Chapter 25: The Quarterly

Luna walked into the boardroom, Jaden trailed in behind her. Most of her executives were already seated, some were chatting idly while some typed away on their laptops. They all turned to look at her as she walked in.

Greetings rang out as she made her way towards her chair at the head of the long conference table. Luna smiled and waved a little, Jaden started to pull out her chair but she stopped him.

“I can pull out my own chair, Jaden, but thanks,” she said. She gave him a smile as she turned to take her seat. She looked around the room at large. “Hmm, must have been some weekend, y’all out here looking fresher than me.”

Muted chuckles rang out amongst her employees, a handful of them smiling at her joke.

“Then our weekends are your regular days because-”

“Because I look good every day,” Luna helped the employee who had spoken, out, when she trailed off. She smiled at her. “Thank you, Janine.”

At Luna’s acknowledgment, Janine blushed and smiled. Janine Waters, financial executive for Green-ish Foods. She was a bookish, nerdy type, the type that wore horn-rimmed glasses and sweater vests. Luna hadn’t hired her for her social skills, obviously, but she was glad to see her coming out of her shell ever since she started working for her. In the three years since she was employed at Green-ish Foods, she now managed to contribute in board meetings every once in a while. And that was progress for Janine.

Luna didn’t want her employees to be all about work improvement alone, she wanted rounded success. And she’d managed to get that substantially.

Pleased, Luna turned back to the room at large. Jaden was now seated to her left; other executives who had been milling about when she walked in, were all settled down. Save for one.

Luna stared at the lone man standing in a corner of the boardroom, his phone pressed to his ear as he continued to make his phone call. Cash Brooks. Executive in charge of Green supplies. He was one of her few difficult employees. He was proud, rude, occasionally sexist and more often, on occasion, a jerk. But he was good at his job, damn good, and while Luna was an advocate for well-roundedness in her employees, their abilities to do their jobs well was the first thing she looked at when hiring and her first priority.

Luna folded her hands together on the table as she watched him continue to make his phone call even while everybody else was already seated.

“Mr. Brooks,” she finally said.

She didn’t shout, her tone was bland. He turned to give her a look over her shoulders, he pressed his phone to his chest.

“I’ll join you, you can go right ahead,” he said. And turned back to continue his phone call.

Out of the corner of her eyes, Luna saw Jaden fidget in his seat, a few uncomfortable shifts on seats played out among the other executives too.

Luna waited a beat, letting patience be her initial response, before speaking up again.

“Mr. Brooks, you either sit down right now or you get out,” she said. Her voice was still cool and bland, and her expression was controlled and flat.

Cash turned to look at her over his shoulders again, he glanced at the other executives, and then back at Luna. Luna stared right back at him, waiting for him to make his decision. She saw that he didn’t like the way she had talked to him, she saw it in the brief flash that streaked through his blue eyes, but she just ignored it.

He hesitated for a few more seconds before finally turning his phone off and walking towards the conference table. Luna noticed he hadn’t said goodbye to whoever he was talking to. Rude, and a jerk, Luna thought to herself again.

He took his seat and Luna waited a beat as the boardroom quieted, and then she started the meeting.

“So, we’re here for our quarterly meeting, let’s hear it.” She gestured at Janine, “What do you have for me, Miss Waters?”

Twenty minutes later, and most of the executives in their different divisions in her company had given their reports. Everything had been looking good until Transportation, they had requested more trucks and manpower because the ones they currently had were already stretched thin from too much work.

Luna blew out a breath. “Okay, but why is it so though? I mean, we’ve had more events planned out at the same time before than the ones we currently have now, and your men didn’t burn out then.”

Tariq Johnson, the executive in charge of Transportation, replied. “It’s the Gala, Miss Jones. My men are stretched between delivering and picking up stuff for the Gala and the other smaller events we have. And since the Gala was flagged most important, that’s the one that’s been taking up most of their time.”

“Oh,” Luna nodded, “Okay, I see your point. Aren’t any of the drop or pick-up points for the Gala in the same line as the drop and pick-up points for the other smaller events? Maybe they can just do simultaneous drives that way.”

Tariq shook his head and sighed. “That’s the problem, they’re not. Just the other day, we had to shift one of Mr. Brooks’s orders to the next day because of how far it was.”

“Oh,” Luna said again. She glanced at Cash at the other end of the conference table, he was slouched a little in his chair, he didn’t say anything. “Well, we’ll just have to get you more manpower then,” Luna said, getting back to the problem at hand.

“The screening process for drivers takes the most time than any other screening process, because of safety and life involvement,” Tariq said.

“I know,” Luna replied, “but we’ll just have to-”

“The Gala shouldn’t have been included in this year’s calendar,” Cash said from his seat at the far end of the table, interrupting Luna.