Mr. Sadass, Business Manager -- Francois Caradec {1960} Hlep Trans. {2020} - Why are you looking at me that way? I'm surely not some kind of interesting animal. - I'm not looking at you, I'm only regarding you. Mr Sadass flips through the phone book, radiantly: - I am the only Sadass, he exclaims. - All that I know, I have learned, says Mr Sadass. Mr Sadass is not a captain of industry; he is a retail adjutant. He manages "THE PRINTSHOP" Ltd., **printing for everyone**, whose principle activity is advertising pamphlets, in-house printing, and custom stationary. He elevated the fraud and temp job to the heights of an industry which, partly through a hasty sale, had died through overproduction. "THE PRINTSHOP" is going to die, that's for sure, but Mr. Sadass is proud of it! Mr. Sadass is the Assistant-General Secretary of The Employers' Syndicate for Advertising Publishers and Christian Dailys. He is also the Honourable President of the Alumni Association of the College of Jesuits of Neuilly-Plaisance; he prints their bi-annual bulletin gratis. In Mr. Sadass' office, under the spelling dictionary which he doesn't keep with the other little trinkets which are for making demonstrations of imaginary financial transactions ("I put down a million! I move the factory and I put offices in its place which I transport to that spot where the workshops were."), with luck we'll catch a glimpse of his scapular: a pious orphanage company gifted it to him. It is next to the "Bulletin of Sainte-Antoine of the Thatch" of which he is a subscriber and the "Business Manager's Pocket Manual" whose publication date is 1879. The first pages were intentionally annotated for him by his father. Behind his desk, on which reigns the sterile order of the great minds of his age, Mr. Sadass presents himself in three-quarter view, his little bowler hat on his head for fear of cold. He tilts his little narrow head. He is deaf in his left ear and he has a bit, an extremely tiny bit of an eye for lechery. He is excessively congenial. We would call it toadying. He would say: - Technically... And then: - From a technical point of view... Mr. Sadass looks a bit like what sailors in France humorously call dead bodies (and what our English-speaking comrades would call moorings). There, woven behind them, as candelabrum, as paddle, moorings! Like an old tub with seaweed and, by their rubber phallus, those shellfish which we call barnacles, glued to its hull. Mr. Sadass lags behind with the forgiving ushers, the diocese-less priests, shady lawyers, begging nuns, tax collectors, prostitutes, and cops. Indoors, they await in the antechamber, for a recommendation, an offering, blackmail, a notarized paper, a promise. Mr. Sadass only drinks mineral water: never from the faucet. He washes his hands upon leaving the bathroom. He spits in his handkerchief with a grand gesture. He licks his finger to better flip through the phone book. Mr. Sadass only uses his car sometimes. In Paris, he stalls and causes a crash. He collects the tickets, which he will get expunged by a friend at the P.P. But for fear of the taxi drivers' insults, he never leaves his garage. He hesitates. And if he leaves Paris on Sunday, he does not return until Monday morning --due to those reckless drivers on Sunday night, he says. He flounders. Everything goes too fast for him: ideas of others he doesn't know, cars, life's costs, taxes. He never manages to follow; he always arrives late. The only thing which does not go fast enough are the machines in his workshops, managed by incompetents and shirkers. It's better to lose on a sure investment than on a dubious investment, says Mr. Sadass. To the idea of bankruptcy, of the possible liquidation of "THE PRINTSHOP," Mr. Sadass goes green, he's so afraid of not finding work and he's right in that; he is unable to be anything other than a boss. He admits it: he feels the need to create, to realise... He is incapable of working for anyone else. - I have never understood at all why idiots throw money down the drain, says Mr. Sadass. Mr. Sadass' secretary: a cute blond who chews her fingernails. - How old would you say I am, Mr. Sadass asks his secretary? And without giving her the time to respond: - My newspaper seller pegs me at thirty-eight. Throughout this great warmth, the secretary is always there, a little blond at first glance, absorbed in the duplication of invoices which she keys into a machine, figure by figure, digit by digit, she is so afraid of having nothing to do at any given moment. Without his little bowler hat posed awry upon his half-deafness, Mr. Sadass would not be himself, he would hardly recognize himself at all. Mr. Sadass chats amicably with his secretary. He needs to in order to relax. - Relax a bit, he tells her. He adds: - I like to stroll about. Above all strolling about Paris, in the afternoon during the week, while the whole world is working. I don't like streets which have no veritable liveliness, the empty Sunday streets. - Me too, she sighs. - Isn't that so? proffers Mr. Sadass. He daydreams. She daydreams. - Come on, come on. You've wasted enough time. Back to work, now, back to work! He also says to her sometimes: - Today, poverty is up to 100,000 francs per month. The secretary is sick. - She could have chosen a better time, says Mr. Sadass. Mr. Sadass' secretary feels tired today. - So, my dear, are you unwell? - Oh! It's nothing sir. Just a dizzy spell. Tomorrow I will be better. Mr. Sadass thinks for a moment. That he is thinking can be seen in his eyes. - Go to sleep early tonight, rest well. Then, in a very cutting tone: - But try all the same, not to catch that every month. When he needed to choose a profession, Mr. Sadass became a boss. Listen to him: - Whenever I wanted to be good with a worker... Mr. Sadass is not a boss in the old sense, those tactless ones who called workers "my servant," nor those young bosses who sometimes are too familiar with them (using the "tu" form for example), sometimes treat them harshly, sometimes fire them on a whim. No. Mr. Sadass doesn't talk to them at all. He keeps his distance. He goes into the workshop with his hat askew. He sees nothing, no one, since he does not see. He heads toward the foreman and speaks to him. The foreman listens. He interprets. He transmits. And the work is done. Mr. Sadass has the soul of a manager: - One must have the soul of a manager. Hiring. Mr. Sadass wants only the elite personnel. Mr. Sadass becomes Mr. Test. - Do you smoke? proffers Mr. Sadass amiably. - Definitely... - Good, good, sir, then you must change your habits since here we don't smoke. Outside the door of his office Mr. Sadass has eight signs: "No smoking," says the first. And the second, "No smoking." And the third, "No smoking." The seventh is inside Mr. Sadass' office. But Mr. Sadass is not a sadist (nor a masochist). He is only human. He allows himself a little cigarette once in a while. The eighth sign carries his motto. He calligraphed it himself, not wanting to leave it to anyone else, and placed it at the back of his office, just above his head. It explodes, assaulting the unexpecting visitor or client. They read the words in letters of purple and (stamped on) gold: WORK IS PRODUCTIVE An excerpt from the internal regulations: Personnel are charged to help maintain the order and hygiene of "THE PRINTSHOP" company. "THE PRINTSHOP" company declines all responsibility for the theft, loss, or damage of any effects or objects belonging to personnel, which they have on their person during work hours. In order to avoid, in the communal interest, the obstruction of washrooms, it is forbidden to throw any garbage from cleaning into any other location, and to use any hygienic paper besides what has been distributed. So be it. Mr. Sadass' memos contain some obscure notes: M.S. to M.T., or to J., or to B., or to V... It is from a concern for standardisation. Each department, each workshop is designated by a letter of the alphabet. M.S. goes to himself, Mr. Sadass. M.T. is Mr. Tschmoutz, his sales manager. That's all clear. But his typographic workshop is called J.; shipping, B.; binding, V... Since Mr. Sadass has designated each of them by the first name of their manager or foreman. Unfortunately, no one understands this at all, as all of the managers have since turned-over: Henri Talle has since replaced Louis Jannus in typo, Andre Bretelle is now old Ternel at shipping, and Serge Vallee is now Jean Branche at binding. - I have never asked to be good, says Mr. Sadass, it comes naturally to me. Mr. Sadass smiles because he is good, and goodness makes happiness. He is radiant. He seems almost honest. Mr. Sadass scrupulously follows the directives of his "organizational councillor" -- a remarkable man! Near "THE PRINTSHOP" punch clock, Mr. Sadass has installed a "suggestion box." The first day, Mr. Sadass received several uninteresting suggestions, some he'd already thought of, some resembling less the opinions of simple labourers than those of executives. One "suggestion" above all seemed to have stung him. He reads the little note, a bit worriedly, then exclaims: - Who mixed this one in? Under the German occupation, Mr. Sadass said: - The compulsory labour for Germany may not make the workers happy. Then, later when he needed those who left his factory to come back: - They've got quite a nerve! I kept them out of unemployment in the... yes... and now I owe them? He sighs: - Those people never have any gratitude! Mr. Sadass immediately puts you at ease with his charming welcome. He makes you sit. He asks of your health and of your family. He chains it all together. He lends the most importance to the smallest affair, (- It is that which preoccupies me above all, you get it don't you?) with an offhand comment. And there he is already bothered, since his interlocuter does not respond exactly as he had foreseen. Mr. Sadass laboriously tries to understand. Is his interlocuter mad? A crook? One of those odious idlers or anarchists which have no respect for anything, or even The Other Woman? Or worse: someone more intelligent than himself, Sadass, and of whom his thoughts have escaped? He nevertheless has done studies! She escapes him in effect, the words travel like a sponge over the knife of Mr. Sadass, and through his ears they pass unretained, through the shameful secret buildup of earwax; he hears yet he acknowledges nothing. Mr. Sadass takes pains to see with exertion. His face tenses up and must be obscene. He sucks on his pencil with his small round mouth, his lips become a bit wrinkled from the excess of attention, his cheeks inflate, so much so that one would mistake the end of his nose for a crupper. Mr. Trismus The little tuft of his moustache pinched between his cheeks bursts suddenly when he removes his pacifier with an unseemly "pop." He is so pathetic, so short, and so laughable that one suddenly fears that a door might be closed on him, or he might be forgotten in the trash, or someone might flush him down the toilet by accident. Mr. Sadass has the most profound contempt for people who call in their debts from him, shamelessly: - And so what? I owe myself money too! In 1914 Mr. Sadass believed in the Der des Ders and in 1940 the iron way. As a child, the little Sadass cried wolf and spread fear; he told sob stories and made people cry. He continued to fall into the trap. He was a Gaullist under Vichy and a Pétainist during the Liberation. - One must evolve, he says. He stifles a small fart on his seat, swinging his ass, seeking to conceal it, to quash its smell, oniony like a bum whose shirt is unbuttoned, between his middle and index finger, meticulously crushing its infamy. It is a failure: the odor propagates, slyly rising up to his typist's head level. She pinches her nose. Mr. Sadass takes a bit of an amble about, sputters some insignificant words, stuttering like little flags, like little coloured handkerchiefs, as if to say: "Nonono, no, no, that's not true, it's the wind, listen again..." My attention increases and my face acutely tends towards him, squinting my right eye, and Mr. Sadass, reassured, patronizes - In life, he says, you must create something. - Do I have principles? Who do you take me for, says Mr. Sadass; I'm an honest man. - Even human stupidity has its limits, says Mr. Sadass confidentially, and I know them. - When one thinks that after death the seat of our intellect melts like a sugar cube in our skull, they remain confused. - My ideas may sometimes seem to you bold or paradoxical, concedes Mr. Sadass. But, take a moment and reflect: you'll see that it is not so at all. - I've only got one ball, he confides familiarly to his associate, Mr. Tschmoutz (He had been wounded in '40, during a rout). - And it still works? insinuates Mr. Tschmoutz. - That's none of your business! shouts Mr. Sadass furiously. - One needs a method of work, says Mr. Sadass. He adds: - I have my own rules. Ridicule kills. Mr. Sadass, sitting with his little bowlerhat askew, looks like one of William Tell's sons. Romance. Before his marriage, the two families organized some dates for them, compromising. One day, in spring, while he was sauntering through a public park with his fiancée, a bud popped nearby. - I beg your pardon, excuse me. - Oh? And why so? They stammered. As he left, he said to her: - Tomorrow... without fail. She blushed. All had been planned, calculated, regulated. Mr. Sadass had acquired upon his marriage a large apartment on La Fontaine Square and a slightly old, curly-haired black dog. His daughter is skinny and has her own graces, though she's only, as one would say, a pretty skirt. His son is twenty-two years old and enrolled with the Y.C.E. (the famous Young Christian Employers): he is starting to use his son as an assistant. His dream: to be sure that a nice girl thinks: "That man is educated." Mr. Sadass incessantly boasts about the merits of his wife. Her morality, her cooking, her health, her wit. He will not permit himself a certain audacity. For a trifle, Mr. Sadass satisfies himself with amorous affairs. Conferences. Business dinners. Meetings of the old soldiers of Chaillot Hill. But secretly. Discretely. Normally. Conventionally even. One time -- one time -- he wanted to be a cheerful rogue, a happy vagabond. He entered a church via the kitchen when, noticing a girl squatting by the fire, he went over and slapped her ass. Mistake! It was the priest! Since then Mr. Sadass has been content to observe with concupiscence. When a girl is bending over to do the dishes, catches a glimpse of her large udders through a yawn in her blouse. From behind, her tight petticoat makes visible the ends of her white thighs: one would say that she really raises the bar. At the office he is most bold, since (for him) a secretary and a prostitute have this in common: they are both salaried. - Do you want, he murmurs to her, to go out, together, tonight... She simpers: - Don't talk rot. Mr. Sadass is tempted to bring his son into "THE PRINTSHOP." He has been made to pass through every position. It is in this way that, during the week, Sadass the younger scours the office toilets. The janitor of "THE PRINTSHOP" enters into Mr. Sadass' office and he asks after her "ol' ball 'n' chain." She explains: - My husband just broke his finger on the subway. Can you believe people could be so brutal? - Happily, she adds, he had his glove, the piece stayed inside! Happily! She forgot to mention that her husband, badly wounded, has a wooden prosthetic arm. At the doctor's office, Mr. Sadass twists his little bowler hat in his hands. He hesitates. He doesn't dare. What shameful folly -- most shameful! -- did he commit in his wild youth? - What's wrong, Mr. Sadass? asks the doctor paternally. (This physician is also a confessor.) - Doctor, I am afraid of death.