Page 11 of The Grizzly Situation
“Well,” Mr. Lockhart began, setting his fork down on the plate. “When I was younger, someone gave me a chance to find my potential. He and his then boyfriend, who I hope is now his husband, worked with me to build my self esteem. Uly seems as though he needs that too. A job at Ursine is a chance to give him the same opportunity in a safe, nurturing environment.” He swiped a finger over the ganache left on his plate, then popped it into his mouth and sucked it off. “And I’m honestly very glad he’s got a brother who cares enough to ensure the offer is on the up and up.”
Jamie smiled brightly. “Thank you. I love him, even if he is a pain in the butt most days.”
“I know you don’t mean that,” Mr. Lockhart said. “Your love for him shines through when you look at him. You’d do anything to see him happy.”
“Yeah, he plays it big, but he loves Uly,” Deb threw out. “I do too.” She faced me. “If this sounds like something you’d like, then you should do it.”
“I still don’t know what it is,” I told them.
“As I said earlier, we have plenty of opportunities. Would you like to work in an office, a factory, a?—”
“Why are you here?” I asked, desperate to know.
If I thought my question would throw him, I was wrong. He set his plate on the table and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You were the only one who wasn’t worried about upsetting me and put forth the right question earlier. It was something I hadn’t even considered. I never thought one of my people would steal from the company. As soon as you asked, it all made perfect sense. It wasn’t our people, though. It was the accountant this company was using. He fudged the books to make it look like we were losing money, while he pocketed it. It started out small, a few bucks here and there, but as he got complacent, the amounts got bigger. I had our in-house team do a forensic audit, and we discovered he gave us back a different set of documents than the ones we gave him. It started out brilliant, but then he got sloppy. No one caught on, because we trusted their company to handle our needs. Going forward, all of our sectors will be using an internal bookkeeping system we’re building instead of outside agencies.”
“So I was wrong.”
“No,” he replied, chuckling. “You asked the right question to kickstart my brain. I’m going to be honest with you, I’d never thought of it myself, and he probably would have gotten away with it and put hundreds of people out of work. Every one of those folks owes you their job, Uly.”
Warmth rushed through me at the thought I’d done something right for a change. I shrugged. “You’d have caught it eventually.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Mr. Lockhart insisted. “What you said was nothing less than brilliant, and to show my appreciation….” He pulled out his wallet, opened it, and drew out a different card than before. “This is the direct number for my cellphone. When you decide what you want to do, call me. Not only will we have a job for you, but if it requires you to move, we’ll cover the expense.”
He stood and shook hands with Deb and Jamie again.
“Thank you for the cake.” He nodded at Jamie. “Which one of you is the baker?”
Jamie’s eyes widened. “How did you?—?”
“Homemade is far superior to anything you’d find in a store. We have a bakery division where we do small batch, doing our best to create things like this. If you’re in the market for a job, I’ve no doubt your talents would be welcome there.” Then he smiled at Deb. “And what do you do, Debra?”
She sucked in a breath. “Please, call me Deb. I work in HR.”
He gave a wide smile. “Excellent. With a company as large as Ursine, we would gladly welcome someone with your background into the fold. I make the same offer as I did to Uly. Should you need—or desire—to move, we will cover the costs.”
They both sat, obviously dumbfounded. Mr. Lockhart made his way to the door, and I followed behind him. When we got there, he stared down into my eyes and gave me a smile that showed off perfectly white teeth, except for a bit of chocolate in between a couple.
“Uly, I can’t thank you enough for what you did; not only for me, but for the people in my company. I truly hope you’ll decide to work with us. We could use someone who thinks outside the box like that.”
And with that, he stepped into the hall, and headed toward the exit. I stood there and watched him go, blood still rushing through my ears at his praise. When I closed the door and turned around, Deb and Jamie were in hushed conversation with the words flying rapid-fire from both of them.
Jamie popped up from the huddle and noticed me watching them. “Dude, what did you do?”
“Nothing. He’s just being nice.”
Deb held out her phone and showed me what was on the screen. “Nice nothing. Ursine is one of the top companies and has their fingers in all kinds of pies. Their worker retention is ninety six percent. It says here that Brent Lockhart is, like, a multibillionaire.”
That kind of soured me a little. “So he’s one of those gasbags like Bezos and the rest?”
“No way, dude. He donates money worldwide to help buy millions of acres of rainforest to preserve nature and land for the indigenous people. His companies are on the greenest lists around, and everything they do is scrutinized by independent contractors to ensure they’re up to code. Hell, they exceed the code, then challenge others to do the same. And he pays his people an insane amount. The lowest starting wage is forty seven dollars an hour, and that’s for janitorial help. The highest I found so far was eighty six, and that was for?—”
“Let me guess. Management.”
“Um, no. It was for those in specialized fields, like computer programmer. Anyone who wants to go to school has that option, paid for by the company. Every employee can buy stock, and that pays them dividends out the ass. Inside their offices they have a full service cafeteria where anyone can eat for free. Place an order with the servers—who make nearly fifty an hour—and they’ll bring it to you. No tipping allowed. The list of perks goeson and on.” He looked up from her phone, eyes wide. “Dude, people who work for Ursine got it made.”
“And what would you be making?” I asked, a little peeved, and I didn’t know why.
“If I was to work in the bakery, I’d be starting at fifty two bucks an hour. That’s more than double what I make now in the office after ten years, and it’s doing something I love. Deb says she’s thrilled with the idea of trying something new, and we’re thinking about doing it.”
