Chapter Three
“Okay, spread these out over the table and let’s make some hard decisions.” Cooper moved the pages so they were evenly spaced and then picked up a whiteboard market. “I wanted to do this yesterday but better late than never. First, we need a list of all the positions we’re missing. Hit me with your thoughts.”
“You saw what happened yesterday. There’s so much happening here I can barely get anything done. But it’s day two and you’re right into it. Maybe we should fire everyone and start from scratch.”
“Do you think that’s what needs to happen?” he turned and looked at her, like she might be serious.
“Of course not! God, you’re frustrating.” She glared at the list in front of her before looking up at him again. “Let’s start with who we removed. We have no operations manager, no accounts manager and no sales manager. If we employ each of those people they could choose their own teams.”
“That’s possible, but we don’t have time to muck around. I want to employ everyone we need—the new managers can work with whatever staff we give them. If we give the managers time to get settled and they do their own hiring, months will pass before everyone is on board. Can’t happen.” He wrote the positions on the board as she watched the muscles ripple across his back inside his business shirt.
Damn him. Why can’t he keep his jacket on?
“Who else?”
She got up and turned the air conditioning down two notches before she replied, “Five staff left us. Two sales people, one accounts person, one from the warehouse and one HR assistant.” She flicked through the pages in her hand. “We had also planned to put on five new staff before everything went to shit.”
A knock sounded on the door and Sasha stuck her head in. “I’m sorry to interrupt but the air conditioning contractor is here and he needs a permit written to access the roof.”
“Can’t someone else do it?” Cooper was quick to question Sasha but she shook her head as Emily stood up.
“It’s fine Sasha, I’ll be down in a second.” She turned back to Cooper, “Get used to these interruptions. They go on all day every day from sun up to sun down and sometimes beyond.”
“There’s no one else to write a permit?”
“Company policy states only senior managers write working at height permits. We had four people authorised to do it. Now there’s only me. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Thirty minutes later she slipped back into her seat. “Right, we were talking about the five positions we had already been short before the exodus.”
“We were. What were those positions?”
He again scribbled on the board as she spoke. “Another sales person, one person in accounts, one in customer service, a warehouse assistant and another in purchasing.”
“How the hell have you been managing when you’re missing ten staff across all departments?”
“You already know the answer to that. We’re working longer hours, everybody has taken on extra tasks and some things are slipping through the cracks.”
“Hmmm. You’re doing extraordinarily well,” he mused as he gazed at the whiteboard.
Is he complimenting me? What’s with this guy?
He soon reverted to expectations as he turned to her and said, “You lost an assistant? Why?” His tone was accusing, implying her staff weren’t loyal to her.
“My assistant happened to be married to the sales manager, if you must know. When we removed him, she quit on the spot.”
“Oh. That must have been uncomfortable.”
“It was an awful time. Some days I wanted to stay in bed and quit myself. We can’t go on much longer like this. There are whispers that a few more people might leave if the workload isn’t reduced soon. Our people are hard workers—they don’t like to feel it is impossible to reach their goals.”
“That’s why I’m here!” he turned his surfer smile on her and she gave him a tiny smile in return as he slipped into one of the empty seats. “I see your frosty demeanour is slipping. I told you taking a lunch break would make you feel better.”
“Don’t flatter yourself Cooper. Though I did enjoy catching up with the girls, so thank you for that. It’s been weeks since I’ve had the time to see them.”
The phone on the desk rang and Emily picked it up, then rolled her eyes and sighed, “Send her to the conference room please. I can sign those while we’re in this meeting.”
Cooper frowned. “My first priority has to be getting new staff in here so we can start training them and take some of that workload off you and the others. How soon can you start advertising these positions?”
“We have standard ads already written for the ten positions. I can get my assistant to place them today and tomorrow. The management ones will take a little more work since we haven’t needed to fill those roles in a while.”
Another knock on the door and a woman appeared with a stack of papers. “Here’s the cheques for signing, and purchasing added a pile of orders that need authorising too. Just call when they’re done and I’ll come and get them if you like. Oh, this one is urgent, if you could sign it now I’ll take it with me.” She paused as Emily checked the paperwork and signed the cheque. “Cory was looking for you, too.”
“Great. Tell Cory I’ll call him when I’m out of this meeting.” The door closed and she returned her eyes to Cooper.
“This is bloody insane,” he said and she shrugged.
“It is what it is.”
“Well, we’re going to fix it. Get the job ads out as soon as you can. Put everything else aside until they’re up. Can we meet back here at four o’clock to go over the current staff? I want to assess each one.”
She stood and gathered the papers but he put his hand on hers, “Leave them. I want to look through them.” She snatched her hand away and moved toward the door. “Oh, and Emily?”
“Yes?” she sighed and closed her eyes before turning her head slightly in his direction.
“We’ll be here late tonight. Can you organise us some chinese or something?”
Jesus Christ, on top of everything else, now I’m organising his dinner?
***
Annoying Emily was amusing Cooper a little too much and he needed to stop. Acting in a professional manner was a trait he took particular pride in, but being around her had triggered an immediate reaction. He’d promised Ed there was nothing between them and that had been the truth two days ago when they’d discussed it. Seeing her again had thrown him, though. He thought he was over her; had long forgotten that she rejected him and moved on, with no explanation. All it took was a waft of her perfume and he was lost again.
Now he needed to find a way for them to spend a lot of time together—a way for him to convince her to give him a second chance. How was he going to do that when every chance she got, she scurried out of the conference room to pass on jobs to her assistant, or deal with something on the site? Even a closed-door meeting was interrupted multiple times taking her attention away. He needed a plan to keep her close and her attention on him.
***
At four o’clock Emily dutifully appeared at the conference room door. She noted with satisfaction that Cooper had put his jacket on as the room cooled. Hiding her smirk, she dumped the pile of files she was carrying on the edge of the table.
His head shot up. “What are those?”
“Personnel files. There’s more.” She returned with another pile, her computer perched on the top, and placed them beside the first. “Be aware the sight of me with all of these has set tongues wagging.” She flopped into the nearest chair and opened her laptop.
“You don’t have electronic versions?”
“We do but they’re saved in separate files all over the shared drive. I don’t have time to flick between them so I brought the actual files.” She closed the lid of her laptop and leaned toward him. “I need to ask you something and I want you to tell me the truth, please.” He inclined his head and watched as she gathered herself. “You’re not planning to close us down, are you? Your intention is genuinely to get us back on our feet without any redundancies?”
“Of course it is. Why would you think different?”
“I don’t, but several people have asked today if they were going to lose their jobs. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t lying when I told them their jobs were safe.”
“You weren’t lying. Their jobs are safe as long as we decide their roles are necessary to the smooth running of this place. I don’t have instructions to close you down, only to ensure things quickly get back to normal.” He raised his eyebrows. “Does that make you feel better?”
“It does. How do I know I can trust you, though?”
“I’ve given you no reason not to.”
She stared at him, recalling the overheard phone call and the secretive text messages all those months ago. Finally, she answered, “I guess not.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Just that I have no way of knowing about your level of honesty. I’ll have to take your word for it.”
“I guess so.” He ground the words out between clenched teeth.
A vein tapped in his head and she could see she’d annoyed him.
Good. It’s about time someone besides me was annoyed in this room.
“Shall we start?” she opened her laptop again, ignoring him standing over her and glaring. “Who do you want first?”
“Start with the top file. I have the organisation chart here - I’ll tick off each one as we go through. By the way, I emailed Ed and I’m now authorised to sign cheques and purchase orders. Next time they need doing, direct them to me.”
“What? Just like that he gave you signing authority?”
“He did. You cannot continue like this, being interrupted every minute of the day. The business needs you. So I took care of it.”
Ed must really trust you to give you that kind of control. If only he knew you were capable of lying, like anyone.
“Will he—”
“An email is being drafted to all staff as we speak. By the morning they’ll all know. I have an appointment with the bank to be added to the signatory list.”
She stared at him for a microsecond, considering every argument why this was a bad idea. Then she thought of the long nights at work and how she hadn’t left the office before nine o’clock over the last few months, and she pinched her lips together.
Let him sign whatever he wants if it means I get some time back.
They settled down to work and went through each staff member in the first pile of folders, categorising their role and making lists of the tasks that each person did. They also discussed which new staff member each person would be able to help train as the positions were filled. With so many new employees about to join the company they’d need help to on-board each one.
The last thing Cooper wanted was Emily training ten new staff and overseeing their every move. He’d just freed up some of her time; filling it again with low-level tasks that didn’t include him was not part of his master plan.
“Okay, so here’s a tough one.” Emily slid the file across the desk to him. “Heather has worked here for fourteen years. She has two small children and has an impeccable record. The problem is, her technology skills aren’t up to scratch. Somehow she has bumbled through but she does a lot of things manually, when they could be electronic. She has paper files because she doesn’t trust ‘that computer’ as she calls it.”
“Hmm… that can’t be a good use of her time.”
“No, but I wouldn’t want to see her go. It would be mighty unfair of us to finish her up. She’s been an enormous help over the last few months too, always taking on extra work. A little bird told me she did most of the filing for the whole building last month. That can’t have been fun.”
“Okay, so we train her better. Or send her somewhere for training.”
“Good. That’s what I hoped you’d say.”
“I’m glad. I wouldn’t want you to think I was an ogre or anything.” His words resulted in an immediate eye roll and she opened the next folder.
At seven o’clock her phone chimed and she glanced at the screen. “That’s dinner. I’ll be back.”
“Do you need me to come too?”
Emily snickered. “I’m a big girl and I certainly don’t need an escort to the door. Besides, there are still at least ten people hard at work in the office. I think my virtue will remain intact.” She swept out of the room leaving his reply dead on his lips.
When she returned she carried a bag of food, cutlery and two plates. She laid them on the table and slid two cans of drink across the table. He reached for his and looked up at her as he opened the can. “Hey Passiona, you remembered.”
“It was that or Coke.”
“Yes, but you remembered that Passiona is my favourite, didn’t you?”
“Shut up and eat your food.”
They opened the containers and shared out the contents. While they ate Sasha called up to say goodbye and the office gradually quieted down.
“Emily?”
“Mmm…?”
“Before, when I offered to come down with you. I meant did you want me to pay for dinner. I wasn’t implying that you weren’t capable of taking care of yourself.”
She chewed and watched him, feeling sick inside. Here she was telling herself how professional she was, and suddenly she was putting words in his mouth and trying her best to put him in his place. She didn’t normally behave like this and it needed to stop. They needed to call a truce if they were going to make this work. The last thing she needed was to lose her job because she’d reacted badly to him being in the office. “I’m sorry Cooper. I’m on edge, that’s all. It’s been a tough few months, the staff all have trust issues and your arrival hasn’t helped. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, and I certainly didn’t expect you to show up at my workplace. Give me some time and I’ll get it together. Things are moving fast and I just need to adjust.”
“Do you need some time off?”
She frowned at him and anger flared in her chest. “No, I do not need time off. See, that’s what irritates me. Stop being so accommodating. I have a job to do—let me do it.”
“Okay, okay.” He dropped his fork and raised his hands. “No more being nice to you. Got it.”