Page 35 of Boss's Baby Surprise

“Our other option is to lose the conference room, which is in the farthest corner of our space right now.”

Steve reached over and lined the two sets of plans up next to each other. “Our choices are that we have an aesthetically pleasing staircase on the main floor, or we have an aesthetically pleasing staircase location on the second. We can’t do both. We’re limited by the space we have and the building we’re in.”

“How much will clients need to see? We need a conference room for them to meet in, right?” Clarissa asked.

“Yeah, and we need one to spread out and do work like this,” Nick said.

“We can put a conference room upstairs,” Michelle suggested.

“Do we really want to make our clients have to walk upstairs to get to a conference room?”

I leaned back and let the team hash it out. I had my opinions on the whole thing, and I knew James had his opinions. Neitherof us said anything. It was important to see how our newly combined team worked together to problem solve. Steve and Phillip stood next to each other. It was almost as if I could see their processes in tandem.

“We could turn the entire upstairs into an open office work plan,” Steve started.

“Oh, hell no. I want walls. I need to be able to close a door,” Michelle snapped. “Do not put me in one of those open office concepts.”

Phillip tapped his finger on the plans. “Okay, so instead of a complete open office concept, we go with some kind of modification. Something that gives us privacy if needed, and also, collaborative working space.”

“We could put in movable walls.”

“Only if they are real walls and not some kind of folding thick curtains like they use in conference centers. Those are ugly and barely provide privacy. I’d almost rather have a garage door.”

“So, are we discussing moving all the creatives upstairs and leaving down here for administrative offices and the conference room?” Phillip asked.

Steve started nodding. “Yeah, we leave the administrative offices downstairs and turn upstairs into an architectural playground.”

“Where does my office go?” I asked.

Phillip made a circle with his finger over the area that was James’s current office. “If we put the stairs here and Michelle and I move upstairs, we can then knock down this wall and open all of this up. That becomes your office.”

“When a client comes to visit,” Clarissa started, “they would see your big, impressive office, a beautiful staircase leading upstairs, and this conference room. And only if they were interested in seeing where the actual work gets done would they go upstairs. At that point, it's on them if they get upset that the first door they see is a restroom.”

“I don’t have a problem with it as long as I have a door that I can close,” Michelle announced.

Michelle and Nick left the meeting first. They both had deadlines they needed to focus on. Steve and Phillip began shuffling the drawings into some semblance of order.

“You had some very good questions today, Clarissa,” James said. “You need to keep thinking outside the box, especially when everybody else”—he pointed at her and then he circled his finger around, indicating everybody else in the room— “is caught up in the details that they want. Keep asking questions to bring it all back to the bigger picture. What are the usage needs going forward? Don’t be afraid to ask clients these things.” He patted her on the shoulder and smiled as he walked out.

“Good job,” I said.

She turned her smile to me, and I felt an odd sensation deep in my chest that I hadn’t experienced in a very long time. As I was about to open my mouth and ask her out to dinner, she looked down at her phone and gasped.

“I’m late. I have to go. I will see everyone tomorrow,” she said, running out the door.

Philip didn’t seem to notice anything, but Steve let out a low laugh.

“What are you laughing about?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing,” he said.

“I call bullshit. Why are you laughing at Clarissa?” I pushed.

“I was just thinking she’s still cute. You know I had a little bit of a crush on her back when we interned for you before.”

I must have flinched or looked at him with a shocked expression.

“You don’t have to worry about anything. I don’t think she even noticed. And she certainly wouldn’t notice now.”

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