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“I should get back to work. I hope to see more of you around, Ms. Felton.”
I smile and start walking again. “Wait,” I say, turning around. “Do you mind if I hang out with you today? I just want to be around people who knew my father. It feels like home here, not like at the house.”
Tony looks at me with confusion. “Are you sure? It’s going to be pretty boring. I have some phone conferences, and then I really need to get the numbers ready for the expansion Mr. Browne asked for.”
I smile. Tony has already given me more information about the company than I have had all morning.
“Yes, I’m sure.” I take his arm and walk with him to his office. “And call me Kinsley, Tony. We are practically family.”
Oh my God! This office is a mess. It looks like a tornado came in here and blew papers into disastrous piles all around the room.
Tony, on the other hand, walks into his office with no surprise on his face. He doesn’t look like someone just came in here and ransacked his office. He actually seems to relax when he enters his office.
I walk over to his desk as Tony takes a seat behind it.
“I have to take a quick phone call, but make yourself at home. Then, I can show you some of the stuff your father and I were working on,” he says.
I nod and do my best to smile as I glance around the smaller-size office, but I’m afraid it comes across as a frown or a horribly disgusted grimace. I cover my mouth with my hand, hoping he didn’t see. He brightly smiles back at me. I guess he didn’t.
He begins dialing his phone. I wait until I hear him jabbering away at someone, paying me no attention, before I take a seat on the floor in front of piles of paper.
I feel bad for Tony. He’s my father’s age. He’s worked for the company almost as long as my father, but he will never become CEO, never even be given a chance. Instead, he will always be just the Assistant to the VP of Operations. He’s Killian’s assistant, I realize, even though Killian has only worked for the company for five years, and Tony has worked for the company for thirty. To a company this big, it doesn’t matter though who is more loyal. It matters who is more likely to get results. And after I look around this office, I know why Tony will never reach a higher position. His office is a mess. There is no way he can be organized in a mess like this.
I still feel sorry for him though. Even though I know Tony gets paid generously to do this job, I still feel sad. I have a better chance of becoming CEO than Tony ever will.
And if I am CEO, I will have to make tough decisions, like promoting a less experienced younger employee over a loyal and mature employee. That is probably an easy decision compared with the decisions my dad made on a daily basis. I’m not sure I could do it.
I swallow hard and push the thoughts out of my head. I’m not here to think about if I can make the tough decisions required of the job right now. I’m here to learn as much as I can about the company and the job. Then, I can make decisions about my future.
I dig into the pile, trying to figure out what I’m looking at. There are hundreds and hundreds of more charts and graphs with the same incorrect information on them as the ones in my father’s office. Shit. I hope my dad wasn’t relying on them to make decisions about the company. I hope Killian isn’t either.
I look at the name on them, trying to figure out who made the graphs and who wrote the reports, so I can tell Killian he needs to fire them. Then, I see it. It’s Tony. He created these graphs. If anybody ever found out, he’d be fired. My dad was the only one who would care if Tony still worked for the company or not.
I sigh. Now, not only do I have to learn about the company, I also have to find a way to make sure Tony gets better at making graphs so that he doesn’t get fired.
I give up sorting the mess of papers when I hear Tony end the call. I stand and walk over to his desk with a smile on my face. He looks stressed as he shuffles papers around on his desk before switching on his computer.
“Mr. Browne and Mr. Felton wanted to expand this hotel and casino to allow for more high-roller rooms.”
I nod as I walk over to stand behind him. “Makes sense. So, what’s the problem?”
Tony sighs as his elbow knocks the papers off his desk. He watches them scatter onto the floor of his office, but he doesn’t bother to pick them up. He just turns to his computer instead. “The numbers don’t support doing an expansion.”
“Do you mind if I take a look at them?” I bat my eyes and smile as sweetly as possible at him.
“Be my guest,” he says, getting up from his chair.
I take his seat, but I don’t want him here when I change everything. I don’t want him to know how badly he screwed up. I need to find a way to teach him. But that isn’t right now. Right now, I just need to fix this before he passes it along to Killian or anyone else who might fire him.
“Tony, do you mind getting me a coffee?” I ask. I yawn, bringing more credibility to my lie. It isn’t really a lie, I reason with myself. I could use a coffee. I didn’t sleep much last night, and I woke up earlier than I’m used to in order to have a full day here.
He smiles and nods. “I’ll be right back.”
As soon as he leaves, I turn my attention back to the screen. Everything is a mess. Everything is wrong. I pull up a new spreadsheet to just start over because it’s not worth fixing what he’s already done.
I let my fingers fly over the keys as I type in every figure that I can find into the new data points. I love the rush I get as I enter in all the figures. I love how it feels to use my brain for something other than deciding what my next pose should be. When I’m finally done, I press Enter and watch the numbers turn from just numbers on the page into pretty graphs.
I lean back in the chair with a large smile on my face as the graphs now represent a need for expansion of the casino and hotel. In less than twenty minutes, I just did what would take most people several hours to do.
