Page 45 of Just a Taste
As the kitchen fills with warmth, I can’t help but admire how Noelle’s face softens in the cool light. Her eyes are sparkling with a mixture of determination and relief, and there’s a fire in her that I haven’t seen in a while.
She turns to me with a grin. ‘There we go. That’ll heat up nicely as long as we keep the door closed.’
I return the smile, feeling a warmth that has nothing to do with the Aga blooming in my chest.
I’m not a religious man, but I say a silent prayer of thanks to the owners of this home who installed, and left, the Aga before I moved in. I’d been half-heartedly considering replacing it with something more my style when I bought the property, but Roland had been aghast at the suggestion and ultimately convinced me to keep it.
The warmth of the Aga has become a silent companion in the kitchen, its steady hum a backdrop to the clattering of keys on my laptop. I’ve commandeered one end of the table, my laptop open in front of me with a seemingly endless stream of spreadsheets up on the screen. I’d rather be in my office, with both of my large screens, but this will have to do.
After showering and getting dressed in another pair of my sweats and a hoodie, Noelle comes back downstairs into the kitchen and spends most of the day peering through my cupboards and taking notes on her phone.
‘Might as well get started on restock,’ she said with a shrug when I asked her what she was doing. ‘Nothing else to do.’
And that’s how we spend our day. Noelle methodically going through my groceries, taking notes on her phone, and writing down recipe ideas as they come to mind. And me, hunched over my laptop, trying to make sense of the numbers swirling on my screen. It’s strange how fast the time passes and how normal it feels to have Noelle in such close proximity while I work.
‘You look like you’re about to put a fist through your screen.’
Her voice cuts through the click-clack of my dismal dance with numbers. I look up, finding her leaning against the counter, wooden spoon in hand, her expressive eyes fixed on me with what I think is genuine curiosity.
They’re the first few words we’ve shared in at least an hour.
‘I just might.’
She gives me a small smile and tilts her head. ‘Trouble in tech paradise?’
I lean back in my chair, feeling the weight of my Board’s expectations pressing down on me. This isn’t something I’d normally talk about with anyone aside from Luca, but I don’t feel any of the apprehension and irritation I usually do when it comes to Noelle. ‘The Board wants me to trim the fat. Cut corners.’ My hand instinctively clenches into a fist beneath the table, my fingers desperate to wrap around the stress ball I keep at my HoxTech offices. ‘But I built this company based on the idea ofquality. Not quantity. And definitely not profit.’
That’s how it started anyway. I was tired of buying products that fell apart or ultimately became obsolete after a few years. I didn’t want my products to be added to the piles of mass-produced, useless garbage floating somewhere in the Pacific Ocean years down the line. So, I put my computer science degree to use, and set out to make the HT Nexa, a sleek, lightweight yet high-performance and long-lasting laptop for professionals. The kind of product that wouldn’t need replacing every three to five years. The kind of product my customers couldrelyon.
Luca helped immensely with the initial networkingto ensure we got the early investors needed to make the company a runaway success, and here we are, fifteen years later. We’ve since branched out to other technological appliances – TVs, fridges, coffeemakers, vacuums and, most recently, phones – and I’ve tried to keep that same ethos running through the company.
Quality over quantity.
Quality over profit.
Unfortunately, the bigger you get, the more people you have to please, and each day it’s proving harder and harder to stick to the original plan.
‘But youdomake a profit,’ Noelle says, her smile dipping and replaced with a frown. ‘Right?’
‘We do.’
‘So, what’s the problem?’ She comes over to my side of the table and leans against it, propping her elbows up so she can rest her chin in the palms of her hands. ‘As far as I can tell, you’re doing pretty well.’
I laugh quietly. ‘Pretty well is an understatement.’
‘So,again, what’s the problem? Why’s your Board on your back all the time?’
I blink at her and she gives me a sheepish grin.
‘The energy was pretty easy to read at the dinner,’ she says. ‘They don’t like you?’
‘Thatis an understatement, and an entirely separate issue.’
Noelle waits patiently for me to continue.
‘They wantmore,’ I say. ‘But we’re already pushing our team to the limit. It’s a balancing act.’ I pause, not entirely sure this is interesting to her, but Noelle is looking at me with wide open eyes, like she’s genuinely interested in hearing what I have to say. ‘If someone’s doing good work, the key to making sure that continues is to give them the space to keep doing it. Not pile more on top of them. That’s when the quality drops. When corners get cut because they’re more focused on meeting deadlines than delivering good work.’
‘But I don’t get it,’ Noelle says, brows furrowing. ‘If you suddenly start releasing products that drop in quality, wouldn’t that mean losing all your customers?’
