Oh Stupid Heart by Liza O'Connor Page B

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