The text message read: CALL ME!!!!!!!
I had just finished moving my lips when the phone rang.
“Hel—”
“Can you believe what they’re doing!?”
It was Madam Chairwoman CEO Ironfist, the executive director of the second largest company in the Southern World.
The title was what she preferred to be called, the name was what people called her when she was out of earshot.
Without her saying so I knew Madam Ironfist was referring to the voters who were in charge of selecting the five-member executive committee. Her contract was up and that meant there was jockeying for her position as well as two other seats on the executive board.
“I—”
“Oh. Sorry. Are you busy?”
“Actu—”
“The voting members of the board of directors. Can you believe they are actually going to replace me with some of these nitwits?
“I’ve spent the last eight years cleaning up the financial mess most of those ninnies left for me. Pensions, employee contracts. Do you know how many people I had to fire because we couldn’t afford to pay them? And at least three of those boobs trying to get elected had a hand in making decisions that brought us to that mayhem. We never had the money to pay for new buildings and salaries and keep our savings at a healthy level.”
“Well, to be fair,” I said, “no one could see the recession coming. And one of them says he laid the groundwork for a massive development that would have brought millions in revenue, but it was your lack of leadership that made the deal fall through.”
“Oh, please! That guy? He couldn’t flatulate without checking which way the wind was blowing and then he’d change his mind midway if he thought people would blame him for the smell. Between the labor negotiations and environmental regs, those guys didn’t know it was going to cost them so much to do business here.”
“Well they said when they were in charge it was all but a done deal.”
“Just like the electricity deal was a slam dunk? How’d that work out for them? Oh, it didn’t. I had to come in and clean up that mess, too.”
“Some of have said your style has been—”
“HAS BEEN WHAT?”
“Uhhh…”
“Listen, I know I can be terse, but when you’re dealing with children…So who said that? The one who always has a foot out the door on their way to a better job or the one who is trying to bolster their legacy and get their name on more buildings and proclamations?”
“Madam Chairwoman, I—I don’t know what to say.”
“Eight years I put into getting this company healthy and look who they have to replace me. The Roundtable or Repeats”
“Well, after one year off you could always come back,” I offered.
Silence.
