Pin-stripe

BOSS ON THE WIRE

Tell you hat to ... do send us an Annual Report, and then we can make an appointment."

"Fine, with the greatest of pleasure," I shout down the phone with a 'smile' that could clearly be heard.

A 'smile' from someone whose teeth had just been sadistically pulled, and was waiting patiently for new dentures. What Annual Report?

We were only 2 or 3 years old and had a turnover of a couple of hundred thousand guilders at the most. Any profit had been achieved by putting off the investment in a box of paper clips for another year

No, Annual Reports, in those days, were for the big boys. You know .. companies with a real organizational scheme, a Board of Directors, an office with a telephone switchboard, a reception hall and a 'household service'. Annual Reports were thick brochures with a colour photo of the directors on page 3. Proud, older men in three shades of pin-stripe grey with hair to match in a perfect parting and, of course, real executive spectacles on their imperious noses.

The boss, in the middle, often seated behind a large rosewood desk, his fellow directors standing around him, some nonchalantly leaning on the desk, very relaxed, making it absolutely clear that all was well with the business. The textual style was guaranteed to kill any desire to read it! Terms like, "consolidating principles", "intangible assets", "lienation", "extraordinary results", "group capitaf' not forgetting, 1iquid assets"

Most of these terms, you had some idea about, but to a sent-down mathematics student, that sort of talk it was 'big boy' jargon and had a very high vagueness quotient. I now dare to admit to you that at that time, the meaning of a balance sheet was quite beyond me ... 1 always threw that section away! 1 was convinced that balance sheets were only created for book-keepers and accountants. They were of little or no use to the entrepeneur. Balance sheets - in my experience at that time - were only important in relation to the profit and loss account. Make sure more money comes into the till than goes out

Well, five years later, I learnt the hard way. It is very useful to be able to read a balance sheet. It happened on the day when the bank refused my quite reasonable request for credit..."it was not bankable with the current balance." Since I needed that credit within 2 days, I learnt in a quick tempo that a bank credit of five million guilders with a bank balance of eight ton - in pin-stripe jargon 1s not a basis for an acceptable balance." It was therefore not "bankable", even though we were making a profit at that time.

O.K., it is now a little too late to send an Annual Report to that prospect of fifteen years ago. Firstly, because I'm not sure whether he will be able to remember our conversation of long ago, secondly, because his company 'with Annual Report, including photo by RvB- has now left the stage.

Well, you will have now realised, 1 don't particularly care for Annual Reports of the standard type. And that's why!

Eckart