“In a multi-cultural organisation like the ERA”, spouted George at the first Christmas drinks party he had been to in over three years, following the COVID hiatus, “we all need to work that much harder to maintain good relations amongst ourselves…”
Almudena, George’s long-standing colleague from the analysis department, a sharp, dark-eyed brightly dressed woman from Cordoba, in Spain, was listening intently.
“But what you’re saying, Almudena, just goes to show that by far the trickiest relations for us to hold together are those we have with others of our own nationality!”
The subject of miscommunication between colleagues had come up again, as it so often did in the ERA. Almudena had been sharing with George her impressions from a quarrel she had witnessed on-line. It was a dispute between two French directors, Rabot and Lautrec, following what she had described, using that popular ERA euphemism, as a ‘misunderstanding over some fine detail of fiscal policy’.
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