Les Employés

4 ideas

1. Rabourdin loses the post to Baudoyer

   When division head La Billardière dies, the able bureau chief Xavier Rabourdin, whose wife Célestine courts the minister's secretary-general des Lupeaulx through her salon, loses the post to the dull Baudoyer. Baudoyer is backed by his wife's family of cashiers and moneylenders and by the parish clergy, and the moneylenders buy up des Lupeaulx's debts to make him switch sides. Rabourdin's confidential notes judging each clerk are copied and circulated, he is branded an informer, and he resigns.

2. Fewer, better-paid officials work better

   Rabourdin's reform plan argues that the state is badly served because it spreads small salaries across too many clerks. Mediocre pay attracts mediocre people, and they multiply paperwork to justify their posts. Cutting staff sharply and paying the remainder well would raise the quality of each official and shrink the work that exists only to occupy the staff.

3. Capturing the gatekeeper through his debts

   Appointments are decided less by the candidates' merits than by what the person who controls the decision needs. The Baudoyer camp buys up des Lupeaulx's promissory notes and offers them in exchange for his support. This gives them leverage that no display of competence by the rival can match.

4. The reformer's candor becomes his indictment

   A reform built on honest assessment of existing people requires writing down judgments that the assessed would never accept. Once that document leaks, it is read as betrayal rather than analysis. The coalition of the judged then unites against the reformer, so the thoroughness that makes a reform credible also makes the reformer vulnerable.

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