Oh Stupid Heart (7 page)

Carrie didn’t want
his affections and wished he’d stop, but she endured it because the stuff she
was learning would benefit her for life, and she worried he would toss her from
the class if she flat out told him to back off.

She finally
understood Trent’s predicament. She considered sharing their torment-in-common
when she called him tonight, but feared he’d demand her return if he knew the
instructor harassed her. No, just as he had tried to keep Coco’s sexual attacks
a secret from her, she’d hide this from him. To know would only torture Trent. God
knows, she worried about Coco constantly.

The actor returned
with a tray containing every meal on her list.

She groaned then
mouthed thank you.

“Let’s take a five
minute bathroom break.” Ian leaned over, so his delicious sandalwood scent enveloped
her.

“Problem?”

She wished he’d stop
speaking softly in her ear, because his breath tickled her neck every time.

“I wasn’t clear with
my list. I only meant for one of those to be obtained. I provided a list so
finding something might be easier.”

“Take the one you
want and we’ll put the others in the refrigerator.”

She took half a
sandwich and placed the other half on one of the other plates. Ian snared it
and took a bite.

“I avoid saturated
fats and simple carbs myself.”

Given his thin,
sinewy body, she believed him.

“Do you exercise?” he
asked.

“Not at a gym. I walk
about a mile to and from the trains daily. Otherwise, I work all the time.”

When she’d finished a
quarter of her sandwich, she pushed the remainder aside.

He eyed it. “Are you
done?”

“Yes.”

To her shock, he
picked up her sandwich and ate it. He chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’d never do that
unless it belongs to a person I’d be willing to kiss.”

Mortified by Ian’s
declaration he’d be willing to kiss her, she dropped her head so her hair
covered her face. She suspected her cheeks glowed fire red, given the heat they
radiated. She read over her notes, desperately searching for something to
change the topic with.

“What if the
employees are wrong about their solution? What if Brian’s was truly the correct
one, only his employees lack the skills to get it done?”

He stroked her hair
and stared at her with amused, sparkling eyes. “You are amazing. That’s exactly
where the lesson is going.”

And it did, with her
in the hot seat. She did not want to fire anyone, but according to her briefing
paper, a consultant she brought in declared them woefully under-trained. While
she wanted to get them trained, she needed a solution before the week ended,
not a half year from now. Due to budget constraints, she had two choices: Fire
and replace the leader with someone better skilled who might be able to show
and supervise them through the task, or to fire all of them and hire a better,
but smaller staff.

“You look worried
Carrie. Why?”

“Both viable
solutions have problems. The group likes their current leader. If I switch him
out, they might sabotage the project.”

“You could fire
them.”

“Yes, but you have to
be careful when firing systems people. They can do a lot of damage if they want
to be vindictive.”

He smiled. “Then it’s
not your soft heart preventing you from action, but your concern to the damage
they might do.”

He turned to the
other three. They all agreed she should fire the bunch.

“But hiring takes
time, as well.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “I think we might need a
different solution altogether.”

“No, just fire them,”
Brian insisted.

Ian sent Brian up to
the table to meet his surly and demoralized employees who had failed at their
new attempt.

Carrie cringed at Brian’s
explanation. “Truth is the job is more than you can handle.”

To her surprise, they
all nodded in agreement. However, they froze like mannequins when he explained
he intended to let them go.

Then all hell broke
loose.

“That’s not fair!”
the girl yelled. “We did our best. We should never have been given the task.
It’s not in our job description.”

Brian ignored their
protests. “We’ll call it a layoff, to make it easier to apply for unemployment
and get a new job.”

James, the quiet one,
whose solution had failed, looked up. “So you won’t give us a bad reference if
a prospective employer calls?”

“Company policy says
we cannot give references, only the length of time you worked and your job
title.”

“And we’ll get extra
pay like a real layoff?”

“I’m not sure, I’ll
have to check.”

“Fuck this and fuck
you!” the nice actor who brought her lunch yelled and stormed out the room.

“Let’s stop there.”
Ian left Carrie’s side and walked behind his actors. He gripped the girl’s
shoulders. She stared up at him with adoration.

These young women behaved
like groupies with a rock star.

“Janice here is going
to bring charges of sexual discrimination when she discovers she’s been paid
twenty percent less than the guys.” He moved to the next actor at the table. “Gary
goes to a company who sends him for further training and within two years he’ll
be one of the best systems managers one could hope for. He’ll remain loyal to
his new company because they saw potential and invested in him.”

Gary stared at the
team manager. “You’re a nice guy, but you never pushed us or sent us for
training, and you know less than we do about the system.”

The next guy spoke
up. “And you went to all the meetings without us, so half the crap we did
turned out to be missing data the people wanted. Plus, we had no way of being
recognized. We’re just invisible cogs in a not too spectacular wheel. I think
it’s entirely your fault we got fired.”

Ian walked to the
supervisor and sighed. “Bart sues you for age discrimination. His lawyer shows
twenty years of satisfactory performance assessments. And he wins a million
dollar settlement.” He leaned over. “You looked shocked, Bart. Didn’t see it
coming?”

The distress in
Bart’s eyes was incredibly real. “No! I’ve given my life to this company. How
could they fire me? I know my skills aren’t as good as some of my employees,
but I’ve been so careful to keep it a secret. I hire the least skilled
employees I can. I don’t let them interact with the rest of the staff.” He
shook his head. “I just needed five more years to retire.”

Carrie raised her
hand. “May I rerun the scenario?”

Ian winked at her.
“In a second. We haven’t gotten to Brian’s worst mistake. The angry young man
who cursed at you and left the room—he just crashed the system and junked your
back-up files. Not only does it get you fired, but the disaster will follow you
about for the rest of your life.”

Brian grimaced and
stared up at the ceiling tiles, shaking his head.

Ian turned to Carrie.
“Sure you want to try?”

“I want a rerun. I
don’t want to start from here.”

He shook his head and
retrieved the saboteur from the hall.

She sat down with her
staff and met each of their eyes, reading their body language as she admitted,
“We’re over our heads.”

They all nodded in
agreement.

“There’s a quote: Insanity
is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.”

Several of them grinned.

“We need help.”

“Consultants don’t do
shit,” Gary threw out.

“We need someone from
the outside, but not a consultant. We need a person who has the knowledge to
fix the problem. Someone who can help each of you improve your skills in the
process.”

Gary’s brow furrowed
when he glanced at their supervisor. Previously Carrie would have thought he worried
for the old man’s job, but now she knew different.

Seeing some continued
resistance, she threw the other alternative out there. “If we don’t solve the
problem soon, the company will have no choice but to fire and replace us all.”

“Why are you saying ‘us’?
You’re job isn’t at risk.”

“Actually, it is.
It’s my problem to solve. If I fail, I’ll be gone, along with you guys. We are
in this together.”

Ian spoke up. “Let’s
pause. Carrie’s making it look too easy. Sander, jump in and go from here.”

The guy pushed
himself up and released a heavy sigh. “Man, I hate going after her.” The other
guys nodded in agreement.

Brian voiced a
complaint. “It’s not fair. She gained information from my mistake.”

Ian walked to the
board and wrote a new rule:
Learn from other’s mistakes.

He then looked at Brian.
“Would you ever go in half-cocked and fire a group without consulting HR
again?”

“No, sir.”

“Will you ever fire
a systems person without making certain your system is locked up solid?”

Brian shook his head.

“So I don’t need to
waste our time and write
Learn from your own mistakes
?”

“No.” Brian slumped
in his chair and crossed his arms.

“Good, because that’s
rookie stuff. You guys should be beyond the basics.” He walked behind Brian and
placed his hands on his shoulders. “Let me be clear. I expect mistakes to be
made in here. Otherwise, I wouldn’t need to pay a fortune to train my actors to
respond with genuine behaviors for every possible alternative.

“Sander, run with this
new line, but keep in mind your budget. If you are bringing in a quality
systems person, you’ll have to lose two or three people.”

Carrie raised her hand.

Ian shook his head
and she lowered it.

Sander turned to Ian.
“Can we presume I have security guards outside to escort the fired system
guys?”

“Yes. Anything else?”

“Not that I can think
of.”

“Carrie, did you want
to add something.”

“I made a mistake.
I’d like to repair it so Sander can succeed.”

Ian shook his head
slightly and grinned. “What mistake are you so anxious to take blame for?”

“I not only need to
have the manager hired, but he/she needs to have had a week to sort through the
system to ensure there are no time bomb programs to crash it if not activated
in a timely manner. And of course, he/she needs to have locked it down. Also, the
new manager should be waiting in the hall to meet the remaining staff.”

“What do you think, Sander?
Would you like to adopt any of those pre-occurrences?”

“Oh yeah. Thank you,
Carrie.”

Sander fired the “fuck
you” guy and the one beside Gary. He spoke and contributed so little Carrie
couldn’t even remember his name. Sander then turned to Ian. “I’d like to turn
it over to Carrie here, because I need to fire Bart, but it’s going to result
in a million dollar lawsuit, and I’ve no idea how to prevent it.”

Ian looked to the
other two guys, but they had nothing to offer. “I’m not letting you off the
hook so easy, but I will let you confer with your VP of HR if you want.” He
walked behind Carrie and stroked her hair.

Sander sat beside
Carrie. “Save me?”

She gathered her hair
to one side so Ian would leave her alone and smiled at Sander. “Well, since I’m
VP of HR, I think I can. Let’s offer Bart early retirement.”

Sander hit his
forehead. “I should’ve thought of that.” He started to get up, but Carrie
gripped his arm. “But do it one on one. Send the other guys out with the new
systems manager.”

Sander returned to
the table with confidence and handled it beautifully until he and the
supervisor were alone. Bart quickly turned angry and refused to take early
retirement.

Ian let Brian and Charles
try for better results, but the supervisor still refused.

Ian ran his hand
through his thick black hair. “We almost had a low cost solution here. Carrie,
give it a try.”

Once the other actors
left, she moved from her chair to the one beside him and covered his clenched
hand. “Bart, you okay?”

His downturned head
shook slightly.

“This has to hurt.
You’ve worked your whole life for our company?”

His shoulders tensed.

“You must have been
the first person here to know how computers even worked.”

“I was.”

“No one is belittling
your contributions over your life.”

He snorted.

“We aren’t firing
you, Bart.”

His head popped up
and tilted to one side.

“You can stay and
work for the new manager, or you can retire early and visit all the places
you’ve dreamed of.”

“If I stay, will I
still be supervisor?”

She shook her head.
“I’m sorry, no. You’ll be a member of his staff at a lower salary.”

A harsh bark escaped
him. “Yeah, I see how well the company appreciates me.”

She gently rubbed the
center of his back. “We do, Bart. It’s why we’ve offered you early retirement.
We owe you for all the years you’ve put in. But our systems group is
under-skilled and placing the entire company at a competitive disadvantage.
Take the early retirement and enjoy the rest of your life. I think you’ll be
good at it. I bet you have one or two hobbies?”

He smiled. “I love to
fly fish.”

“Me too.”

“You fly fish?”

She nodded.

He eyed her with
disbelief. “Ever catch anything?”

“I once caught a
twelve pound salmon on the Grey River in Canada.

He sighed. “Canada…I’d
like to go there.”

“And now you can.”

He squeezed her hand.
“Thank you, for looking after me.” He glanced at Ian. “I’m not suing.”

“Just as well. The
scenario Carrie created doesn’t give you grounds to sue. You weren’t fired, you
were only demoted to your proper skill level.” He went to the board and wrote:
Never
assume all solutions are presented.

He concentrated on
the three guys. “In all the years I’ve taught this class, early retirement has
only been thought of once before and demoting Bart down to his actual skill
level has never been presented.” He walked behind her and gripped her shoulders.
“Carrie, why did you push so hard for early retirement when you created a lower
cost option? Bart’s a proud man; he’d quit before a few months were out.”

“His demoralized
presence would suck the positive energy out of the group, while they need to
solve a serious problem. Whereas, Bart leaving happy will send a positive message
to the remaining employees: The company does care about its workers. Also, it
was the morally correct thing to do.”