“Human resources will be sending up a secretary for you. She’ll sit outside here,” he said, indicating a curved desk right outside her office. “If you need anything, you’ve already been given carte blanche on all information. Although the exact nature of your position hasn’t been revealed.”
“Why not?” she asked, walking over to the windows.
“Because I thought you could use the anonymity. People won’t kiss up to you when they don’t know you have the power of their jobs.”
“And do I?” she asked, raising one eyebrow and looking back at him.
Brett shrugged. “In a way. Think of your position as a lobbying job. You can suggest anything you consider important. But I have final veto power. You need to bring all suggestions directly to me. And everything must remain completely confidential until they are implemented. Anything not implemented will remain unspoken.”
Antonia nodded. She was starting to become suspicious of the job. She wasn’t sure, but she had a funny feeling that Brett might be humoring her, giving her a job just to keep her happy but assuming that anything she comes up with might be insignificant. She thought about it for only a moment.
“Deal,” she said. If she was going to prove anything, she might as well start now. “Any suggestions on how to get my feet wet?” she asked.
Brett nodded, “I have a meeting with the vice presidents in five minutes. How about finding out what they’re all up to.”
“Sounds great,” she said, smiling brightly.
Grabbing her pen and paper, she followed him down the hallway where he got her a cup of coffee, then they made their way to the conference room.
As soon as Brett walked in, all the men and a surprising number of women stopped talking and quickly took their seats. There were ten vice presidents, six men and four women. Antonia chose a seat after everyone else had sat down. She wanted to be at the end of the room, inconspicuous.
But Brett had other ideas. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to Antonia Attracelli. She’ll be working on a special project for me. She’s to have access to all files. She’s working on a type of audit for the company.”
Everyone turned to Antonia and nodded, some smiling to her, others concealing what she suspected was hostility.
And then the meeting was underway. This session was more of a brainstorming meeting with each vice president defining their goals for the next quarter. Once the explanation was finished, the other people at the table voiced suggestions, offered solutions, ideas, support or just praise for the stated idea.
Antonia made notes on everything. She didn’t know what to suggest, so she just kept quiet and absorbed the culture as well as the ideas. Brett had a way of making everyone feel like they were part of a team and not the head of their own individual areas.
After the meeting, Antonia walked back to her office and turned on the computer set up on the desk. She had no idea where to start searching. A number of ideas had occurred to her at the meeting, but she didn’t know where to find the information to look deeper into the situations.
A soft knock at her door interrupted her thoughts. Antonia looked up and saw a woman standing in her door, a pad of paper in her hand. “Ms. Atracelli?” the woman asked, slaughtering Antonia’s name.
Antonia smiled and stood up, “Yes?” she asked.
The woman smiled back and came into the office, her hand extended. “I’m Kim. I’ve been assigned as your temporary secretary until you find someone else.”
Antonia blinked, but took the woman’s hand. “Oh. Ok.”
“What do you need me to do?” Kim asked, standing in front of Antonia’s desk awkwardly.
Antonia thought for a moment, but nothing came to her. “I don’t know. I don’t really know what I’m doing. Maybe you could help me,” Antonia said. The woman looked surprised but encouraged and her shoulders seemed to relax slightly. “What kind of help do you need?”
Antonia gauged her new secretary’s expression. She seemed like an intelligent woman so Antonia decided to dive right in with her ideas. Maybe Kim could add something to them. “Well,” she said, waiving Kim into one of the modern, wooden chairs in front of her desk, then came around and sat down in the other one. “I’m new at this so I don’t really know where to get information to answer some of my questions. Perhaps if you told me where I could find it, I could get started on something.”
Kim nodded her head. “I’ve been with the company for about five years so I’m pretty informed about most things. There are projects I’ve never worked on, but I know other people who’ve worked on them and can contact them to get the information,” Kim said almost shyly.
Antonia was grateful and smiled at Kim’s enthusiasm. “That’s great. I guess I should explain my position here, but I’m not completely sure what it is myself right now. We’re going to have to play it by ear for a while,” Antonia started. “My goal is to find ways to save Hancock Enterprises money. And I was just in a type of brain-storming meeting, I guess the whole top staff was in there, but I think I might have some ideas.”
“What are your ideas?” Kim asked, leaning forward.
“Well, something struck me in the meeting. We have a number of contractors and I was thinking maybe we could do the work more cheaply in-house. Or maybe not in-house, but perhaps Brett might want to create a subsidiary to do some of the work.”
“Brett?” Kim asked.
Antonia flushed, “I’m sorry. Does he go by Mr. Hancock in the office?”
Kim shook her head. “I don’t know.” After a moment, she said, “Are you talking about Mr. Hancock, the president?”
Antonia nodded her head. “Why?”
Kim paled slightly but continued. “I’ve never worked for him, but I’ve heard he’s a pretty hard task master.”
Antonia laughed. “Yes, I suppose he can be. He definitely wants things his way,” she said, thinking about their personal relationship. “But I wouldn’t worry about him. He’s a softy.”
Kim only nodded, sure that Antonia was out of her mind.
Antonia stood up and moved behind her desk. “The problem is, I don’t know what these contractors make, how much we pay them and they might do more than what I assume they do. Is there any way you can get that information?” she asked.