Capítulo 14 de 19 · 6'17"
The new manager's first real act is to fire the man who smiles at him. "You and I never got along," he says, and Vadas, who will not stop talking, is told plainly: "I'm the manager, and you don't work here anymore."
❝ Monólogo · 15 frases Pepi's joke on the switchboard
He answers the shop like a clerk, then piles the gag until the whole floor is in on it.
Kralik Stops Being Nice
Alfred Kralik has just been made manager of Matuschek and Company. Vadas, a fellow clerk, offers congratulations while angling for credit himself. Kralik answers by sending him to rearrange suitcases and then, when Vadas admits he doesn't like him, fires him on the spot. Meanwhile Pepi, on the phone, refuses to fetch Mr. Matuschek and jokes that the boss is up in a balloon with two blondes.
Kralik has spent the whole film being pushed around, and the promotion flips the room. Vadas assumes the old rules still hold — flattery, a little credit-taking, a warning about working under a younger man — and keeps smiling as if nothing has changed. What he misses is the new resolve underneath: "But I am not going to be a yes man. No, sir." The suitcases are pure theater of power, a test Vadas fails by complaining. Once the real problem is out — "You know, you and I never got along" — the answer is instant and final: "I'm the manager, and you don't work here anymore." The comedy is that the new manager, still raw from his own humiliation, wields authority almost as clumsily as the people who once used it on him.
A1–C2 es la escala MCER. Las tarjetas por encima del nivel elegido se atenúan y la reproducción no se pausa en ellas.
“Kralik, this is the age of youth and I always ride with the times.”
A graceful line that bows to youth while claiming to have always been on the winning side of time.
Formal
“I thank you for being so frank, now, at least I know my problem and it's entirely up to me to make you change your mind.”
It turns an insult into information and takes the whole problem back into its own hands.
Formal
“But I am not going to be a "yes" man. No, sir.”
It accepts the authority and refuses the flattery in the same breath.
Informal
“I'm the manager, and you don't work here anymore!”
A blunt declaration of authority that states the title and the consequence in one breath.
Informal
Matuschek and Company, good morning. Oh, yes, Mrs. Matuschek. Don't miss this, folks. Hello, Mrs. Matuschek. Yes, this is Pepi speaking. That's right. Oh, I didn't bring you that bottle of perfume? Well, you're never going to get it! What do you think of that? Your perfume days are over, Mrs. M! Yes! This is Pepi speaking. Oh, you want to speak to Mr. Matuschek? That's too bad. Just at the moment he's up in a balloon with two blondes. Now watch this. You wouldn't like to speak by any chance to Mr. Vadas?
Siguiente · 15not in the same planetLa escena: Kralik Visits a Sick KlaraKralik has just been made manager and Vadas, a fellow clerk, refuses to accept the new order. After Vadas admits he doesn't like him and keeps talking about Miss Novak, Kralik loses patience and fires him.
Vadas openly says he dislikes his new boss and keeps pushing, so the ending is not a shock. Still, Kralik fires him without Mr. Matuschek's knowledge, which the film treats as a raw exercise of new power.
Pepi is the errand boy. He answers a call from Mrs. Matuschek and, instead of fetching her husband, teases her about perfume and claims her husband is off in a balloon with two blondes.
He was a clerk who nearly quit after Mr. Matuschek wrongly suspected him over Mrs. Matuschek. When Matuschek tried to kill himself over that mistake, Kralik saved him, and the promotion is the reward.
The feeling is mutual. One of them says plainly, "I don't like you," and the other has clearly had enough, which is why the confrontation escalates into a firing.
