Page 24 of Rich and Bossy

“I know you think I’m an evil dictator, but I actually fought to get it tiered that high. If I go higher, the board and investors start taking notice. Start wanting to look for ways to strip costs. This is above market and keeps them off my ass. You know how much money it costs? To give a new employee eight weeks of maternity leave in the first year and they take all of it? Do you?”

I sit there, glaring at him.

“Do you know how much it costs to train new employees? I didn’t think so. We’re already in the hole if they don’t last a year. That’s why it is what it is, and it’s extended after a few years of service. We can’t afford to pay to train someone, then pay them to stay home for eight weeks. So why don’t you take your concerns to Congress. If they pass a law making it mandatory to give certain amounts of leave, we will comply with it.”

“Maybe I will.”

He laughs at that one, then nods along. “I believe you. Did you corner your senator in an elevator and yell at him? Make him out to be the worst human being alive?”

“Like any senators here would listen to us when they’re on your payroll.”

“Are you suggesting we bribe public officials?”

“Isn’t that what lobbying is? Legal bribery? Are you saying you don’t contribute to their campaigns? Way more than any of us little employees. Sure, I bet they’ll jump to do what’s right for us.”

He shakes his head like I don’t live in the real world, then turns his attention back to the football game on the old TV hanging by the bar. “You’re impossible to discuss things with.”

“That wasn’t a denial. And that was youronebig problem with everything I told you in the elevator? I remember addressing more than maternity leave times. Your excuse is crap, by the way. Congress hasn’t made you do the right thing, so it makes it okay to keep moms and dads from their kids? Good to know!” I give him a fake smile and a super-fake thumbs up.

He starts to say something, but my phone buzzes with a text from Mom.

“Shoot. I didn’t text my parents to let them know I’d be a while.” The second I say it, I wince. I know it’s just a courtesy, to be respectful. That they will worry about me.

To him, it probably sounds like I’m a little teenager who has to check in with Mom and Dad.

He smiles. “Gonna tell them your boss kidnapped you?”

“I might.”

I wish he wasn’t so easy to like. Part of me wants to pick a fight so I can go back to hating him.

He is the bad guy! They literally track us in the warehouse. He didn’t say a damn thing about that one.

“Any siblings or an only child?” Paxton leans back in his seat.

I fire off a text to Mom and Dad telling them I’ll be home soon, that I got held up. It’s not a lie.

While I’m typing, Paxton decides to skip past his question and take the lead.

“It’s just me and my sister. She has two boys. They’re the rowdiest hellians you’ll ever meet. My parents still live in the area.”

“It’s funny. I didn’t imagine you with parents.”

“Like I was grown in an incubator? Some kind of sci-fi experiment?”

“Maybe. Some Brave New World breeding the ultimate human to run the planet.”

He doesn’t know I can see, but I watch as he writes in a fifty-dollar tip for the server, for a couple of beers.

Fifty bucks for dropping off two beers, and she never once came back to the table to see how we were doing or if we needed anything else. Not bad. She deserves it for some of the stuff she probably puts up with in this place.

So where the hell is that generosity when it’s needed at scale? In his own damn company!

He’s so hard to read. Like impossible, really. Where was this likable guy on the elevator?

Was it because it was morning and he was cranky? I get that he likes to make jokes and all, but this is the place for jokes. A bar like this. Not at work, talking about injuries and sick kids.

I’m going to go insane trying to figure this out.

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