Corporate culture of the ESB Group
The corporate culture of the ESB Group encourages employees to dedicate themselves to its cause as a lifelong venture and to give their lives willingly for the Honourable Company should the circumstances necessitate it. It follows then that the ESB has built up a considerable corpus of rituals and lore, fused with certain more material incentives, designed to engender the utmost loyalty from those in its service.
Corporate rituals of the ESB
ESB Martyrology
From the Euran War to the various civil conflicts in Shireroth as well as the dangers inherent in the literally cutthroat competition with such rival conglomerates such as the Octavyan Imports Company and the Iron Company a great many of the ESB's employees, shareholders, business partners, and associates have been called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice. In contrast to the blatant sanguinary cynicism which pervades the Imperial service, the ESB takes a care to honour its dead with appropriate gratitude and due ceremony.
New entrants into the company begin their indoctrination from almost the beginning of their training. The story of the Industrial Archaeology Expedition to Vey, and its role in turning the tide of the Euran War, is held up as the shining example for its members to aspire to emulate in their work, at whatever level they serve. A somewhat hagiographic account of the life of Marcellus Paixhans, the first Director of Euran Operations, is given to new employees as a strand that runs throughout their induction, and a theatrical account of his last stand and death at the hands of a rebel mob in Nivardom is shown on cinema night during the recruits' "decompression week" at the mid point in their basic training.
Moreover the junior employees of the ESB Group, as they finish their apprenticeships and probationary periods receive, along with their "commissioning scrolls", given in person by a member of the Board of Directors or a suitably senior deputy, a copy of the "ESB Book of Martyrs" listing those who the company deem to be the famous and or meritorious dead.
Nor does the ESB Group permit those ensconsed in the comfort of its corporate headquarters - the Sanitorium in Teldrin - to forget the sacrifices of those made in it is name by employees on the distant frontiers and in forgotten backwater ports. Martyred shareholder ritual: Shareholders attend in mourning clothes, entrance to a dirge, the meeting is solemnly called to order, the sad news is read, the bell is rung, hats are doffed and bows given to each individual name, then an adjournment.
In the lobby, more names are engraved, with a Zurvanite ritual of reading over the bones of the martyrs, inducting the fallen into their company, to be held in the side chapel for those who wish to attend.
An eternal flame is maintained in the Sanitorium, over the site of the ossuary and shareholders' crypt, with a ceremonial guard drawn from the ESB-Jagdverbande and the Jaysh al-Sathrati in continuous vigil at all hours of the day.
During the annual meetings, when the name of a departed shareholder is called, the corporate remembrancer replies in a loud voice, "Present, in spirit!"
Festival days
Occasions of permitted licence and debauchery for which the distinguished factors and writers of the Honourable Company are permitted a day's liberty in which to indulge such as is to their custom and fancy. These occasions include:
- Founders Day (2.IV)
- High Roqpin (24.IX)
- Martyrs' Day (Fall of Vey)
- Norwuz
