If you wish, you can listen to the first part of the story. When you have finished reading the story, do an activity that practises your comprehension. You can also do an activity that gives practice in writing a CV. Then you can do an activity which practises the stages of applying for a job. Finally, do some writing yourself.

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(See/print audio script) (pdf doc)

Promotion

Page one of three. Go to page two | go to page three

Name: Don Jenkins
Age: 35, single, no kids.
Current Position: Regional Director of Alpha Telecommunications. Looking for promotion.

At least that’s what my CV says. If you could read between the lines, you might find a different story.

You might find a story about a brilliant graduate in electrical engineering, one of the brightest students in his class, a student who went on to become a whiz kid – director of his own company at 25…
It all looks perfect, doesn’t it? And it was perfect, up until I was twenty-five. You see, I was great at the theory, and terrible at the practice. I was a telecommunications wizard, but a lousy businessman. My company had registered several important new patents but we still managed to lose money. After three years, we were in debt, and we were practically forced to sell out to a bigger company, Alpha Telecommunications. To be fair, Alpha were OK – they didn’t sack me, but let me stay on as their Regional Director. Which is where I still am today.

I’ve been Regional Director for Alpha for nearly ten years. I wanted to go into R&D, research and development, that’s where my heart is really, and it’s what I think I’m really good at doing too. But with a huge international corporation like Alpha, there are always some mysterious politics at work. I don’t understand it, never have. Right now there’s an important vacancy coming up: Director of Innovation Technology. It’s the job I want – interesting work, great money. I’ve got the right experience and lots of ideas. The job should be mine. I really want to get a promotion – I’ve worked hard for it and I deserve it. But unfortunately it’s not that simple. Some of the important managers here think that the company is like a game of chess – and all the people who work for the company are to be moved around by them in complicated strategic games. Right now, I ‘m pretty sure that I’m a piece in a huge game of chess. Somebody in Alpha’s head office is moving me around as if I were part of a game of strategy that I don’t understand.

At this minute, I’m on the Eurostar train, heading from London to Paris. It’s great – a very nice, very luxurious and comfortable train. I can watch the beautiful French countryside speeding past outside as I sip a coffee. I should be happy. But I’ve just taken a look at the file I was given before leaving my office.

It all happened at the last minute, you see. This morning seemed just like any other day. I was pushing my pen across endless pieces of paper, when my mobile started ringing. Most phone calls come in on the office phone – my secretary passes them through to me. Only a few people have my mobile number. I looked at the display and was surprised to see that Tom Werther was calling. Tom Werther is Vice-President of Alpha Telecommunications. An important character, a key player. I only remembered speaking to him once before – when Alpha bought out my company. He shook my hand and said, "I like what you do, boy! Why don’t you stick with us!" I remember that he called me ‘boy’, and I had disliked him ever since.

I couldn’t imagine why Werther was calling me, so I was curious when I answered the call.
"Hello?"
"Dom!"
"Er, it’s Don!"
"Sure! Listen, this Tom Werther and I need you to do a favour for me. Can you do that?"
"Well, could you tell me what the favour is?"
"Sure! There’s a big conference in Paris – EuroTelecom Now! – you must know it!"
"Of course – it’s the biggest European trade fair. Some of our R&D people are going, and Rob Dean, our head of European operations, will be there too."
"No he won’t!"
"Well, Mr. Werther. I think he will – I saw him yesterday. He’d already packed his suitcase."
"Sure he’d packed his suitcase. And now he’s unpacking it."
"Why’s that?"
"Because I told him to!" Werther roared with laughter. "No, I’m only joking. Listen, Rob’s got one or two personal problems. He called me this morning, and he won’t be able to go to Paris. But we need somebody there, and that somebody is going to be you!"
"You’re asking me to go to the conference in Paris?"
"Exactly!"
"But it starts tomorrow morning!"
"Well you get on that train that goes through the tunnel under the sea, and you’ll be there in a few hours. I’ll call you later!" The line went dead. Our conversation was over.

I didn’t want to argue – I thought it was a nice change anyway, a couple of days in Paris! Great! The conference would be interesting too. I picked up the phone, booked my ticket to Paris, grabbed my briefcase and walked straight out of the office. Luckily, I had time to go home before the train left, so I could at least pick up a change of clothes.

When I got back to my flat there was a message on my answerphone. It was unusual to have a message on the answerphone – most people who know me have my office number or call me on my mobile. If it’s not urgent, people send me e-mails. I didn’t often use the answerphone. I pressed the button to see who had called me. The machine clicked, and I heard a voice:

"Don, hi! Listen, it’s Rob Dean here. I’m not going to be in Paris – I don’t know if they’ve told you yet. It’s a long story. I think they’ll probably ask you to go instead. If you go, there’s one thing you absolutely must do. You need to go into my office and look in the bottom left drawer in my desk. It’s where I keep my personal stuff – there’s nothing much in there, a few old newspapers and a lot of junk. But at the bottom, underneath the old junk, you’ll find a file. Take the file, don’t open it in the office, and don’t show it to anybody, but make sure that you read it before you get to Paris. That’s all. I’ll try and contact you again, but it could be difficult. Good luck!"

I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. It all seemed ridiculous. I’m just an ordinary manager in an ordinary company, I thought. Just an ordinary man. And now I felt like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, or something like that! I’ve been watching too many films, I thought. This is probably just nothing, nothing serious.

Rod’s phone call made me curious enough to go back to the office, though. I looked at my watch. I had just about enough time to get a taxi back to the office, run into Rod’s room and find the file – it was there, half-hidden under lots of old newspapers and an ancient sandwich, an ordinary yellow folder with a few documents in it. I didn’t open it, but just shoved it into my briefcase and ran out again, back into the taxi, off to Waterloo station and onto the train a minute before it left. Just made it. I sat down and relaxed for a second before I took the file out of my briefcase and opened the file.

I should have guessed that it was nothing important. At first glance I could see only a conference programme, a few notes and a list of the people Rob wanted to meet while he was there. I took a look at the list. It included Bernd Friedmann from our German operation, Françoise Mauriac who was one of the conference organisers, Susumu Yokota, who worked for one of our Japanese competitors and a few other names that I didn’t recognise. One of these was underlined three times, and had an exclamation mark after it, so it was obviously somebody pretty important, but Rob’s handwriting wasn’t clear and I couldn’t quite read it. It looked like ‘Susan’ or ‘Suzanne’ something. The documents were mostly print-outs of e-mails. I looked through them.

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