Page 14 of Miss Manage

I ground my teeth as she continued, unflinching.

“A client finds one mistake, and they start questioning all of it. Please have him fix it so we can use it on the website.”

Her gaze stayed locked on mine, steady, unyielding.

“I’ll have them corrected.”

“Also, here are notes for the two client calls today.” She handed me two more sheets, explaining briskly. “One client’s considering cloud expansion, the other wants to modernize their infrastructure.”

I leaned back, studying her instead of the paper. “Is it necessary for us both to be on new business calls? Isn’t that what a strong business development and customer care team is for?”

“Good questions. Normally leadership joins only the largest client calls. But with the merger, existing clients want reassurance, while new clients are curious about the dynamic.”

She rattled off plans about a London trip next week, touring Juniper’s old office which was my former turf.

“I’ll work with Olivia to set it up.”

“Great.”

“Great,” I echoed, the word clipped, the silence between us thick enough to taste. I pushed back my chair, ready to escape. “I’m guessing we’re done here?”

Her eyes flashed, temper breaking through the calm. “You’d guess wrong. We have several other things to cover, not least of all the layoffs.”

“I’ve tweaked your spreadsheet. It’s in your inbox.” She moved to grab her laptop, not wasting any time in opening the spreadsheet.

“I started with your original list, then layered in the chiefs’ and directors’ feedback. In addition, I flagged anyone nearing retirement who might be open to early-exit packages. With those adjustments, we can bring the cuts closer to three and a half percent instead of five, without losing critical talent.”

I’d spent a good part of the evening refining that spreadsheet. Numbers had always made sense to me as they were clean, logical, and with no politics involved. If the COO role ever stopped fitting, I could see myself sliding into a CFO seat without missing a beat.

She studied the document, eyes scanning line by line before exhaling softly. “This is a great start, especially flagging possible early retirements, but we need to hit the five percent.”

Her compliment was warm and sincere.

“Who says five percent has to be the hard and fast rule?”

Her tone was soft. “Who do you think?”

The owners. Of course. Our conversation suddenly felt like something shared between people who were on the same team. Perhaps there was hope we’d find some common ground.

She tapped her pencil against the salary column, thoughtful now. “But if we can show we’re cutting five percent salary-wise, which your plan might accomplish, given the higher salaries in the retirement group, we might have an alternate plan to show them.”