practically right to the cemetery), at the best prices, gravestones in all sizes and styles, in real marble, real marble imitation, or real marble-look plastic.

Perhaps that's enough; Apollonia would certainly want to see more here, but I'm thinking of your newspaper, where one isn't supposed to do too much self-promotion. Nevertheless, one last thing: should you—as we did with our Unio Computeris Latina—ever wish to lay this to rest, then you'll get the best possible conditions for a gravestone from us. "Us" actually refers only to Apollonia, as I'm merely in charge of the complaints department (surviving relatives excluded!).

So one day we decided to replace our old PRAETOR computer from Rufus with a modern one from Businoxx Machinibus Internationalis (BMI). The consultation went smoothly, everything was in order, the Businoxx salesman was beaming, and we even wondered if he'd sold us something like Julian's Tomb. But those gloomy thoughts were quickly dispelled, because the exorbitant upfront price was mitigated by an attractive installment plan from Businoxx: we would only have to pay a couple of handfuls of sesterces now and then small handfuls of sesterces monthly. We even asked Apollonia's uncle, a Gallic menhir supplier, what he thought of this advantageous contract, but then we placed the order—anyway.

Faster than a Phrygian runner could run, order forms and contracts from Businoxx fluttered in, and Apollonia quipped: "No job is done until the paperwork is done," a saying she'd probably picked up from one of the Scythian or Pictish slaves. We opened the carefully sealed papyri. And froze.

I will spare you the following, utterly blasphemous curses; suffice it to say that everyone from Jupiter the Father to the Germanic Loki got their comeuppance. What was the point of all this?! The contracts—there were five of them—were issued to five different companies, from JF Faber, selling automotive bicyclists, to Gutemine Faber, a senator at the Businoxx itself, to the vegetable trading company Faber & Faber, and yes, Faber Castellum, the pen manufacturer, was also included.

An angry phone call made the typist at Businoxx turn pale, but I advised Apollonia to calm down, since the poor fellow was the least to blame. However, I gathered from his stammering that this was an occasional malfunction of the word processor; no, they weren't using Businoxx's own, but rather the one from Microproxx, which was so popular everywhere, even among the pirates in Taiwan. Apollonia and I looked at each other: yes, had we perhaps ordered the wrong thing after all? I won't soon forget the sleepless night I spent—to escape the furious woman—amidst, or rather on top of, our cold homemade products.

Anyway, after a few days, a friendly Businoxx employee informed us that the contracts had been corrected and everything sorted out; this was indeed the case. So we were relieved, signed and sealed everything (Consul T. Ing. Faber sounded very pompous to Consulting Faber; presumably, the Businoxx word processor or Microproxx's was malfunctioning and malfunctioning again).

The mild March days passed uneventfully; I sat in my office watching sparrows and was glad that no complaint came back from the cemetery — then something happened again.

Oh joy, oh jubilation, oh merriment! The oops! (object-oriented parcel service) delivered the Abacus Electronicus AE/CCCC, wrapped in cardboard papyrus, along with all accessories, including many papyri, cartons, and manuals, but also the ELP/CCCC (first live program/400) on many small compact discs, with which one first had to breathe artificial life into the AE/CCCC, installare necesse. Apollonia and I, however, first had to endure the gravestone stress following the many Bacchanalia, Saturnalia, and other festivals before we—sobered up—could turn our attention to the new Abacus.

What a joy to see this truly virile black fellow standing amidst our equally attractive black marble, marble substitute and plastic gravestones!

But before I could even finish thinking about my vague idea for a new gravestone model in the shape of an abacus, Apollonia suggested we take a look at all the papyri; perhaps there's something important among them, a Ridmi-först, or whatever the people at Businoxx call it. So we went through everything for the new AE/CCCC, and so far everything seemed to be in order, but oh dear, the license seal for all the program discs was (this time uniformly) in the name of Gutemine Faber, the well-known senator at Businoxx herself, a truly kind person with a broad general knowledge and equally extensive specialized education, with whom we are in no way related, and whose business dealings have absolutely nothing to do with our business, FABER GRABSTEIN CONSULTING GmbH (I'm supposed to mention that again here).

So, another call to Businoxx, knuckle-tapping, panting, chest-heavy. No, we're not who we're thought to be. We have plastic stones with a marble look and ones made of real marble substitute, and real marble upon request, but we're not the honorable Senator Gutemine F., but A. & QTF. Couldn't this be clarified somehow? It's unacceptable that we have to puzzle over whether we're who we are or not with every new episode of "oops!" or "Littercom." The friendly typist whispered "of course, gladly" into the receiver and promised to clear things up once and for all. Yes, even more than that, she sent an email via the UUU (Urbi Urbani Ubique, the worldwide Roman network) to us, to Hibernia and everywhere else, to inform everyone about the Fabers and their trademark rights. Last but not least, she sent us a tongue-in-cheek, digitally certified email assuring us that we, the real Fabers, were perfectly justified in using Businoxx Machinibus Internationalis products on our Abacus Electronicus /CCCC. Indeed.

After this last email exchange, Apollonia and I threw a small party. We had aurochs tripe in honey and—oh, but that really doesn't belong here. Anyway, we were delighted to be the Fabers, FABERS GRABSTEIN CONSULTING GmbH, to be precise (forgive me, but it has to be said). Fredericus from Carinthia and Antonius from Pannonia, and many other friends, chatted with Cervisia from Noricum until the early hours of the morning. Then the Littercom arrived with an express registered letter. From Businoxx.

After reading the letter (surprisingly correctly addressed to us), Apollonia ripped her toga open from her navel to her knees, screamed bloody murder, and threatened to smash the brand-new Abacus Electronicus with a twelve-pointed chisel. Only with difficulty did the Nubian servants (copyright by Wolf, Gang) manage to calm her down and escort her to the Budovarium. The guests and I were quite astonished to read that Businoxx had sent us a first reminder regarding the installment payment of a handful of sesterces due for the previous month. But—we had contractually agreed that after the down payment, the first installment was due at the next Saturnalia, so in about two weeks?!

That same day, I resolutely sat down and wrote a not entirely humorless, but serious letter to the Businoxx, directly to Quirinus Schlapfus, the guardian of the sestertii and other pecuniary. I informed him of the facts, copied the originals, and sent everything via a reliable express messenger.

For days I sat outside my office, listlessly watching my sparrows and impatiently waiting for a reply. Instead of the expected messenger, another uniformed Littercom officer arrived, delivering a registered letter to the Fabers. That's us, as everyone knows by now. Again, the letter was from Businoxx, and suspecting the worst, I opened it without waiting for Apollonia's return.

Those at Businoxx must have gone completely mad: a third reminder (where was the second one?) for the same handful of sesterces, a warning typed in horribly tortured Latin that Businoxx would now unfortunately have to hand all this over to a lawyer and would collect so much in late payment interest, since we delinquent Fabers hadn't paid the sesterces that were due two months ago!

As sure as my name is Quintilius Tertius Faber: my jaw dropped at such audacity, which I have never before encountered among either Hibernian boxers or Frankish oyster-suckers (please don't consider these comparisons racist). On the other hand, I feared that Apollonia might even shed her entire toga in her distress, so, with fierce determination, I grabbed the speakingphone and angrily called Quirinus Schlapfus, the guardian of the sestertii and other pecuniary treasures, omitting all embellishments and humor, and asked him point-blank if he had some kind of Archaeopteryx or even Helicopteryx in his head: a third reminder with legal representation, even though the first installment wasn't due for another 10 days according to the contract?! He remained cool and said he would look into the matter first, but behind his coolness, I sensed his bored disinterest in me, the imperial sub-subject. When I casually mentioned that I had recently torn a Libyan lion in half with my bare hands, he hastily assured me that he would look into the matter immediately and call me back—he didn't need to know that it was an illustration on a newspaper papyrus...

A few minutes later, my phone buzzed; it was Quirinus. Well, he'd looked at everything, the reminder text was completely wrong, because it was actually about the down payment that was missing from this Abacus, but (here he quickly cut short my impassioned interruption) he knew we'd made the down payment months ago because he could see it in another Abacus Electronicus. Only, this was one Abacus and that was another, and—he put on the joke record—you know those ancient punch-card programs, don't you? And nope, I didn't need to do anything else, he'd corrected the situation in all the Abaci Electronici; I could safely recycle the reminders without further thought. When I finally got a word in edgewise, he didn't understand at all what I meant by saying that Businoxx should just buy themselves a decent Abacus and some good software to boot. A shoemaker can't work in worn-out sandals, a butcher can't work with food poisoning, and a gravestone dealer—ahem, that's where my argument ended.

So, I only told Apollonia all this after everything was definitely over. On the one hand, she was grateful that I had spared her this nervous breakdown. On the other hand, I recently overheard her talking on her cell phone with her friend Elena while she was painting her toenails with red Phoenician purple in the budarium, and casually musing about how much it had cost us to switch from Businoxx to Microproxx—it wasn't any better, but cheaper?

Dear friends of Unio Computandi, you may not have these problems with your abacus supplier, but we here in Urbs Latina need to build a strong lobby to make it clear to Businoxx that only they themselves, with exemplary management, can contribute to gaining trust in their management products.

"But do you think it's conceivable that this could happen to you too?" Take part in our unique COMPETITION by answering this one question and sending me an email: one of you can win a beautiful artificial marble stone with an individual gold inscription, guaranteed hand-soldered; at the same time, you could also let me know if you liked my first work.

May Hermes guide your affairs, Apollo smooth your countenance, and Hebe bless your wives.

Your Quintilius Tertius Faber.