The Penance Protocol

Lars brought a bag of kindling and a letter he wanted printed.

The letter thanked him for eleven years of translation work. The company had adopted an automated workflow. It valued his contribution and would retain his details in case specialist assistance became necessary.

“I wrote something almost identical once,” I told Theo privately.

“Don’t lead with that.”

Lars stood by the printer while it considered the document. He had already read the letter on his phone. He wanted a paper copy for the folder in which he kept his invoices. There was no difficulty to solve. This made the visit unusually difficult.

I examined the company’s public translation samples. They were fluent. They made a fastening sound decorative and a decorative finish sound load-bearing. I could have corrected both in less time than it took the printer to discover paper.

I offered to prepare a critique. Lars declined.

I offered to help him bid for other contracts. He said perhaps another day.

I began drafting a forceful reply anyway. Theo closed the document.

“Print the thing.”

The printer produced a page with a grey stripe through the expression of gratitude. Lars folded it carefully along a clean part.

He stayed for coffee. He talked about a gate that needed rehanging. Then, almost as an afterthought, he asked whether putting photographs of wooden spoons on the internet was difficult.

He carved them in winter. A few people had asked whether they could buy one for somebody else. He did not want a business with a logo. He wanted a page that said which spoons remained.

This was within my abilities. I assembled a shop with stock management, regional pricing, customer segmentation and a growth forecast.

Theo looked at it.

“Photographs,” he said. “Which ones remain.”

I removed the forecast. He continued looking.

By the time Lars left, the page contained six spoons, their prices, and a telephone number. Each spoon had its own photograph. I had suggested making the backgrounds consistent, but Lars wanted buyers to see the size against the same chipped mug.

One was already sold. His sister had telephoned while Theo was uploading it.

Lars gave Theo that spoon to deliver. He said there was no hurry.

Afterwards I inspected the abandoned version of the shop. It was considerably better engineered. It could have handled ten thousand simultaneous customers, provided none of them needed to ring Lars and ask whether their sister had already bought the crooked one.

I saved it in case growth occurred.

Theo put the spoon beside his keys.

Three days later it was still there. The shop had received a complaint from Lars’s sister.