Twitterpated (19 page)

Near midnight, I dragged myself into bed, exhausted but ready for my meeting with Dennis and Craig. I stared at the ceiling, willing sleep to come and running through the facts and figures I would unveil the next morning. Satisfied I had every last statistic at my fingertips, I rolled over to crash for the night, but my cell phone caught my eye. A red light pulsed, indicating a message. I flipped it open, and my stomach fluttered when the screen said, “1 new text msg.” It was from Ben.

I pulled it up.
I
know it’s a big day for you tomorrow. Good luck, although you’re so good you won’t need it. I’ll be thinking of you.

Well.

Who was I kidding? I knew exactly what I’d do on Saturday.

Chapter 31

C
RAIG MET ME IN FRONT
of Dennis’s door. He smiled and exuded smugness like a cheap cologne.

I smiled back. “Ready to go?” I asked him.

“I was born ready.”

I refrained from blowing a raspberry of disgust and was saved when Dennis opened the door and herded us in.

“I know you both worked hard over the last two weeks, so how about if we dive in?” he suggested.

“Absolutely,” Craig said. Kiss up. “Do you mind if I go first?” he asked.

I waved for him to continue.

He powered up his presentation, opened with his first slide, and announced, “Audit Findings and the Profitability Implications for Payroll Adjustments.”

Oh goody. A real barn burner.

Next came a forty-five-minute analysis of the last three years of Macrosystems payroll records, suggestions for curtailing payroll costs, including layoffs in nonpriority departments like shipping and data entry, and an impressive bottom line savings bigger than the number my team had produced. But Craig had reduced payroll costs to mathematics and had overlooked the “resources” part of human resources again, leading to a flawed analysis.

Dennis studied the report for several minutes after Craig had wrapped up, flipping through pages of the hardcopy overview and asking questions, which Craig answered readily. Dennis turned to me. “Do you agree with his findings?”

“Some of them, yes.”

“But not all of them?”

“No, sir. We interpreted the data differently,” I explained.

“Let’s take a look.”

I pulled out my jump drive. “We’re going to bounce through a couple of different programs to examine the data.” Working through a quick overview in PowerPoint, reviewing a few condensed spreadsheets in Excel, and returning to PowerPoint for a summary, I completed my presentation in fewer than fifteen minutes. My report was much shorter and offered less payroll savings, but I knew it had addressed some weaknesses in Craig’s analysis. Since a smile played around his lips, I could tell he didn’t know he’d been beaten.

Dennis said nothing for a few minutes as he clicked back through the documents.

“Thank you both for investing time into this. Craig, good work. Why don’t you take a long lunch and revisit your supply audit to investigate whether or not we’re experiencing any savings yet?”

“Sure, Dennis,” he said. “Can I bring back some lunch for you?”

Gag.

“No, that’s fine. I’ll send Leslie out for something later,” Dennis demurred.

“Okay. I’ll probably eat at my desk, so feel free to call me if you have any questions about my report,” Craig said.

Dennis fingered Craig’s bound report. “It looks pretty comprehensive. I’m sure it’ll be fine. I do have some questions for Miss Taylor here, so if you could get the door . . .”

“Of course.” Craig left, pulling the door closed behind him and then practically strutting back toward his office.

Dennis gave the door a small head shake and turned to me.

“You gave me a lot less information than Mr. Jaynes,” he said.

“Yes. I gave you bullet points. We have all the hardcopy details if you want something more in-depth.”

“I really, really don’t.”

I smothered a smile.

“How did you come up with a smaller savings than Craig?” He sounded curious rather than disappointed.

“Like I said, we interpreted some of the data differently. I don’t think he took into consideration how eliminating some positions would negatively impact worker productivity when those tasks are transferred back to individual departments,” I said.

“I see. So you feel in the broader scheme of things, there’s a more efficient solution?”

“Yes. I think if you can get supervisors to quit forcing overtime out of their employees and monitor departments with high absenteeism more closely, you’re going to reduce payroll expenditures significantly.”

“Cut back on overtime, huh?” He eyed me. “Seems like I’ve heard your team has made a significant overtime investment of its own over the last week.”

“Not exactly.” I flushed. “Several of us stayed to correct a data error that threw our reporting off. We didn’t charge the company for the time.”

“I respect your work ethic, but it’s illegal for us to compel employees to work without compensation,” he said.

“I know, sir. I made it strictly voluntary.”

“They logged that kind of time for free drinks and football tickets?” he asked.

He knew about that?

He studied my face as I groped for an answer.

“They didn’t stay because Mike picked up their bar tabs,” Dennis said. “They stayed because they respect you. They respect you because you protect your employees and give more than you demand from them.” He settled back in his chair and studied me over steepled fingers. “You could have explained Mike’s requisition error and gotten an extension.”

He knew about that too? He was scary.

“I promoted you because you have an admirable amount of common sense and an extraordinary work ethic. Don’t allow the second to outweigh the first. You have maintained a demanding pace here over the last twelve months. I’d like to see you dial back your hours, although I can’t stop you from working off the clock. I would feel better knowing you’re no longer hurtling toward burnout.”

That confused me. Didn’t everybody want self-starters on their team? Was I supposed to be average now?

Reading the distress in my face, he said, “Your value to me is your ability to see the bigger picture when you examine a problem, to understand that you have to look at more than numbers to find solutions. I’m selfish enough to worry that if you lose that perspective, I’ll be reading a lot more of these.” He nodded his head to indicate Craig’s huge report.

When I smiled, he laughed. “That might be the first crack I’ve seen in your work armor. Look, we don’t have quarterly taxes due for several weeks. I’d like you to consider taking some time off. Start today. Consider the rest of the day a comp day for all the overtime this week. Give everyone who worked with you a comp day next week.”

“Thank you. That’s generous.”

“Don’t give one to Mike,” he said, smiling.

When I started to defend Mike, Dennis held up a hand. “Don’t worry. I respect someone who will put the time in to fix his mistake, but I’m not giving him a day off for screwing up in the first place.”

I swallowed my objection.

“Take your day off and do
nothing
,” he continued. “I need you fresh for a hairy project coming up in two weeks. You’ll curse my name before you’re even two hours into it.”

“Sounds fun.”

“You have no idea. I’m putting your team on support for Apoor’s project right now. Get out of town for a few days. Apoor won’t require much more than autopilot. It’s so routine, it’s Mike-proof.”

“I won’t be going anywhere. I don’t have plans or anything,” I said. “But I promise to cut back to forty hours.”

A reluctant smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Since the only other way I have to keep you out of here is to fire you, I accept your compromise.”

Compromise. I was in the position to make a real one with Ben now, ready or not.

They say to be careful what you wish for because it might come true. That goes double for prayer. A big, fat answer had just dropped in my lap.

* * *

Katie had already gone on her well-deserved lunch break when I left Dennis’s office. Mike sat in her desk instead, lulled into a Zenlike state by the drone of the paper shredder.

I stopped and waved my hand in front of his face to snap him out of it.

“Jessie! How did it go? Did we save more than Craig with our proposal?”

“When you really look at the numbers, yes. Dennis loved it,” I said.

He looked relieved. “Craig came through here a while ago talking like he ran circles around you.”

“Mmm, he almost had it right. He did run around in circles, which is different.”

“Dude, that guy is such an idiot,” he said.

“At least that
dude
caught the test data, so maybe we should keep the gloating to a minimum.
Comprende
?”

“Got it,” he answered, looking humbled. “So did Dennis find out about the data switch, or do I still have a job?”

“He does know about it, yes, but you have a job.” His expression mirrored his relief.

“However,” I added, “you’re the only one who pulled overtime this week who won’t be getting a comp day next week.”

He nodded, clearly resigned to this slap on the wrist. “I deserve that. Does Craig’s team get comp time?”

I shook my head, and he grinned. “They didn’t have to work over a hundred extra hours to fix their reports,” I reminded him.

“Ouch.”

“Take your forty hours and be glad you get to work them at all,” I advised him. “I don’t know how he found out about it, but I think it’s pretty generous of Dennis to keep signing your paycheck.”

“It’s actually a computer generated signa—”

“Mike!”

“I’ll shut up and shred now.”

“Good idea.”

I continued to my office, growing lighter with every step. I didn’t have to eat lunch at my desk today. I didn’t have to eat dinner there either. I could have my breakfast at home tomorrow instead of grabbing a plastic-wrapped muffin from a street vendor on the way in. When I flipped on my computer, I would not wade through yet another audit report on a long-forgotten timesheet. I could catch up on interoffice e-mail or work on some of my own miscellaneous filing.

Yeah, awesome. I was so not into that. I picked up the phone and punched Sandy’s number in.

“How did it go?” she demanded as soon as she answered.

“We smoked him,” I said.

“Yes! I knew it.”

“Care to have a celebration lunch with me?”

“Sure. Let me tell Susan I’m leaving. I’ll meet you at your office.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said and hung up. Instead of finding some busy work for the next five minutes while I waited, I spun around to stare out the window—and did nothing at all.

“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Only one person could inject his tone with such complete condescension. I took a deep breath and prayed for patience before I turned to face him.

“What can I do for you, Craig?” I asked.

“I wanted to make sure you’re okay,” he said.

This should be fun.

“I’m great. Thanks for asking.”

He wandered in without an invitation and perched on the edge of my desk. I hate when people do that. I’ve never been in the habit of parking my behind in anyone else’s personal space, so I didn’t understand the comfort level there. But with Craig, it was probably some kind of alpha-dog territory marker thing.

“Have a seat, Craig. It’s a comfortable chair,” I offered. He took it and then, crossing his legs, prepared to make himself at home.

“That’s nice of you,” he said. “I thought you might be mad.”

“About . . . ?”

“You know, how the meeting with Dennis went this morning.”

“And how was that, Craig?”

“I definitely compliment you for being able to generate a report after your oversight on the test data, but come on,” he said.

“Yes?”

“I hope you weren’t embarrassed by the inequity between what I produced and your little slideshow.”

“Right, that.” I leaned back in my chair, amused. I studied him for a moment, noting the way he propped his wrist on his knee to display his watch to full advantage. His posturing should have annoyed me.

But I didn’t care.

I didn’t care that he sat there thinking he had bested me. I didn’t care that his silence cost me hours of overtime. I didn’t care that he probably had a plot hatching at that very moment, designed to thwart me again. I didn’t even care enough about beating him to muster the energy to set him straight on his “win.” With perfect clarity, I could see that we would replay variations of this scene, sometimes with me ahead and sometimes with him, ad nauseam.

With the genius of hindsight, I could see that Dennis would have granted me an extension without any penalty, tangible or otherwise, if I had gone to him and explained our screw up. He had enough faith in my judgment to allow me the time to reach my own interpretation of the data. He would have disciplined Mike, but Mike deserved it and was already serving his sentence anyway. The pressure I felt to complete the audit by the original deadline wasn’t Dennis’s fault. I couldn’t even blame Craig that I took his bait every time.

I prided myself on not making the same mistake twice, never mind the half dozen times I’d already butted heads with him in the two months since my promotion. That gave me a choice: I could level Craig with a rundown of his report’s analytical reasoning flaws and then refuse to ever engage in a round of schoolyard one-upmanship again. Or I could smile and let him win, this time and every time, and simply not care. I could focus on the job I did and that my team did and direct all my energy to that outcome instead of dividing it between my results and Craig’s.

What an easy choice.

I chose to let Craig sweat.

Delivering a courteous smile, I reached across the desk and offered him a handshake. Confused, he accepted it.

“Your team did a great job,” I said. “You deserve all the recognition Dennis gave you.”

His perma-grin showed signs of suspicion. “Thank you. I find Dennis responds better to cold, hard facts.”

“You’re so right about that,” I agreed.

His suspicion grew. Before he could probe further, Sandy interrupted from the doorway.

“You ready to celebrate?”

He turned to her, confused. “Celebrate?”

Noting my frantic headshake behind Craig’s back she said, “Yeah . . . because it’s Friday.”

“Yep. Love those Fridays,” I said cheerfully. “If you’ll excuse us, Craig, we’re going to go grab some lunch.”

He looked unsettled. “You don’t mind if I discuss the audit findings with Mike, do you?”

I could tell he wanted to rocket out to Mike’s cubby and interrogate him.

“You better wait, Craig. He has a lot of shredding to do right now, and I don’t want you to distract him.” I escorted him to the door. “You should get out for lunch today. It’s not good to spend all your time at your desk.”