Page 39 of Protecting Silver
They all shared a laugh, and looked up as the door opened and the security officer for the front desk entered. “Beat me again, Mr. Larson.”
“Sorry,” Finn laughed. On the way up to their offices in the elevator, he explained to the others how he and Sid made it a contest as to who arrived first in the morning. As they stepped off the elevator, Finn waited in the hall and turned in a circle.
“What?” Silver asked.
“What time is Ms. Franklin due to arrive?”
Lorna spoke this time. “I sent her a text to have her come in at seven, that I had some important work to discuss with her. I have no clue if it’ll work or not, because her regular hour to start is at eight, and she doesn’t arrive until closer to nine.”
“She’s late every day?” Deb asked in horror.
“Yes, but she works late when we need her.”
“Won’t do. If she’s scheduled for eight, then she needs to be here at eight. I’ll go to my office and look at the time cards since she’s been here. Please, call me when she arrives.” Before she left to go to her own office, she turned to Finn. “Where do you want us all to meet? The small conference room on the tenth floor?”
“No, right in Silver or Lorna’s office.” He nodded to the two women. “No reason to call attention to ourselves. If that’s okay with you?”
Silver looked at Lorna, and shrugged. “Works for me, I’ll get started on fixing the invitations, so I can get the new and revised version out to Chad before our meeting.” When the others went to say something, she held up her hand and shook her head. “It’ll be easier for me to do it, but when we get Anna’s replacement, then I’ll work with them on how we do things around here.” She nodded and took off down the hall toward her office, leaving the others to go their own way. Silver looked at her watch as she unlocked her office, but frowned and backtracked to Anna’s desk. She looked up and pointed at it to bring Lorna’s attention to it.
“What?”
“That’s the work we gave her to do on Wednesday and Thursday that needed to be done before the close of business on Friday.”
“Shit,” Lorna said as she picked up the files and quickly glanced at them. There were a total of four. She handed two to Silver and took two for herself. “I’ll get right on these.” She headed to her own office, but paused and looked back at Silver. “Thanks for pointing all this out to us, Silver. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have realized anything was wrong.”
“I’m sure you would have eventually.”
“Probably, but I was so used to telling you what I wanted done, and handing you things that I never had to worry about, or question.”
“Thank you,” Silver said, and feeling ten-feet tall at the compliment, she went into her office. She left the lights on, opened the blinds in the windows, left the door open, and got down to work. She didn’t look up until Lorna knocked on her door.
“What’s up?”
“Have you seen Anna? It’s nine thirty and I haven’t seen her yet.” They looked up at the flurry of activity in the doorway, and out at Anna’s desk. She had just arrived, and was putting her purse in her bottom desk drawer, when Finn, Ronnie, and Deb entered Silver’s office.
“Lorna, please have Ms. Franklin come in here,” Finn said sternly. He placed the folding chairs he’d carried in down, and began opening them. Silver looked at Ronnie with raised brows, and looked between her and Finn. Ronnie only shook her head at Silver, and Silver studied Finn’s expression. After remembering what Douglas had said, she knew her boss was pissed.
“What’s up?” Anna asked as she entered, and ignored everyone around her, and looked at Silver. “Lorna said you wanted to talk to me?”
“I do, please have a seat.” Luckily, she and Lorna had discussed how today would go, and Silver didn’t feel like she’d been thrown under the bus.
“I have several things I’d like to discuss with you. First, why are you late? You’re scheduled to be here at eight every morning, it is now well past nine thirty.”
Anna had the audacity to wave her hand in the air, and laugh. “Don’t worry about that, I always stay late to make up the time.”
“That’s not the point. You were hired to be here at eight. If you remember, you are still under the probationary period of ninety days. If you mess up one time during that ninety days, then the Larson Foundation doesn’t have to hire you permanently. Being habitually late could get you fired. Now, onto the next order of business.” Silver didn’t give Anna a chance to blow her off again. “I received a phone call from Chad over at our printers on Saturday, during my day off. He sent me an e-mail with questions on the invitations for Lorna’s and my upcoming fundraisers. This is what you were given to send to Chad, and this is what Chad sent me.” Silver handed over two pieces of paper to Anna, and watched as she took them and read them.
“I don’t see anything wrong with them, why are your harassing me?”
“I’m not harassing you, I’m telling you that you did your job wrong. The information you sent to Chad combined the two separate fundraisers together.” As she explained, Silver took the papers back, and pushed them over to the corner of her desk where Finn sat. He took them and read them, but Silver couldn’t tell if he actually read them, or made it look like he did.
“Why did you combine the two fundraisers, when it clearly has them individually marked out on the orders both Silver and Lorna gave you?” he asked firmly.
For the first time Anna looked at Finn, and frowned. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I did it because it was easier to combine them on the invitation. Less words, saving money.”
“But, they are two different events at two different locations, on two different times. Don’t you think they should have their own invite?”
Anna only shrugged, then actually giggled, “Oopsie.”
