Page 2 of Devilish Bully
“You looked beyond handsome on the cover ofGQlast month.” He ignores my wish for him to head for the exit, pulling a wrinkled magazine from his breast pocket. “I refuse to believe that you can’t pull a single woman in this city. Unless—are you bad in bed? Is something wrong with your dick?”
Jesus…“There’s nothing wrong down there. Trust me. I just don’t have time.”
“Well, you would if you reconsider the IPO,” he says, putting the paper away. “Rethink that for me and your mom, please.”
“Okay, Dad. I will.” I nod, even though I won’t.
I can’t…I’ve come too far.
He smiles and looks at Brian. “Before I leave, can you post a reminder in his schedule about his mother’s upcoming birthday celebration? It’s a multi-day event.”
“It’s already been done, sir.”
“Good.” My father walks to the hall where his personal driver is standing near the elevator bank.
As always, Brian and I wait until they descend out of view. Then we walk to the windows and make sure that they actuallyget inside the waiting town car. Sometimes, my dad will turn around and return to the building to chat with my employees.
We’re in the clear today, though.
His car pulls into Manhattan’s traffic, and I exhale.
One crisis down. On to the next.
“Okay.” I look at Brian. “Tell me that he hasn’t spoken to any media lately, and that he didn’t do any damage while he was here today.”
“He sent a mass email to every employee, encouraging them to fill out ‘Rate the CEO’ surveys ahead of the next all-hands meeting.”
“Okay.” I shrug. “It went straight to spam as always, right?”
“No.” He hands me his tablet, showing me the subject line of an email that came from my account.
Subject: Help Make this Company Better. (Help Me Be a Better CEO…& a Better Man)
“I see…” My blood simmers. “I refuse to read the message. Summarize it for me.”
“Apparently, you’ve been a very mean man who is obsessed with work, and you want to change things ahead of the IPO. You want to be a lot more transparent and make Pearson Industries the greatest and most fun place to work in the world.”
“Should I install a theme park in the basement?” I ask. “Would that make it more fun?”
“No.” He smiles. “I don’t think that’s what you meant from this message.”
“My father, you mean.”
“Yeah, him…”
“Reply to that message by saying it was fraudulent before anyone sees it.”
“Too late.” He avoids my gaze. “All your board members love it, and they’re looking forward to seeing your approval rating at the all-hands meeting.”
“I need you to hack the survey and make sure it’s ninety-eight percent.”
“Ten steps ahead of you, sir.”
Later that night,in between researching “Happiest Places to Work in Manhattan,” and “How to Punish Employees for Talking Shit About the Boss,” I run into the same issue on my financial forecast reports.
There’s a chunk of them missing, which makes no sense because I’ve requested these plenty of times.
What the hell is going on?
