Terms & Conditions by Robert Glancy Read Free Book Online Page A

parts of his estate with King Solomon precision. All funds, such as the money from his house, were ploughed back into the business, so logically all three brothers would ultimately profit from the investment.
    His other valuable possessions were then split evenly: his expensive briefcase was gifted to Malcolm, his fountain pen gifted to Oscar, and his antique wind-up watch went to me.*
    * I had admired it once, when I was a kid, and he promised it to me. But later on I found myself dismissing it. When I was an arrogant teenager I compared it to my own
super amazing digital
watch which did not require winding up. Dad didn’t like this, and I suspected he may have reconsidered his offer, but he told me at the time, ‘The great thing about my watch, Frank, is that you get out of it exactly what you put into it. There’s something rather nice and fair about it. It’s a beautiful contract. Every morning I take a few seconds to wind up twenty-four hours’ worth of time and every day my watch returns the favour by marking out twenty-four precise hours.’
    I smirked at him.
    I wish I hadn’t, and every morning I wind it up, I regret that smirk.

From: [email protected]
    To: [email protected]
    Subject: No-News Flash!
    Frank – hi,
    News Flash: Nothing Happened Today
    On an island somewhere in Thailand nothing happened today. No politicians lied, no salesmen sold nothing, no missionary preached no word of no god, no policeman arrested no criminal, no one decided that they needed to have plastic surgery because their boobs seemed saggy, no one beat up no one else because no football teams lost no games, no banker embezzled no money, no one divorced no one else, no CIA conspiracies were hatched (not allegedly nor otherwise), no celebrity was photographed doing nothing to no one, no Starbucks opened on no street, absolutely nothing of any significance happened today. Not a blessed thing.
    Love and peace,
    Malc

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF OBJECTIVES MEETINGS
    There’s nothing objective about them.
    Not only had Oscar
seen fit
not to make me a partner, he’d also
seen fit
to keep me in the lowest league of our firm. I’m still, so long after Dad’s death, the terms and conditions guy. And Oscar never missed an opportunity to put me down. We had the most painful objectives meetings in which Oscar had the cheek to tell me that I didn’t have the gravitas required for the promotion. He loved every minute that I loathed.
    â€˜You’re a little light, Frank,’ Oscar said. ‘You need a bit more power. Buy some suits that cost too much, get rid of that stupid Japanese car, buy something imposing, enormous, get a new haircut, start wearing odd-shaped glasses. That’s how you achieve gravitas. Any questions?’
    â€˜Just one,’ I said. ‘When did you graduate from being a bit of a knob to a full-blown cock?’
    â€˜Funny, buddy. Very funny. This meeting is adjourned. No need to get personal.’
    But at this one particular objectives meeting I had come fully armed. For months, Oscar and I had been arguing about putting Shaw&Sons on the stock exchange. Or ‘going IPO’* as Oscar so hideously insisted on calling it. I warned Oscar that this went against everything we stood for as a family business and that our dad would turn in his grave. For weeks we’d argued. I even looked through Dad’s Will and there, like a sparkling jewel, was a clause which stated:
Shaw&Sons is a family firm, and for as long as my name remains on the business, the partners will not publicly list the business, under any circumstances
.
    * Initial Public Offering: the moment when the public buys shares in a listed company and makes people like Oscar (and all the other partners) filthy rich.
    I smiled when I read this. I knew I was about to triumph over Oscar; Dad’s cautious nature had given me the weapon I needed toruin Oscar’s little plan.
Under any