She's the Boss (17 page)

“No, no, I insist.” He gave me a short, tight smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Would it be presumptuous of me to say that you haven’t the slightest clue what this whole presentation is about?”

“Of course I know what it’s about,” I said, racking my brain for a suitable answer. Vaguely, I’d recalled Carter talking about CIP and decided to take a wild stab at it. “Um, you were talking about CIP, also known as continual improvement process.” Carter remained silent and so I let myself rattle on. “It’s an ongoing effort to improve products, services, or processes. These efforts can seek incremental improvement over time or breakthrough improvement all at once. Erm, processes are constantly evaluated and improved in the light of their efficiency, effectiveness and flexibility. And CIP is the trajectory in which our organization is taking.”

Clearly, I was talking out of my ass, but I thought it all sounded pretty good.

Carter stood perfectly still and gave me a look that indicated he knew I was talking out of my ass. Well, it didn’t take a genius to come to that conclusion.

“Actually,” he said at last, “I was talking about how we can improve sales across the board.”

“Sales!” I exclaimed with great aplomb. “Of course!” I smiled reassuringly, unsure of exactly who I was reassuring. Myself, most likely.

Carter looked at me with deep interest. “Your team seems to be doing very well in sales. Care to share your secret?”

“Sure,” I said in a voice that didn’t quite sound as though it came from me. “I think I can do that.” I shifted in my seat and looked around the room. “Right. Now, how many of you here often feel like selling is an intrusion? Raise your hands.”

Several hands shot up. “Good. Good.” I nodded enthusiastically. “You see, I hate to impose on others too and that feeling that you have—that selling is intrusive—it’s a good thing. It’s an asset. Those that do well in sales on my team, well, they all seem to have a sixth sense about this. They can immediately tell by the tone in a caller’s voice when the timing is all wrong and they won’t antagonize the caller by attempting to pitch a sale. I believe that effective selling is not only directly tied to timing, patience and persistence, but also to the sensitivity of a situation. A sensitivity to the person on the other end of the line.”

“But,” said Hillary, looking at me in a rather puzzled way, “how do your agents end up closing so many sales every month?”

“I have my agents schedule a time that is more convenient for a call back.”

“A call back?” Hillary echoed.

“Yep,” I replied, “a call back. I don’t think the old foot-in-the door school of high pressure and super aggressive sales techniques work anymore. I just don’t. And I’m not so sure they were ever effective to begin with. Maybe it was necessary forty, fifty years ago when a salesperson was not likely to see or speak to a customer for months. But today, if you are being intrusive and have enough awareness to sense this, then there is no excuse for not picking a better time to call back.”

Carter nodded thoughtfully at me. I could almost see this notion taking root in his brain. “You do, of course, have to be willing to call back.”

“Of course. I give my agents time off the phones every week for call backs.”

“So that’s it?” said Hillary, nonplussed. “That’s your secret?”

“Uh-huh,” I said with an air of nonchalance.

Carter had one hand over his mouth and the other loosely on his waist. “The simplest ideas are often the best,” he said reflectively. “And I like that approach. From the calls I’ve been listening to, some agents just don’t
get
it. They may sense that the caller is in a hurry or in an irritable mood, yet they’ll deliver their sales pitch anyway.”

“Or,” I helpfully pointed out, “a caller will even
ask
the agent to call back some other time, yet the agent will still say, ‘Oh, this will only take a minute.’ ”

“In case you’re forgetting,” Hillary cut in, “that’s what the agents are supposed to do. If they don’t pitch a sale there and then, they’ll get marked down by Quality Assurance.”

“I’m aware of that,” I said blithely.

The cogs were turning and Hillary was thinking. Slowly, ever so slowly, the penny dropped. “Ohhhh. That’s why your team’s quality scores are so dang low.”

I sat forward and countered, “But their sales are off the charts. Which brings me to this.” I cast a swift glance at Carter and directed my last comment at him. “Why don’t you make a change? Bring this up the chain of command?”

Our eyes locked across the room. There was no love lost in Carter’s eyes, but he looked at me with a new hint of respect. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said noncommittally.

Sure you will.
I smiled at him with a certain degree of cynicism.

All I had ever gotten from my superiors were empty promises. And I expected no different from Carter Lockwood.

Chapter Twelve

I stared at my blinking monitor. Nothing came to mind. I pushed my chair back and paced agitatedly across the floor, thinking.

It was Henry Paulson’s annual performance review. I was supposed to identify his ‘strengths’ but so far, I could not think of a single solitary thing to say.

Still, I couldn’t just leave it blank.

Or could I?

Nah! It’d be too cruel.

With a weary sigh, I sat down at my desk and began typing.

“What are you working on?” Carter asked, stopping by my cubicle.

“Annual performance reviews,” I replied.

He peered over my shoulder. “Henry Paulson’s review, eh? This should be interesting.”

I stopped typing. “What do you know about Henry Paulson?”

“Oh, I know a lot about Henry. I’ve listened in on plenty of his calls.”

A mild panic began to set in. “Really?”

“May I take a look at his performance review?”

“Go ahead,” I said hesitantly. “I guess you’ll have to see it sooner or later.”

“ ‘Henry Paulson is a keen analyst,’ ” Carter read aloud. “Well, that’s a nice way of saying he’s thoroughly confused half the time.”

I bit my lip to stop myself from grinning.

Carter went on, “ ‘Henry approaches difficult problems with logic.’ Now, do you mean to say that he always finds someone else to do his work?”

“Of course not,” I said weakly.

Carter rubbed his chin absently. “ ‘Henry has a refreshingly relaxed attitude at work and he is very socially active. He stays abreast on company developments and above all else, Henry Paulson is a loyal employee.’ Really, Kars?” He cocked an eyebrow as if to say, “That’s stretching it a little, don’t you think?”

I stared rigidly ahead, trying hard to keep a straight face.

“Let me translate this for you,” Carter said, not trying very hard to disguise the fact that he was laughing. “Refreshingly relaxed attitude at work? Henry sleeps at his desk. Very socially active? He drinks a lot and I have a sneaking suspicion he’s a functioning alcoholic. He stays abreast on company developments? He obviously gossips a lot. And loyal? The only reason Henry is loyal is because he can’t get a job anywhere else.”

“Well . . . there’s always two ways of looking at things.”

“Anyway,” Carter said, “that’s not the reason I stopped by. I actually have some news for you.”

“Good news?” I queried softly, “Or bad news?”

Carter rewarded me with a smile that made me realize he could really be quite attractive at times. “Good news. I pitched your idea to the powers that be, and they gave it the green light. Which means all the agents on the floor are allotted time off the phones for customer callbacks.”

“Thanks,” I said gratefully. I couldn’t believe he’d actually come through.

A director that actually follows through on his promise?

A rare occurrence. Unheard of, in fact.

“Thank
you
,” said Carter in all-seriousness. He was looking at me with a degree of approval that was a welcome change from how he usually looked at me. “Thanks to you, our agents will likely close more sales this quarter.”

“We sure need it.” I sighed. “We’ve been in a slump for months.”

“Oh and that’s not all,” he hedged.

“What?”

“I actually have some more good news for you.”

“More good news?”

Could I stand any more good news?

“It’s in regards to your upcoming project. And I think you’ll be quite pleased to hear about it.”

Pleased? I wasn’t just
pleased
about the news. Are you kidding me? I was over the moon. Aww yeah! Malaysia, here
we
come! It’s a shame I couldn’t spill the news to Truong and Inge just yet. I had to wait until next week.

Carter’s orders.

With a copious amount of coffee to fortify me, I started tackling more performance reviews until I was interrupted, once again.

“Kars, I got the invite!” Inge bounded into my cubicle, holding up a pink card dusted with silver glitter.

“Let me see. Let me see.” My hands fluttered up and Inge happily surrendered the card to me.

The Bachelorette Party

“The Last Fling Before The Ring”

In Honor of Madison Lee aka. The Future Mrs. Harkett

Hosted by Karsynn and Truong

June 18th at 8 p.m.

The Venetian Hotel

488 S. Capitol Blvd,

Pocatello Idaho 83702

RSVP regrets only

“Nice!” I sat back and smiled. “Truong sent the invites out early.”

“When exactly is Maddy’s wedding day?” Inge asked, taking up residence on my desk.

“Hmm.” I twirled the card in my hand. “I think it’s two months after her Bachelorette party.”

Inge tilted her head thoughtfully. “How come the Bachelorette party is so early?”

“She’ll be visiting Mika’s family in Belgium so it’ll be sort of a farewell
slash
good luck
slash
Bachelorette party since they’re gonna have a big wedding reception in Brussels. And when they come back in two months, they’ll celebrate their nuptials here, too.”

“Two weddings?” Inge’s breath caught in a tiny gasp. “Wow.”

“So . . .” I said coyly. “Are you planning on coming to Maddy’s last fling before the ring?”

“Hell yeah! Wouldn’t miss it for the world! Not when you throw the best parties around here.”

“Actually.” I frowned slightly. “I’ve sort of dropped the ball on this one. I’ve been so busy with work that I just haven’t had the time. Truong’s taken full charge of the party planning.”

Speak of the devil and he doth appear. Truong poked his nose round my cubicle partition. “All you need to know about the party is that it’s something huge.”

Inge started giggling. “Really?”

“Really.” Truong looked at us with dancing eyes. “Not just huge. Fuc—” he stopped and caught himself. “Sorry. Frankfurt-ing huge! FALLUJAH, FIJI, and FINLAND huge. We can’t have Maddy just fizzle out of single life. Just you wait and see, I’m gonna send her out with a BANG!”

“Falkenberg yeah!” Inge cheered, throwing him a fist bump.

“Whoa!” I exclaimed. “I’m quite impressed by your sense of geography. Where’s Falkenberg?”

This seemed to please Inge immensely and she positively beamed at me. “It’s in Sweden.”

“Fjuckby!” said Truong. “That’s a village in Sweden,” he quickly explained.

“So, Truong . . .” I turned to him and asked, “What exactly do you have planned for the bachelorette party?”

He shrugged in a way that struck me as being distinctly evasive.

I shot him a parental look. “Truong, please don’t do anything that I wouldn’t do.”

The whole gang had gathered at a luxury suite at The Venetian Hotel. No, not the Venetian in Las Vegas. The Venetian in Pocatello, Idaho.