Page 13 of Strictly Business

I take a deep breath and let it out in a shaky sigh, and then I stand up and smile at the gathered men and women. I have no idea who is who, not even who works here and who works for Hislop’s except of course for Wyatt.

“Good afternoon,” I say, smiling ay everyone in turn. “My name is Serena West and I have put together the following campaign for Hislop’s, the newest dog food brand on the market. I will take you through the company mission and the branding, the logo, the ads, and the message we want their ideal consumers to hear. When I have finished, I will open the floor up for questions.”

I smile and I relax slightly when I see a few of the people smiling, including Wyatt who is nodding his head as well as smiling. It’s good to see him pleased and encouraging me to continue. It always helps to know your boss is on board with what you are saying.

I look down at my laptop and bring up the first slide of my presentation. This slide talks about how a plant-based diet is good for your hair and skin and how you get vitamins and minerals you might be missing out on. I then tie that to dogs, including the fact that dogs can’t tell us if they have no energy anymore, so we might miss vital signs about their vitamin intake.

I’m about halfway down my speech for this page when Wyatt speaks up.

“Serena, wait a minute,” he says. I stop talking immediately. “I know you said questions at the end, but I need to know now. Why are you talking about plant-based diets and their few scant advantages?”

“Well, umm,” I start. I clear my throat and start again. “I know it’s unconventional when it comes to dog food, but the client’s USP is being a vegetarian food and I’ll be honest, I struggled to find much of anything that wasn’t negative.” I shrug my shoulders apologetically. It’s not like I didn’t try. I spent hours researching this. The Hislop’s people must know there is very little information out there. It’s not like I am dissing their brand, I’m just stating a fact.

“Wait. You think Hislop’s, the company whose branding you have worked on for almost the last two weeks, is making vegetarian dog food?” Wyatt says, looking at me incredulously. I can only nod. I am too afraid to even speak at this point, because I feel like I’ve made a terrible mistake, but I don’t know where or how. “No. Hislop’s USP is using sixty percent meat in each of their tins or trays, which is a lot higher than the national average. That’s what sets the brand apart and makes it gourmet.”

He looks at me in disgust one more time and then he changes his focus to the other people present, his expression changing to one of regret.

“Guys, I am so sorry about this. I must ask you to leave and come back next week if we get this pulled together properly by then. I will send you all the details.” Wyatt says.

The others mutter agreement and leave and after a few minutes, there is only Wyatt and me left in the room.

CHAPTER10

Serena

“You can think yourself very lucky that this was a trial run and you only embarrassed yourself and me in front of company employees. If the Hislop’s reps had been here, I guarantee you would have lost us a client and been fired,” Wyatt shouts.

I don’t know what to say except that I’m sorry, and I really am sorry, but that doesn’t seem like it will be enough. I am just about keeping myself from bursting into tears, so I keep quiet for the moment and just let Wyatt fume in his anger. I would be doing the same thing myself in his position. Vegetarian dog food. As if that was ever going to be a thing. I knew it felt off. I should have clarified it. Why the hell didn’t I check with Wyatt or someone on his team?

“Go and fix this shit,” Wyatt shouts. “And we’ll try again tomorrow. Don’t let me down again.”

I realize he is letting me off the hook, giving me a second chance instead of firing me and I force myself to meet his glare.

“I’m sorry. I won’t let you down again,” I say.

Wyatt nods once in acknowledgement and then he turns and leaves the room without another word or a glance back. I feel the tears threatening again and I blink them away. I was the one who asked Wyatt to keep it quiet that we know each other because I don’t like to mix work with outside of work, and yet I know fine well if my boss who was only my boss shouted at me because I fucked up at work, I would be disappointed in myself, but I certainly wouldn’t be on the verge of tears about it.

I take a moment to make sure I’m not going to cry and then I get up and leave the conference room and head back to my office.

I’m shaking as I slam the door behind me and go to my desk and pick up my cell phone. I scroll through my contacts, find Brook’s name and hit call. It rings twice before Brook answers.

“Hey,” she says.

“She’s a fucking cunt,” I say. “You know I hate that word but that’s what she is. A horrible, backstabbing vile one of those.”

“Well, that’s some greeting,” Brook says. “Who is and what has she done?”

“Ruth,” I say. “Remember I told you I had a feeling she sabotaged me with the IT thing?” Brook makes an mm hm sound and then I go on. “Well, I’m certain she sabotaged me this time. Not only did she make me look like the world’s stupidest person, but I actually could have lost my job over this.”

“Holy shit, what did she do?” Brook demands.

“My dog food campaign. She told me the USP of the product was that it was vegetarian. I couldn’t find anything in the brief that hinted at that, and it felt wrong, but I didn’t listen to my gut, and I believed her. The company’s actual USP is that they have more meat than any current leading brand. I pitched the vegetarian dog food Brook. To what I thought were people from the company. Luckily Wyatt wanted me to have a practice run and they were ad executives from this company but that’s bad enough,” I say. “Wyatt went ape shit. I didn’t tell him Ruth specifically told me the food was vegetarian. Should I have?”

“No,” Brook says after a moment. “Not unless it was in an email or something and you could prove it. And when she comes in all smug and asks how it went, because she will, just make on that it went well.”

“Wyatt might tell her I’m still working on it,” I say.

“Ok, fair point. Tell her that you’re making a few adjustments. You don’t’ have to say what. She’ll be expecting you to go mad and accuse her of leading you down the wrong path and then her denying it. Remember, just act like you haven’t even noticed she’s sabotaging you,” Brook says.

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