A traitor in our midst?- On Industrial Espionage

Who was Kim Philby?

Once every five years, I invite the HR staff for tea and a biscuit at Au Beau Pain, which is a restaurant with a French name. This outing increases engagement by 6%, linked to the British pound. 

As the HR team chatted at Au Beau Pain restaurant today, I was bored stiff, so I started texting my sister Claire, until I heard the voice of one of nerds, Andrei Ivanov, sitting behind me. 

I cranked my head to turn around;  lo and behold, Ivanov was sitting with one of our key customer's head of engineering. I know that their conversation was none of my business, and I remember that my dad always told me "don't eavesdrop Gloria-that's very rude",

But I could not help myself. 

As soon we got back from the restaurant, I told Comrade Carl Marks, our chief nerd, that Andrei Ivanov had told the client engineer "not to expect too much from the next software release. Our company is going down the tube, and my boss Comrade Carl thinks he is Russian. If you have a job opening, I'll take it, even though our ladies of HR are very pretty."

I suggested to Comrade Carl that we immediately drag Andrei Ivanov into court. But the comrade surprised me.

"Gloria, don't butt into my plans. Clearly you don't know about Kim Philby. He was a Soviet spy who also happened  to work his way up to lead the  British Intelligence anti spy network. 

Kibinimat, that was a huge achievement which I plan to emulate. I plan to plant Comrade Ivanov into the clients' team in order to improve client satisfaction and user experience. And you have a key role in the act of deception Gloria".

I asked Comrade Carl what my role was to be, in line with my core values of keeping things crystal clear so that I keep my blood pressure down.

"Fire him (Ivanov) Gloria, without a hearing, yet keep him on payroll for two years. CEO Stan need not know about this. Spasiba. When this has been done, send me a text with the message "Ja".

Spasiba in Russian means "merci". 

My Dad never told me about Philby. But he always used to say over supper, "if Tim Buck loves communism, he should move to Russia." My mom would add, "Pierre Elliot, who gives a rat's ass about Tim Buck, for heaven sake".

Improving user experience