Chapter 48 Hold All Work: The Queens Have Spoken
When Lotus and Joy stepped onto the third floor that morning, the energy hit them like static.
The place was alive but not in a good way.
People scrambled between desks. Someone cussed out a fax machine. Two employees were arguing with the printer like it owed them money. A whole cluster stood around a computer that kept rebooting itself like it was being exorcised.
Joy stopped mid-stride. “Did we walk into a crisis or a group mental breakdown?”
Lotus approached Tasha, who was wrestling with a stack of half-printed pages.
“What’s going on?” Lotus asked.
Tasha threw her hands up. “After the meeting yesterday? Everything went crazy. Upper floors dumped work on us all at once!”
Joy blinked. “What work?”
Tasha pointed at her inbox, stuffed to capacity. “Reports, data cleanups, system checks. None of us got briefed.”
Lotus frowned and pulled out her tablet.
“No email.”
Joy checked her phone.
“No notification. No memo.”
Joy raised her voice. “So we’re supposed to sense vibes and predict tasks like weather girls?”
Someone shouted from the back, “Apparently!”
After the chaos simmered down and Lotus helped a few third-floor employees unjam printers, reset their frozen screens, and redirect their misassigned tasks, the floor finally settled into something closer to “busy,” but no longer “ready to riot.”
With the immediate fires put out, Joy and Lotus stormed into their shared office.
Lotus slammed her bag, tablet, and binder onto her desk with the force of a woman holding back violent decisions.
“OOH CHILD— they are TRYING it now.”
Joy kicked the door closed behind her. “Can you BELIEVE the bullshit? What do we gotta do—lay on the floor and scream?”
Lotus rubbed her temples. “We need to do something, right now.”
Joy paced. “So what’s the next move? Because personally, I’m ready, protests, petitions—maybe even a riot.”
Lotus exhaled deeply, grounding herself. “I need a couple of days. Until I get the other part.”
Joy paused. “Other part of what?”
“The data,” Lotus said. “There’s a scheme going on. A scandal. But I don’t have a solid foundation yet. My information is still incomplete.”
Joy leaned forward on her desk. “What about the programming and database system you built?”
“I did it,” Joy replied confidently. “I just didn’t install it on everyone’s computers yet. I wanted to adjust their ancient system first, add some things, remove some nonsense.”
Lotus sat back, eyes sharp. “Alright. Let’s just remain focused.”
Joy nodded, jaw set. “We got this.”
Lotus smirked, an edge of war in her eyes. “Oh, we more than got this.”
The war wasn’t coming.
It had arrived.
And the third floor finally had generals.
By midweek, the entire floor was drowning:
– systems crashing
– outdated software freezing
– assignments doubling overnight
And everyone was exhausted.
That’s when Lotus snapped into action.
She stood in the center of the open office and raised her hand.
“Everyone. Stop. Right now.”
Typing stopped. Printers halted mid-groan. Even the fax machine held its breath.
Lotus’s voice settled the room.
“Our equipment isn’t functional. Until everything is fixed and we receive formal, authorized instructions, no one touches another assignment.”
Joy folded her arms proudly. “Y’all heard her. No miracles until management acts like management.”
Paul raised a hand. “What do we do if they send more work?”
Lotus smiled polite, deadly.
“Forward it to me or Joy. We’ll handle the replies.”
She continued,
“Joy and I will stay after hours to reprogram the system and organize the digital files. Over the next few days, Joy will set up each of your computers individually with the new drive she created, and I’ll teach you how to use the filing and data system I put in place.
While we wait for managers and supervisors to properly notify us and discuss assignments so projects don’t overlap everything outside the third floor is on hold.”