The Whiskerly Sisters (5 page)

Fresna would never allow herself to be vulnerable again.

J
ust as Celia’s foot reached the second stair of the spiral staircase on the first floor, the phone in her office began to ring. Carefully, she reversed, deftly balancing the tray of cups and saucers in her hands, returned to her office and picked up the phone, tucking it neatly under her chin.

“Dumbleton’s Toys, how may I help you?” she enquired politely. Putting the call through to Customer Services, she retraced her steps and this time managed to get the required crockery upstairs to the meeting room on the second floor. She had already brought up the sugar, milk and biscuits. All she needed to do now was bring up the flasks of tea and coffee from the ground floor kitchen. Later, of course, she would be required to bring them all down again and stack them neatly into the dishwasher. In the meantime, she had a luxury hour of sitting down and focussing all her attention on one single thing – recording the minutes of the meeting of the Management Team.

Not that she needed to focus all her attention on the meeting. Celia had enough experience of taking minutes to be able to fade in and out of the process and still capture its highlights. She only really concentrated when they began the number crunching since her boss would check that figures were recorded accurately. As for the rest, it was all jargon and she doubted anyone ever read her notes thoroughly anyway. She sometimes fantasised about adding a ridiculous extraneous sentence or two to the record to see if anyone noticed.

“It was agreed to paint the walls of the second floor meeting room bright pink the evening before the annual internal Company Event since it was agreed by everyone present that watching the paint dry would prove vastly more interesting than yet another round of death by PowerPoint.” Action: “Carried.”

“It was decided that the Management Team, in gratitude for all her sterling work, would donate the entirety of their combined annual bonuses to Celia’s holiday fund.” Action: “Agreed with immediate effect.”

“A full and frank discussion took place on the reasons why the girls from Customer Services refused to even flirt with the members of the Sales Team. Several possible reasons were put forward but, in the end, the group agreed that it was most likely because all the sales staff were butt ugly, useless tossers.” Action: “Agreed unanimously.”

On the other hand, attending the meeting did give Celia a welcome break from the multi-tasking, fire-fighting circus act that was her job at Dumbleton’s Toys. Although she grumbled constantly about her workload, Celia secretly adored her job. Every day brought new challenges. She had no time to be bored and she always felt she was being stretched, sometimes admittedly almost to the limits of her abilities, but above all that was the promise of promotion. At some future date when everyone was settled in the new building, Patrick, the Managing Director, had promised her the job of Office Manager and she would have two administrative assistants working under her. Finally, she would achieve management status.

Celia’s official title was PA to the MD and Finance Officer, but that did not describe even a quarter of what she actually did. She usually arrived well before normal office hours, stayed late most days and often went without a proper lunch break. Sometimes she even worked an occasional, unpaid Saturday. Since arriving at Dumbleton’s two years previously, she had grown her job out of all proportion and her boss was delighted with her. Not that he ever particularly praised her efforts; more that he had stopped swearing at her and even brought her the occasional cup of tea.

She now worked as PA to the entire team of Directors, gave administrative support to the sales and marketing teams, undertook all the personnel administration, had become Health and Safety Lead, first point of contact and edited the monthly internal newsletter.

With the coming of the new distribution centre in the autumn, Celia’s workload had increased even further. She was heavily involved in organising the move of two of the four main teams across to the new complex. The company would transfer from outsourcing warehousing to managing it internally and this meant the recruitment of a whole new team. The Warehouse Manager and his two assistants were already on board, planning the logistics of the new build and beginning the recruitment drive for the Department’s forty or so new staff members. For the time being, Celia was required to support them on top of everything else.

Celia didn’t know how she had kept so many plates spinning for so long, yet still they kept coming and still she kept spinning. She loved her job, she loved its pace but, over and above everything, she loved the thought of achieving the first rung of the management ladder. She couldn’t wait.

In the meantime, the meeting was coming to a close and she would need to get a first draft of the minutes to Patrick by close of play. Before that, however, she had to parcel up several items of pristine merchandise for onward transit to the photographer for inclusion in the annual catalogue; organise travel and hotels for those members of the Marketing Team who were travelling to Germany for a conference; format Patrick’s PowerPoint presentation for tomorrow’s WebEx; meet and greet the delegation who were due to arrive shortly to talk to the Warehouse Manager about forklift trucks; nag those concerned to finish writing their articles for the newsletter; clear the upstairs meeting room; nip to the shop for milk and keep up with her emails.

As she came down the stairs, shorthand notebook in one hand, tray of used coffee cups in the other, Patrick was already back in his office, barking down the phone, signalling her to drop everything and give him her full attention ASAP. She could sense from the set of his shoulders that he was not a happy bunny. Out of the corner of her eye, Julia, the Marketing Director and Lydia, Head of Customer Services were hurrying across the floor in the direction of the MD’s office, trying to keep the panic out of their faces. At times like these, Celia had learned to breathe slowly, think clearly and keep her wits about her. Something was about to hit the fan and she wanted none of its splash back.

“Two things,” Patrick was barking at Julia as Celia entered his office and sat down, notebook poised. “Dusseldorf is unhappy with the artwork sent over this week. Apparently, they have told you before that the logo is to be placed in the top left hand corner of the packaging. Why is it still on the right? Sort it.”

“But Patrick,” replied Julia, in the slow, soothing tones usually reserved for the slightly backward, “we have discussed this before and you agreed with me that if we put the logo on the left, we lose the space available for RAG. There is such a thing as compliance, you know, or is it different for the Germans?”

“I know, I know. Look, speak to Fredericke, see what you can sort. Karl is on the warpath,” he retorted.

Dismissing Julia, he turned to his Customer Services Manager. “Lydia, what’s with this month’s returns?” he queried, pointing at the tiny rows of numbers on the sheets in front of him. “These have got to be inaccurate. We can’t be reporting this many inactive lines. Get your lot to go over them again and tell them to get them right this time.” Frowning, Lydia reached for the spreadsheets strewn across the desk, but before she could do so, Patrick, with one aggressive sweep of his hand, had knocked them onto the floor. Lydia’s knees creaked as she bent to pick them up.

Turning suddenly in his black, leather, executive chair, Patrick looked pointedly at his secretary. “Celia, where are the warehouse plans?” he snapped. “I gave them to you late last Friday afternoon before I left. You were supposed to put them on my desk first thing. The surveyors will be here shortly and we need to study them before they arrive. I need them NOW,” he roared. Celia blanched. She hadn’t seen the warehouse plans since she’d given them to Patrick the previous Thursday morning and no one had told her the surveyors were on their way.

“And I need the file on Education pronto,” he continued, without seeming to pause for breath. “Get Larry on the phone straight away. I want to talk to him. Have you done the bonus letters yet? Oh, and I need my slides sorting. I just emailed them to you. Do seven copies, double sided in colour and bound. On my desk before you leave tonight. I’ve decided to attend in person now. Cancel the WebEx and let Bill’s secretary know I’ll be there at ten. Tell her I need the large meeting room. I don’t care who she has to throw out. Don’t let me down on this one, Celia.”

Having not yet opened her mouth, Celia stood up and began to leave. “Oh and fix me a pot of strong coffee. With all the stress you lot’ve put me under, I’m going to need a lethal injection of the stuff just to get me through the day. Shut the door behind you, there’s a good girl,” he finished, dismissively and again turned his attention to the remaining member of his management team. “Why are you still here Lydia? I need those figures pronto. Hop to it!”

When Celia closed down her office for the night, it was 6.30pm and she’d only been able to snatch a five minute break for a hastily eaten baguette from the sandwich van. She hadn’t had time to go for milk, much to the annoyance of the Customer Services Team, who used it by the gallon, but felt it was beneath them to shop for it. Celia took her coffee black.

The bonus letters had been written, Patrick’s presentation was sorted, bound and in his briefcase well before he’d left for the day. The warehouse plans had been found. Under close questioning from Celia, Patrick grudgingly remembered that he had not given them to her at all, rather he had taken them home to study over the weekend and had forgotten to bring them back to the office. Patrick gave no apology for his omission. Instead, he ordered someone to fetch them and had left Celia and one of the Sales Managers to entertain the surveyors until they turned up, at which point he smoothly joined the meeting and blamed his secretary for the lapse. Celia sighed. She was used to it. After that meeting, Celia had organised for a batch of samples to be couriered to the photographer, arranged travel plans for the Marketing Team and had progressed the in-house newsletter. She’d even found time to organise someone to come in and mend the mood prone photocopier as well as fielding innumerable phone calls, monitoring her emails and briefly discussing the recruitment campaign with the Warehouse Team in advance of a visit from the Manager of the local Job Centre. Patrick’s monthly expenses had been reconciled, the bonus letters had been written and both had been handed over to the Finance Manager. Celia had been up and down the stairs at least a dozen times and had brewed several cups of coffee for people other than herself.

Through the half glass walls of her office, Celia had been able to observe several members of the Sales and Marketing Teams gossiping and laughing across the expanse of open plan floor. She knew she worked far harder than they ever did, ever could and yet they got a bonus whilst she did not. Still, as Office Manager, she reasoned all that would change. With two staff on board to share some of the load, maybe she too would have time to sit and gossip.

Unless travelling, Patrick arrived at the office at nine o’clock sharp each morning, fully expecting his Management Team to be already at their desks and fresh coffee to be on his. He always left promptly at five and frowned if anyone left before him. Although overtime payments were never offered, the Management Team were incentivised and the Sales Managers always worked from home on Fridays, so it was only the minions that grumbled at the long hours.

Lesley, the Finance Manager, a mild mannered woman, a little older than Celia had noticed how much overtime Celia put in and, by way of a treat, had invited her to London one evening to a West End show. She had bought them both dinner on expenses and had paid for all Celia’s travel. For Celia, it was a surprising and much welcomed treat.

During the journey home, lulled by good entertainment, food and wine, Celia had decided to let down her guard and confide to Lesley how much she was looking forward to her forthcoming role as Office Manager at the new build and finally being able to manage some additional administrative support. Lesley had listened closely as Celia had outlined her aspirations for the future, agreeing with her that it had indeed been a long time coming and that no one person could be expected to take on the administration of an additional forty new members of staff.

Waiting at the station for them on their arrival home, was Bob, Lesley’s husband. He had very kindly agreed to drive Celia home that evening, thus allowing her to completely indulge herself. By this time she put the latch on the door, Celia was somewhat tipsy and on a huge high, having thoroughly enjoyed her all expenses paid night out. It would be a long time before she experienced one of those again, she’d decided. Nevertheless, she climbed into bed contented. If nothing else, she had made a new ally at work and that was not to be sneezed at. She was still smiling as she fell asleep.

The following morning, Celia, feeling energised and alive after her fun evening out, was at her desk at eight, singing to herself in a contented way as she sorted through the post and prioritised her work for the day. She liked to spend her first hour preparing for the onslaught that was Patrick. At 8.45, she went down to the kitchen to brew his coffee. Returning upstairs with his fresh ground and her first instant of the day, she was surprised to find Patrick’s door shut. Through the window, she could see him talking to Lesley. Unfazed, she went back to the kitchen for another cup, returned to the MD’s office, tapped on the door and delivered her wares. As she entered the room she noticed that Lesley was looking distinctly uncomfortable and seemed not to be able to look her in the eye as she mumbled thanks to Celia for the unexpected beverage. Celia took it in her stride. These were stressful times at Dumbleton’s what with the new build just a few months away, the summer catalogue to prepare for and the Germans always on the warpath to trim costs.