SEATTLE’S REPUTATION for dreary grey skies and unrelenting rains should’ve been the first strike against me ever moving here. The second strike should’ve been a tie between any of the things that made my weeks crawl by at a snail’s pace: The standstill traffic that clogged the streets in the afternoons, the shallow dating pool that left me dry for months, and the excruciatingly boring boardroom meetings that made me wonder why I ever traded in a career where I used my hands for this soft man, paper-pushing, suit and tie shit.
Nonetheless, the third strike was the one I didn’t see coming. It blindsided me, cost me millions of dollars, and made me realize that some numbers do lie. When I bought this company—Pier Autumn Coffee, I was told that I would have full control of every aspect.
What they didn’t tell me was that this company was secretly working on an IPO, and since I’d foolishly failed to do my research weeks before the sale, I had to come to the realization that I hadn’t really “bought” a company at all. I’d bought a bunch of fucking shares, and even as CEO, every executive decision I made would have to be vetted with a sixteen-member board. A board that I hated from day one.
They thought I was petty, and I thought they were too uptight. They thought I wasn’t levelheaded enough, since I “only saw things in black and white,” and I thought (No, I knew) that I was the only billionaire in the room, so their opinions didn’t matter.
We were stuck with each other, and the employees were often forced to pick sides. So, I mercilessly fired whoever picked theirs.
As of today, though, I was putting an end to our war. I was hosting the entire executive team on my superyacht and penning a new set of company rules as a way to make a truce.
“Is ‘If any of you ever go behind my back and ask the board for a second opinion, I guarantee that I will fucking fire you’ too harsh, Blue?” I looked over at the only person I trusted, my grey and white Siberian Husky. “Do you think I should leave it at that, or add another clause?”
He barked three times.
“You’re right.” I clicked my pen. “I’ll add another clause.”
“Mr. Holmes?” My Chief of Customer Service, Glinda, stepped into my office. “Mr. Holmes, can I give you the rest of those stats you asked for?”
“Only if you can sum it up by the time I finish my next sentence.” I added, ‘I will withhold your paycheck and find a way to sue the hell out of you’ to my manifesto.
“Dunkin’ Donuts beat us in three categories, Starbucks beat us in two, but we beat both of them in seven.”
“Great. Thanks.” I waited to hear the sound of her heels clacking against my floor, the door shutting right after, but she was standing still with her arms crossed.
“Is there something else, Glinda?” I asked.
“Yes.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “I have two kids in college, a four-thousand-dollar mortgage, and a seven-hundred-dollar monthly car note. I also have an expensive cable bill, a very high utility bill, and I’m still paying on my forty-thousand-dollar student debt from over a decade ago.”
I blinked. “I’m not really in the business of offering personal loans to employees, since I already sign off on your paycheck twice a month,” I said, smiling. “But if you’re asking for my financial advice, it sounds like you’re living a lifestyle you can’t afford yet. I suggest cutting the cable…”
“This isn’t about asking you for a goddamn loan or wanting your financial advice,” she hissed. “This is about something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about for a long time, something I’ve had on my chest for far too long since you took the reins here.”
I leaned back in my chair, tempted to fire her for interrupting my manifesto with what was clearly bullshit, but I motioned for her to finish.
“I don’t think you understand that having a job, or not having a job, affects someone’s livelihood, Mr. Holmes. People have to earn money to survive.”
I raised my eyebrow. I knew that fact all too well; I’d done hard, physical labor for most of my life and I’d only come into money a little under ten years ago.
“You can’t keep firing people on a whim, whenever and wherever you feel like it,” she said, “and I can’t afford to not have a sense of job security.” She pulled an envelope from her purse and set it in front of me. “As of this moment, I’m done with you and Pier Autumn Coffee. I’m taking a job at Starbucks before you find a way to put me on the chopping block next.”
“I honestly had no plans to fire you, Glinda.” Until next month. “And I actually haven’t fired anyone in a very long time.”