Day 4

This is one of those nights. I didn’t think I was going to be able to write. My mind was not in the right place, my spirit was not in the right place. But I made a vow, and I am going to keep it. Thanks to a random first line generator, I was able to get started. A new story for you.

CENTRAL CASTING

He wanted her job, and it would be easy for him to get it. Ever since he started, Angela looked over her shoulder, watching, waiting, expecting the ax to fall on her head. He was everything the company looked for in an executive…young, tall, muscular…he looked the part. She could hear them saying it behind her back. “Straight from Central Casting.” She’d heard that so many times…and they knew she heard it. They meant her to hear it.

Face it, Angela, she told her reflection. You are not straight from Central Casting. To begin with, you are female. And you are middle-aged. And while not overweight, you are not as thin as you used to be. You have gray in your hair, and are starting to get wrinkles around your eyes. Yes, but what about my years of experience? My education? The fact that I saved them more than a million dollars last year by those improvements in efficiency…and without laying anyone off or cutting salaries, so there was no negative PR?

Her reflection didn’t really answer; she wasn’t the sort who believed her mirror image talked to her in the women’s room. Still, her reflection had a point. Derek was not qualified, no matter how you sliced and diced his resume. Even the star struck board that watched him with greedy eyes would not put a college drop-out who had never held a job for more than eight months in charge of a division. They were hard-headed businessmen, and would never…she stuck out her tongue at her reflection, and went back to work.

Derek chose a seat right in the front row, center seat. Everyone could see him. Angela tried not to look at him; she didn’t realize he’d signed up for her leadership seminar. His name wasn’t on the roster of students. She debated sending him out, but decided to let him stay. Making a scene about an unauthorized student might be worse than training someone who hadn’t been authorized.

It was only an hour into the class when Angela realized she had lost control. Everything she said, every point she tried to make, was countered by the one student who wasn’t supposed to be there. For everything, he had a “Yes, but…” and managed to tune out all the reasons his ideas wouldn’t work in a leadership position. His proposals were nothing short of a dictator, a demigod who ordered staff rather than led them. She tried to bring the lesson back to the leadership qualities the company tried to inculcate, but Derek continued to derail the class. Now he was surrounded by admiring students, gazing into his dark eyes with awe.

Not all of them. There was a small core of long-time employees clustered at the other end of the front row. Their looks would have killed Derek if he bothered to take notice of them. Instead, he flirted with the young women who surrounded him, ready to allow him to lead them…order them, Angela thought sourly…anywhere. He expounded on his theories of leadership to all who would listen.

“Can we…go somewhere else for the training?” One of the men in the cluster of disapprovers approached her. “We aren’t going to get anything accomplished here.” He threw a withering glance at Derek, but there were too many young employees around him; he didn’t see.

Angela gathered her notes and her handouts and led the students who wanted actual leadership training to the smaller conference room on the second floor. They spent the morning finishing up what should have been finished in the first hour; they opted for only a short lunch break, hoping the delay didn’t push their training off schedule. Angela spent the lunch period scouring her lesson plan for any fat that could be trimmed to get them back on track.

Colin was leaning on her desk when she got back to her office. She sighed. She didn’t want to deal with him today. She was exhausted and wanted to go home. “What happened?”

“When?” Angela hated the way Colin always asked questions without enough information to answer.

“I was told your leadership class was…astonishingly inept and archaic, and that you presented ideas that were…well, their words, not mine…as old as you are.”

“The ideas I presented were the latest in leadership. I keep up to date, you know that. I did have an issue in class, but it wasn’t with what I was trying to teach.”

“Did you have a student who wasn’t signed up?”

“Yes. I have not been told to throw out unauthorized students, so I let him stay.”

“Sounds to me like it’s a good thing you did. The students got a better lesson from him than from you, by all reports.”

“By all reports?” Angela allowed the skepticism to show in her voice. “Have you heard from all the students?”

“We heard from enough. I’ve decided to replace you as teacher of the leadership series. I think I’ll give Derek a shot at it. From what I’m told, he is a natural.”

“What qualifications does he have?” Angela knew the answer to that; she had Derek’s resume, and she had worked with him for long enough. He had no qualifications in leadership.

“Some people just have a natural aptitude.” Colin left without giving her a chance to respond. Which might be just as well, because she might have told him what she thought about Derek’s natural aptitudes. She slammed her briefcase shut and headed home.

“Angela?” Leia poked her head in the door. “Are you busy?”

“Come on in. I can make time.” Angela cleared quarterly reports off the chair and piled them on the floor. “Sit down. Tell me what’s bothering you.” From the look on Leia’s face, it was obvious this wasn’t a social call.

“I…well…” She stammered, her usual confidence gone, replaced by…was that fear? “I…what…do I have…the right…to report someone? If they…behave inappropriately?”

“Of course. Has someone been out of line?”

“It’s…well, you know that new guy? Derek?”

Angela shrank. Damn. No matter where she turned, she couldn’t get away from Derek. She passed the conference room earlier, where he had taken over the leadership training, and listened. Talk about archaic ideas…his went back to Genghis Khan. “Yes, I know him.”

“He…well, he…sits on my desk. He…flirts with me. I know, it doesn’t sound like much, but I don’t want him to. I asked him not to, I told him I wasn’t interested, but he won’t go away. He…whistled at me just a minute ago…I was passing the door where he was teaching, and right in front of everyone…whistled at me. It was…humiliating.”

The next few days were a flurry of meetings and more meetings. Meetings with HR. Meetings with the higher ups. Meetings with the board. Meetings with Derek and Leia and Angela and anyone else they could think to have a meeting with. All the women were questioned; they all swore Derek never even noticed them, he spent his time working, he never made a single inappropriate word or gesture. The students from the leadership class swore he never whistled at her, though Angela was sure she wasn’t the only one who saw the winks and the grins they gave each other. The students who had left with her that first day were no help, because they dropped the training when she was replaced with Derek.

Angela supposed she should have known where it would end. She packed up her office and tapped on Colin’s door. “You have a minute?”

“Only a minute.” He growled. He hated being interrupted.

“I wanted to bring you this in person.” She handed him her resignation.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“I do.”

“We’ll keep you on…in a…different…capacity. You’ve been with us a long time.”

“I don’t wish to stay.” She handed him the other memo, the one she received by anonymous messenger, shoved under her door in a plain envelope. She checked it out; it was legitimate. The whole thing was a set up. Oh, not Leia. She was a pawn…used in their awful game. The memo detailing how nice it would be to move her out and replace her with Derek. He has the right optics, according to the memo. She makes us look like…a boarding school. A kitchen operation. She…well, let’s face it, she’s let herself go. She’s old. She was actually twenty years younger than the man who wrote the memo. And, yes, the memo contained the phrase she’d heard. Derek…he’s straight from Central Casting. And we won’t have to act so…proper…around him, the memo finished.

Colin read the paper; his face got red. It was the first time since this nightmare started that Angela saw him embarrassed or upset. He had played along with the old boys network from the beginning.

“I hope you don’t think I was part of this”, he stammered, his assured manner falling away.

“I have no reason not to. I expect you will accept my resignation.” She laid the paper on Colin’s desk and left.

Derek was in her office when she got there. “Just checking it out”, he said. “They told me I can get whatever furniture I want. This is so…well, it’s not hip.” He measured the bookcase. “This will have to go. I need that wall.” He put down the measuring tape and stared at her. He laughed. “Yeah, I guess the office wouldn’t be hip.”

Angela took the box from her desk and headed for the door. Tomorrow she would start the job search. Colin stopped her. “Please”, he said. “Tell them to contact me. I’ll give you a good recommendation. Don’t let them go through HR.”

Angela didn’t answer. She knew Colin would be sucking up to Derek starting tomorrow morning when he began his new position. She didn’t care. She wasn’t there any more. Derek wanted her job, and he knew it would be easy for him to get it. He looked the part.