Work Trip

Chapter One

He’s done it again.

I can hardly believe it. No, scrap that. I can absolutely believe it. He does it all the time, actually. The words in his email roll through me, soaking into my blood system until my limbs are rattling. I breathe in for three then slowly exhale away the stress for ten. Amongst the background noise of work chatter, gossiping and coffee machines hissing, I find peace in this modern glass building. I will not let him destroy that peace.

“How do you say, ‘ You’re a total dipshit, I hope you and your idea fall into a pit of misery and despair ,’ without it sounding unprofessional?” I ask my assistant, Gemma, who looks up from her desk, her hazel eyes blinking over her screen.

“I think it’s ‘I appreciate your interest in this matter. However, the situation is in hand’?” Then in a lower voice, she whispers, “What’s he done now?”

I massage my eyebrows as I stare furiously at my laptop. Gemma is used to these altercations now. She’s a seasoned employee here. “He’s trying to say he can make more money using our cosy lounge area for our VIP customers by putting another hospitality marquee there instead.”

I delete my last comment: Are you actually kidding? Or are you maybe a bit stupid? , and try for something less sassy whilst also retaining that tone of – you’re a sneaky weasel and I’m going to get you back . Professionally, of course.

“Is it direct to Michael?” Gemma asks, a flit of concern in her expression.

I peek across the modern office and notice our CEO, who is the key decision-maker around here, talking to someone in the main kitchen.

Well, at least he isn’t reading his emails yet.

I nod at Gemma, angry-typing as I respond. I write, Thank you so much for your idea. I can see you put a lot of thought into this. However, as you already know, we are far too close to the event to incorporate these changes.

“Yes, it’s direct to Michael,” I say. “And I’ve only seen it because Fiona copied me into a reply. He’s a sneaky…” There are too many rude words to choose from so I trail off, undecided.

Fiona, our Head of Finance, tends to take my side on things, but I’m pretty sure she enjoys fuelling the drama. She’s always the first to hit the karaoke at work events. And since she mostly organises them, there is nearly always a karaoke. Often Abba themed. Her red hair, once fairly natural looking, has been getting brighter by the month. She mentioned she was battling greys, now in her early fifties, and she’s often trotting off to the hair salon down the road. I imagine her colluding with the stylist, picking a colour closer to atomic red each time she goes.

“Rajesh has already shown his support of the new idea,” I add with a pained sigh. Rajesh being the Head of Operations. He’s almost impossible to get to respond to an email, so I assume the enemy had to practically lean over his shoulder to get his written endorsement.

I take a deep breath, trying to push down the tight pang of panic building across my abdomen. I’ve done well to secure Head of Marketing by my thirtieth birthday. Even if I must say so myself. But it’s taken sheer determination, long hours, magically forgetting I haven’t used even half of my annual leave and networking with the Board of Directors on what some might describe as arse-licking levels. I have dignity, it’s just not as much as other people. I’m driven and I know where I want to go.

I joined The Starr Agency six years ago and progressed my way up the ranks by showing dedication to the cause. We work with local parks in the city, throwing pop-up musical festivals. The company has been growing fast because we offer a range of options to suit those on a lower budget and corporate clients who want to spoil their customers with a suave dinner in a specially designed pop-up restaurant.

It’s been growing in popularity, to the extent we are now being invited to major sporting events to run mini festivals within their larger events.

It’s great for business. It’s bad for my social and mental wellbeing.

But it’s worth it. Michael Starr, our esteemed leader and creator of the company, has been hinting about making me a director. Only last week, in my monthly appraisal, he said, “You’re now portraying all the behaviours we’d expect to see in someone even more senior than yourself.” And the other day, his email to the heads of departments very clearly set out his plan to promote internally since his very strange (incredibly handsy) and elderly uncle stood down from the board. When I’ve finally shown my worth, I can start reeling in the money in a big way, and all the sweat and tears I’ve committed to this point will be worth it.

Only problem is, there’s a hurdle.

A greasy-salesman-shaped hurdle.

James Boatman.

And he’s a real pain in my arse.

I growl as another email comes through. Gemma sits taller, rolling her chair back to stand and make her way to the kitchen. She knows how I like my coffee and I’m guessing she’s sensing an incoming implosion. The machine rumbles to life, hissing the liquid into my mug. Our little kitchen is mostly a cupboard with a sink beside our cubicle. I got it installed so I didn’t have to waste time going to and from the main kitchen all day.

“Michael’s just replied suggesting we discuss James’ idea further in this morning’s meeting. But what is there to discuss? Seriously? We’re three weeks out from the event and we’ve sold seventy per cent of the VIP tickets. We’ll easily sell the rest. What do we do for those who’ve purchased it already? Downgrade them? That’ll go well.” I suck in a big gulp of air for mental strength before pressing my fingers to my eyelids. “Why is everyone trying to make me cry? Why can’t Gloatman just back off this one time!?”

James’ surname is Boatman, but since he makes a point in the end-of-month company “show and tell” to make a huge song and dance about every single bloody sale he makes, it was my genius idea to call him Gloatman.

Ok, so it’s not particularly clever.

It was annoying when he found out what I was calling him, and instead of being incredibly offended, wrote it at the top of his sales board as if he was proud of it.

I don’t know what he calls me, but I’m sure he does call me something.

Oh god, there’s a prickling behind my eyes. I shake out my limbs. I will not allow myself to cry. Part of being a successful businesswoman is being able to offset the tears in a moment of weakness and let them flood out at a point when nobody can see.

Which, admittedly, is becoming increasingly frequent.

“Drink this,” Gemma says, placing a milky coffee down in front of me. It’ll have three sugars in it. The rich aroma wafts into my nostrils in a sensational way.

My battle drink. My sweet kick of fury. My caffeine booster.

I nod, murmuring a thanks to my loyal colleague as she returns to her desk. I roll my shoulders, slap my palms together a few times and sip in between aggressive typing. Then I hit print on our ticket sale statistics for last week.

Once I’m ready, I leave our corner of the skyrise office opposite Liverpool Street station and head towards the other side where Michael’s conference suite resides. I try very hard not to bristle when I spot James already sitting in the chair closest to Michael’s, leaning back casually as if he hasn’t purposefully beaten me by arriving seven minutes early. He has his usual classic salesman appearance. Matt-black hair gelled immaculately. Gleaming shoes. A fine, expensive-looking three-piece suit with a teal tie that brings out the blue in his eyes. I’ll give him something, he has a nice nose. It’s long, with a little bump in the middle. James’s appearance oozes with an irritating confidence that I’ve always thought gives off Matthew McConaughey vibes.

“Gloatman,” I say.

He smiles, but it’s not a friendly smile, more calculating. I imagine he’s saying my nickname in his head. The fact that I don’t know what that is only irritates me to the extent that I want to turn this building upside down in order to retrieve it.

But no… deep breaths. Deep breaths.

Finally, his smile fades as he turns his chair back towards the table where he has a notepad. He fiddles with it in his lap, using his long fingers to spin his pen. “Felicity.”

“It’s Fliss.”

“I know,” he replies without looking at me.

Then say, FLISS!

My christened name is Felicity and nobody except for my parents (and Gloatman) have called me it in about twenty years. Granted, it was an error on my part. James started at Starr a few months before me, and on my first day, as I was being shown around and introduced to everyone, my nerves got the better of me. I said my name was Felicity. And he’s never forgotten it, even though I sign off my emails as Fliss.

I take my seat opposite his. This way I’m close to Michael if not exactly closest thanks to the oval shape of his office. I’m a stark contrast to James, in his dark tweed suit, with my flowery patterned dress that flares from the waist down to my knees. My dark brown hair, which I attempt to straighten every morning into a semi-acceptable state, is naturally thick, pulled neatly backwards by my fuchsia Alice band. My nails are currently painted a pastel blue, my kitten heels are from Irregular Choice and are exactly that, covered in sequins.

James always looks as if he’s about to step onto an episode of The Apprentice . Whereas I look more like I’m going to a summer wedding.

“Did you see my email?” he asks, raising an eyebrow in a telling way.

I look up, fixing him with a narrowed stare. He knows I’ve seen it. “Did you get a chance to read my reply?”

He makes a face, a sort of arrogant smirk, which suggests he did. Damn it. I should’ve added a read receipt. “Unfortunately, I haven’t had the pleasure. I’m sure it was incredibly insightful.”

Bastard!

Before I can load a useful response on my tongue, the rest of the team starts filing in. There are five main departments at The Starr Agency: Events, Sales, Marketing, Operations, Finance and HR. HR is literally Mel in her own little office where people go to be fired or hired.

They take their seats, sipping on their drinks whilst I watch my nemesis across from me. We smile overly politely. The room is too hot, or at least I am, so I remove my cardigan and hang it on my chair. James has gone back to making notes on his pad. What’s he writing? Does he have a plan for this meeting? He often comes prepared with his irritating ability to woo people.

Except me, that is.

I see right through his appealing front door, past the lavish exterior, the dark blue eyes and toned arms – tight against his sleeves, and see the arse that he really is. He knows the consequences for me and my team if we don’t hit our targets for ticket sales. We don’t earn as many bonuses as the sales team. In fact, we earn only one a year and our success is hinged on this event he is trying to ruin for us.

“Good morning, Dream Team,” Michael sings in his jubilant way as he enters the room, walking round to take his seat at the head of the table.

Admittedly, Michael’s a strange one. Some would call him quirky. I value his input and calm leadership here. But he does have this tendency to sway between marketing and sales like one of those old-school gameshows with the spinning wheels. He could land anywhere. It makes me both tense and agitated, whilst also maintaining a sense of hope that I have a fifty per cent chance of taking the enemy down.

He’s pretty reliable in some ways. He always wears a white shirt, no tie – a few buttons undone at the top and a pair of standard grey work trousers. Even when this office is verging on chilly, he’ll only wear the shirt. And yet, he’s also the most unpredictable decision-maker I’ve ever met. It makes him hard to work for. Never really knowing what he’s going to do next.

I try not to grind my teeth when he touches James’ shoulder as he passes. “How were your weekends?”

We all look around waiting for someone to speak first. It’s one of those frustrating moments because none of us actually care how each other’s weekends were. However, it is an unwritten rule that we should at least pretend to.

“I went fishing with my cousin,” Rajesh offers. I inwardly sigh. Rajesh is in his late forties but looks older. He’s lovely, but frustrating to communicate with when his stress levels peak at ten, yet mine can launch well over a thousand in a matter of minutes. It’s hard to get him to understand the sheer depth of importance of some tasks. For example, branded signage being positioned in the correct places for maximum visibility. Or sponsored merchandise being worn by our event staff. I suspect he thinks we’re all a bit mad.

“Marvellous,” Michael grins, his teeth glinting.

Michael, the man behind this whole enterprise, comes from money, I think… Actually, I only assume. We don’t know very much about him at all. With his silvery-dark hair and spookily pale eyes, he’s a mystery to me in many ways. He never seems to be tired. I regularly receive emails from him in the middle of the night and I’m still yet to see him eat.

Obviously, there are rumours. I don’t involve myself in them. But I know people around the office joke that he’s a vampire. Or a ghoul. Someone once suggested he was a cannibal.

I silence my mind in case he can read it. At that exact moment, he turns his head to smile at me in his eccentric way, full mouthed, stretched cheeks, as if he heard me thinking. I open my mouth to say something, but James beats me to it.

“How was your weekend, Michael?”

Slimy git.

“Exactly as you’d expect it to be, James. Kind of you to ask,” he replies. Ever the mystery.

James gives Michael a polite nod before turning to me with a slightly less enthusiastic grin. “What about you, Felicity? Get lots done?”

I laugh in polite corporate. He knows I did. The reason he knows is because we were the only two sad fools to be logged in on Saturday afternoon, replying to Michael’s many emails. “It was sublime, thank you, James. And how was yours? Did you manage to get away from your laptop for a few hours?” I round this off with a pity face.

“Hilarious,” he mutters, his grin faltering. “Yes, thank you, Felicity.”

There’s a moment of strained silence. I physically feel it in my chest but force myself not to fill it with some unhelpful nonsense. No. We need to get to the heart of the matter. I, however, will not be the one to cause the friction in our first meeting on a Monday morning.

James purses his lips before finding his stellar grin again, leaning towards Michael in his typical flirtatious way. “What did you think of my idea then, boss?”

Let’s bloody go…

I say, “If you had gotten to my email before this meeting, James, you would have seen that it is far too late to be incorporating changes…”

“As I said a moment ago, Felicity, unfortunately the sales team were very busy this morning, so I was unable to make time for your reply. However, if you had fully read the email thread, you would’ve noticed my idea has already been endorsed by the ops team.”

He means Rajesh. He means he walked up to Rajesh and told him to write a response.

My smile is corporate cyanide as I lace my fingers together on the table. “That’s really great. I’m so glad you took the initiative to get this project signed off by Rajesh. And I did see that part of the thread. Thank you for highlighting it to me again. The trouble is, you have forgotten that you need both Marketing and Finance to sign this off too.”

Michael looks between us, as James blinks at me. I notice the quiver in his cheeks and along his rigid jawline. He knows he’s got to play his best cards to win this because I’m not going to budge.

He talks quickly, clearly. “As Marketing will remember…” I’m Marketing now – hilarious. I’m not a person, I am an entire department. “… we’ve almost sold out of hospitality places for the final event of the summer. We could easily close out another marquee. The profit would absolutely annihilate anything VIP tickets can achieve. Although I admire and support all the work Marketing have done to bring this about, Marketing should be realistic about the way business works.”

The way business works? What a patronising…

My smile is making my jaw ache, but I must win this battle now. Time for some swift blows. “Of course, Marketing is very aware of how business works. Thank you for your concern in this matter.” I cringe as I say, “It would help, however, if Sales were more aware of the work that goes into the last efforts of organising the events, as it mostly comes down to the dedication of the other departments to achieve this. For example, where would you put the kitchens?” I ask, tilting my head in a patronising way to mirror James’ tone. “What about the menus? Sales have less than three weeks to finalise it. And the sales team aren’t always as reliable as we would like—”

James laughs with volume to interrupt me. “Don’t go for my team,” he says, his pitch raising slightly, his teeth gritted. Ooh, he’s protective of his aggressive slime bags. I’m yet to meet a salesperson in his team who has any kind of office-kitchen etiquette. At work events they’re always the loudest, rudest and most inappropriate. Annoyingly, Michael tends to turn a blind eye.

We, being my lovely marketing crew, are usually trying to have a pleasant evening of laughter and food whilst they’re mashing it up with shots, shots, shots and glugging beer back like it’s going out of style.

“Sales needs to consider the fact that there’s absolutely no guarantee you can sell the tables in that timeframe,” I reiterate. “And even if you can, what about the sixty people who’ve already paid for the VIP tickets? Marketing sold another twelve last week alone. We’re at seventy per cent capacity. Marketing can easily get this to the one hundred per cent.”

Gosh, even I’m talking about myself as if I’m an entire department now.

“The sales team deserve the chance to exceed their bonuses, and this would allow them that,” James says directly to Michael, not even bothering to include me now. He gets straight to the heart of the matter. Money. That’s all he cares about anyway.

“Erm… excuse me? When making business decisions, please consider all the departments it will affect,” I say. In other words, stop being a selfish prick.

“Thank you for pointing this out, Felicity,” James says. “Unfortunately, when you look at the bigger picture success of the company, you’ll know the bonuses your department achieve are incredibly minimal compared to Sales so—”

I scoff. “Marketing deserve their bonuses too.”

He makes a face. “Sorry, I wasn’t aware the middle of my sentence was interrupting the start of yours.”

Ugh. Shots fired. I have no response to this. I glare across at Gloatman. In fairness, I did interrupt, but he’s done it to me too.

After a moment, he continues, “And besides, you’re only marketing. You don’t mind working on your salaries. My team require bonuses for motivation.”

“Isn’t selling their job? Like marketing is ours?” I ask through the last shreds of my cheek muscles.

James gives me one of those oh-you-poor-thing expressions, wrinkling his nose. “You don’t understand how this works.”

I laugh, frustration lacing the sound. “Although I appreciate your concern about my understanding, sales are in constant need of financial incentive. Their motivation levels are lacking, and it may be time for their leader to look inwardly at this challenge. They’ve already hit their bonuses. Why do they need to exceed them?”

James turns back to Michael again as if I haven’t even made an iota of a point. I notice I’m clenching and unclenching my fist on the table. The line between professional behaviour and physical violence is sometimes scarily thin.

“The profit target has been met. Sales can exceed it. Let us do this. It will look so, so good to the board. You know it too. Rajesh has already endorsed my idea. The kitchens can be extended. The furniture can be hired. It’s all ready to go.”

“No, no, no…” I say, leaning in towards our leader too. “What about our clientele? We can’t just let them down. I thought your vision, Michael, was to bring joy to local communities. If we continue to remove affordable options in lieu of expensive corporate stuff how does that impact our long-term goals?”

“Our long-term goals don’t mean shit unless we’re driving a steady profit,” James retorts.

“Which we are…”

“No thanks to Marketing. You’ll find the real profit is achieved through Sales.”

“Which is consistently supported by Marketing,” I grin, but my teeth are set together.

“Entirely against the point. That is the purpose of your department.”

“As is Sales to… erm… What is their role again?” I make a show of tapping my chin. “Oh yes, that’s it. To. Sell. ”

Gloatman is giving me his full attention now, nervous energy seeping from his pores. Maybe it’s the way he’s gripping his pen. I have a feeling he’s already committed to his idea. I have a feeling he’s already sold some of the tables. I have a feeling he’s not going to let this one slide.

Well, hard luck for him. Neither am I! We stare each other down as if the other might crack.

“I see this is quite the debate,” Michael intercedes. “I support both your points of view here. You make very strong arguments. As you know, I like to be led by my team, and if Fiona is in support of Fliss, then it means we are split down the middle.”

We all turn to Fiona for her wide-eyed nod of confirmation. She’s an angel. Always has my back. I’m convinced I hear James curse in response.

Michael is no longer smiling but watching us with a worried expression. At some point during the discussion, he’s rolled his shirt sleeves up, and I notice his arms are completely hairless.

Vampire…

“I think the whole team needs a break,” he says calmly. “A nice corporate away day to boost morale and rejuvenate.”

Oh, absolutely not. We’re three weeks out from an event. There’s so much to do. He’s done this before, dragging us to some random event in Paris for a “learning experience”, and it was a nightmare. I ended up working through a whole night to get everything done.

“No. No, it’s fine—” I say, as James says, “I would advise against—”

Michael holds up a hand. “I think we all need a break.” He smiles again in his unnerving way. “You are my team. I can’t have you disagreeing like this. I will make a decision about James’ idea after our… away day.” He nods to himself as if he’s having his own internal discussion about this. “Yes. I think some team building will be good for all of us. An adventure. Somewhere different… Yes. Somewhere but nowhere.”

“We really need a quick decision,” James pipes up.

He’s silenced with a calm but stern expression. “No decisions should be made in such a rushed way my fearless leaders. You require time to choose wisely.”

James opens his mouth to object again, but Michael goes on. “Don’t worry. I think we should go away imminently. Clear your calendars for the rest of the week. No exceptions. I’ll let you know the details by end of play today. Team dismissed.”