their flannel shirts trailing over their thighs, I reasoned that they were college students, their general slovenly appearance reminiscent of the legions of American students I have seen backpacking acrossEurope , trekking from one youth hostel to another. "Training?" one asked.
"Yeah," Nicole replied. "I'm Nicole. This is Al."
"Good afternoon," I said.
"Hey," the first said. "I'm Gino, and this is Quinn."
"¿Que pasa?" Quinn asked, obviously not actually seeking an answer.
Following the introductions, there was silence until Dale, from the Hiring Committee, appeared, cradling armfuls of materials, as dapper as before in a crisp Pierre Cardin dress shirt and charcoal gray wool slacks, a smart-looking, sleeveless, v-neck angora sweater and brown Guccis, identical to a pair I had recently owned. His ensemble must have required deep pockets, and that gave me cause for encouragement regarding my own financial prospects as a cab driver.
"Hello all," Dale began. "I'm not going to bother with introductions since I've already met all of you. And I'll assume you've gotten acquainted over the last few minutes."
Dale gently placed the materials on the table, including four black binder notebooks which he slid to each of us. "There's a training notebook here for each of you," he said. "You can keep these. Each notebook includes various fact-sheets, several of which I'll be referring to during this session. Also, you'll find aMadison map, a street directory and our company manual. These are very valuable resources, so don't lose them."
Dale congratulated us on being hired, then urged that we pay close attention in order to more easily pass probation. Indeed, certainly one would think this job would require more talent than that provided by a team of organ-grinder monkeys.
"Right from the top," Dale continued, "I want to stress that thisis a cooperative, which means this is a different kind of a work-place becausewe own it. I cannot stress how important it is for you to understand what it means to work at a worker-owned-and-operated cooperative. As a means of illustration, I'll tell you a story."
He may as well have used the wordindoctrination . Has that not been the polite word for it, in much the same way as reeducation camps was the polite term for concentration camps?
Dale seemed to drone on and on about the history of Co-op Cab, which, however, had some fascinating aspects. The yellow-painted predecessor had been the more standard sole-proprietorship. Disgruntled employees (along with, no doubt, several rabble-rousers) formed a labor union that ended up putting the company out of business. In response, the out-of-work drivers formed their own company. Thus, the serfs bought the estate, making each and every one of them lord and master. Or so they claim, but, as Orwell said, "Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others."
As the indoctrination continued, I caught myself staring surreptitiously at Nicole, Anya's features becoming superimposed on my fellow trainee's face as the present faded from my sight.
Though I certainly had traveled a great deal during much of the early 1930s,Prague had been my home. Yes, in retrospect, considering what was happening inGermany at that time, itwould seem the height of foolishness to have stayed in the Czech capitol, but there were commodities to sell, and one tends for one reason or another to procrastinate.
Anya and I became acquainted inBudapest in 1935 while I was there conducting business. Though it had been a chance meeting during an intermission of a Chekov play, it turned out that I had actually known her family for a number of generations.
Yes, 1935 was a bad time to fall in love in that part of the world.
Dale's voice, speaking the words "patronage dividend," pulled me back to the present. In profit-making years, a patronage dividend is distributed to the membership on a proportional basis, dependent on how many hours a member worked relative to the total number of hours worked. Each member receives a certain percentage of their share of the profit, the rest going back into the co-op as equity.
Finally, Dale announced the conclusion of the first section of training and allowed us to take a ten-minute break. Gino and Quinn disappeared almost instantly, but Nicole lingered. I felt her gaze, but remained seated, opening the notebook and making a show of studying the pages held therein, feigning a sentiment that the information contained on those pages was actually important.
The notebook did contain some useful information, however, including price lists for package deliveries, various maps, as well as names and addresses of bars