Chapter Seven
Blake
“Here is my concern.” I set down my cup of coffee and glanced at my notes. “I really like the product, I think it’d be a great fit for warehouse and transportation personnel, but I don’t see how our front office employees would benefit from this.”
“Do they have to?” Pam asked, crossing her arms over her chest as she stood beside the spot where her slides were being projected onto the wall of the meeting room. “If we can improve workplace safety by requiring all employees to watch a daily ninety-second video, does it really matter if there are days where it doesn’t apply to everyone?”
Pam was great at her job and fantastic at finding ways to make the business run more efficiently, from a human capital standpoint.
What she wasn’t great at was considering feedback.
“Hear me out, I think it might,” I said, smiling because I didn’t want her to feel defensive. “Because if we create a culture where more than half of our employees think it’s okay to ignore the safety videos because they aren’t applicable, then we risk lessening the value of safety overall as a company. On the other hand, if we were to require only warehouse and transportation workers to watch the videos, then it feels unfair to them, like they’re being singled out, and safety engagement goes down. So though I agree with the idea of ‘greater good’ here, I’m still not sure it’s the right move.”
Brad, my boss, nodded in agreement.
Which made Pam frown.
“Push back, though,” I added, “if you disagree.”
“What if we customize?” I heard from the other end of the table.
I turned to look in the direction I’d purposely avoided looking since Scooter’s Amy had walked in. I’d done a spectacular job of pretending she didn’t exist, but since she was now talking directly to me, I couldn’t really ignore her any longer.
I’d seen her a few times over the past couple of weeks, but we’d both done our best to avoid each other.
When she was stepping into the elevator last Friday, I hung back and waited for the next one. When we both ended up in the break room at the same time yesterday, I ditched my desire for coffee and hightailed it back to my office.
“Our rep assured us they can customize the content, so perhaps we can create separate videos for the front office,” she said. “Videos that speak to their specific roles.”
Jeff, the director of safety, looked at her and said, “What, like, how to avoid paper cuts?”
That immediately made me think of Darryl’s “Nerf life” bit from The Office , but I cleared my throat and inquired, “What exactly are you picturing?”
“How to avoid repetitive motion injuries,” Pam interjected, nodding enthusiastically. “The importance of ergonomics, parking lot safety—”
Nerf life , I thought, and I could tell she was losing Brad with this take. The program had way too big a price tag to justify carpal tunnel warnings. Its primary benefit was prioritizing safety culture within the organization, but this wasn’t that.
“Forgive me for being presumptuous,” Scooter’s Amy said, looking directly at Brad. Her eyes were bright, like she knew she had a good hand, when she added, “But we can also customize the videos to cover more than just physical safety. We can use them for cybersecurity, to train employees on how better to spot phishing attacks. Or for recruiting—how to refer a friend for a job opportunity. It’s even a great way to spread wellness updates and innovations.”
Brad tilted his head and got the look on his face that meant he was interested. Eyebrows down, mouth puckered, fingers stroking chin.
But something about it bugged the shit out of me.
Maybe it was the knowing expression on her face, the way she looked victorious. It rubbed me the wrong way, especially when Scooter’s Amy was probably lying about the system’s capabilities just to get the approval to cross the finish line.
“It can do that?” he asked.
“Oh, absolutely,” she said, nodding and smiling. “We could even roll out the ethics touchpoints via this platform if we wanted to.”
Brad had been all hot and bothered for a while now about launching an ethics module, where the training team would create entertaining videos that served to remind employees of the company’s core values.
“Ethics touchpoints,” I said, looking directly at her. Time to make you squirm, Amy. “Now I’m intrigued. Tell me about ethics, Isabella .”
Izzy
I opened my mouth but had no idea what to say.
“Um.” I cleared my throat and did my best not to glare at him, but it was difficult. I felt all eyes on me as my cheeks burned. “I mean—”
“I know you’re new, so let me give you an example of the concept, and you can tell me if the platform can handle it,” he said, and I really hated the smugness in his tone. There was a ghost of a smirk on his lips. “Let’s say we wanted to create a video on workplace integrity. The training team might come up with some sort of anecdote showing an employee as they decide whether or not to take something that isn’t theirs, or perhaps make a choice whether or not to tell a lie.”
“Okay…?” I said, looking at Pam, who didn’t appear to be aware of what he was doing. I felt like I was getting stabbed in front of an entire conference room full of people who had no idea it was happening as Blake looked at me like he was enjoying himself.
Why won’t he let this go? Does he seriously equate my latte pilferage with employee theft?
“Obviously the point of the video would be to show that integrity means doing the right thing, even when no one is watching,” he said, and his annoyingly chiseled jaw did that clench-unclench thing again. “Do you think a ninety-second piece could achieve that?”
“I, um, I think it’d actually be perfect,” I said, trying to focus on the question and not his accusing undertones. My face was burning and my forehead felt hot, but I managed to answer, “A quick hit could be far more impactful than something longer.”
“Go on,” Brad said, and I appreciated the fact that he didn’t look like he wanted to squash me. He actually looked interested, which immediately gave me the spark I needed.
I met Blake’s judgmental stare and felt my own almost smirk forming when I said, “Well, Brad, the video Blake described could come off as sanctimonious or perhaps a little overblown in a longer format.”
This time I felt supremely satisfied when I saw the telltale jaw flex, like I’d achieved a goal I hadn’t known I’d been striving for. I tilted my head, kept my eyes on Blake’s, and said, “But I really think the brevity of this delivery system can soften the judgmental preachiness of what Blake described and produce something relatable.”
“Absolutely,” Pam said, giving me a grin as she nodded. “We have complete control over the content, so the sky’s the limit.”
I smiled back at her, feeling great about my contribution to what was basically a sales pitch. We needed Blake and Brad to okay the expenditure, so even though we weren’t salespeople, we were working our asses off to sell it to them in order to use the package for safety support.
By the time the meeting wrapped up, Pam was laughing with Brad, and we had the green light to move forward. I was absolutely energized as I trailed behind them, feeling so engaged already in this new job that I wanted to skip down the hallway.
“Isabella,” I heard from behind me, and I gritted my teeth. “Can you hang back for a sec?”
I slowly turned around, and Blake was the only other person still in the meeting room.
And he didn’t look happy.
He was wearing another nice suit—navy, this time—and today’s glasses were tortoiseshell, but all of that attractive stylishness didn’t change the fact that he was glaring at me like I’d just carved my name into the side of his car with a rock.
“Sure,” I bit out, looking over my shoulder as the other meeting attendees left the room, hearing Rose’s voice in Titanic when the lifeboats were leaving. Come back! Come back! I turned back to him and said, “What’s up?”
I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t for him to walk across the room, closing the distance between us so he was standing right in front of me. He was tall, so he towered over me in his GQ style while glowering down at me.
Towering and glowering sound ridiculous together.
He was ridiculous.
He glanced over my head, toward the door, before lowering his voice and saying, “You do know that the expectation of honesty is not sanctimonious, correct? I guess I’d just like to clarify this, because it was a little alarming to hear a new employee casually disregard ethics as something overblown. ”
He was too close, and it was messing with my ability to think.
I hated his attitude and everything he was saying, yet my eyes were stuck on his mouth and my nose was stuck on his subtle cologne and my ears were getting lost in the low timbre of his deep voice.
He was looking down at me, and it felt like the air between us was thick and volatile, like the space between a magnet and steel as the two were being pulled closer together.
A wrinkle formed between his eyebrows as he watched me, and his Adam’s apple moved around a swallow, just above his tie.
Man, that is a muscular neck.
“Um,” I said, flustered all of a sudden.
“Um?” His voice was even quieter now, and I swear I saw his eyes dip down to my mouth.
“Um,” I repeated, clearing my throat, and somehow that noise cleared away the fog.
Instantly I was back, staring up into the glowering, towering face of the jerk who treated me like a criminal because of a tiny little latte crime. I lifted my chin and said, “I’m sorry to have alarmed you, Mr. Phillips, but please know that my disregard was not for ethics at all, but for a sanctimonious video that might potentially be perceived as overblown.”
He didn’t say anything, just glared—glowered—down at me.
“I have to go now,” I said, stepping around him to walk toward the door. “Have a nice day.”
I was so happy to have the last word as I strode out of the conference room, feeling like a final-word-delivering badass, but then he ruined it by saying, “Watch out for that rug.”
The instant I tripped over the puckered rug that lay in the hallway, just outside the room.
And you know how sometimes you say things on autopilot in a physical situation, like muttering damn it when you stub your toe on the coffee table? Yeah, well, that was the only explanation for how I could’ve possibly said through clenched teeth, to my boss’s boss , the words “Thanks a lot, jackass.”
Just as I face-planted in the hallway.