Page 1 of Happy Harbor
CHAPTERONE
She tapped her fingers against the hardwood on the arm of the chair. Long pauses were the worst part of conversations with her boss. Josie Campbell seemed to spend more time sitting in front of her boss’s desk than she did sitting at her own. She hadn’t asked for this situation, but it had been thrust upon her several months ago. She was only trying to make the best of it, but it wasn’t her fault that her team was incompetent.
“Josie, how many times do we have to do this?”
She wanted to answer with an astronomical number, but her sarcasm would not be appreciated by Sandra, her boss of three years. Sandra ran the multimillion-dollar marketing company where Josie worked as an account manager, and she didn’t have the best sense of humor or the best understanding of Josie’s management methods.
“Look, I’m sorry. You know I never asked to lead a team. I work best alone.”
Sandra sighed. “Businesses work best when there are team players.”
“Not everyone wants to be on a team. I am much more productive working alone.”
“When I put you in a management position, it was because your clients raved about your work ethic and what you did to increase their bottom lines. But as soon as I put you in charge of other human beings, it’s like you became a different person. I’ve only seen a modest increase in our bottom line, and that is solely because you have refused to delegate!”
Josie’s mind wandered for a moment as she thought about the stack of work still sitting on her desk. She really didn’t have time for this today. “Again, I get much more done when I just do it myself. My staff is inept, Sandra. I constantly have to follow up to see if they did what they were supposed to do. At a certain point, it makes more sense to handle it alone.”
“Or train them?”
“Trainthem? I don’t have time to hold the hands of adults. They should know their jobs.”
Sandra opened a file folder that was on her desk. “This is your personnel record.”
“You keep records on us? That’s a little Big Brother-ish, if you ask me.”
“Last month you told Bill to create a proposal for the Jenkins file. Do you remember that?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Bill got the proposal done in time, but you delayed it at the last minute. And rather than give him feedback, you threw it in the trash.”
“That’s because itwastrash, Sandra. It looked like a fourth grader wrote it.”
“Another employee saw you throw it away and then told Bill. How do you think that made him feel?”
“How would you have felt if the client saw that awful proposal? I saved the client! I rewrote the proposal. Bill turned it in late to me, and I could tell it was a total rush job. The meeting only got delayed by a couple of days.”
“The client still complained about the delay, Josie. And now Bill is threatening to quit.”
Josie leaned in and whispered, “It wouldn’t be a big loss.”
Sandra turned to the next page in the folder. Josie wondered how long this process was going to go on. She needed to inhale her salad and then get on a videoconference call with her newest clients in Texas.
“We recently hired a new college graduate named Tasha, and she worked for you for twenty-two days before going to Human Resources. She said you only let her mail packages and make copies, Josie.”
Josie chuckled. “I don’t know how she graduated from college, to be honest. She couldn’t even manage simple tasks. For example, I needed her to send a package to Elliott Madders in Seattle, but for some reason, she sent it to Washington, DC, instead! Why, you may ask? Because she apparently thinks Washington always means DC, and paid no attention toSeattleon the note I gave her. She did it three different times, so yes, I raised my voice. I was frustrated. I had to spend hours on the phone smoothing that over. So I did put her on copy duty because, again, I don’t have time to babysit grown adults.”
“This is not working out, Josie.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that we need effective leaders in this company, and you’ve become a liability. Your staff is constantly complaining, and you haven’t increased profits even with a whole team of people. You’re fired.”
Josie’s mouth fell open, and she was sure she felt the blood completely drain from her face. Imagining she currently looked like a mime who’d been told shocking news, she swallowed hard and found her words again. “Are you kidding me?”
All she could think about was her daughter. Kendra was going through all the teenage strife right now, and the last thing either of them needed was financial issues. She had to keep Kendra in the good school, but how would she continue paying rent?
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
