When Ginny was called in to see her boss that morning, she had no idea how radically her work-life would be altered. She had been the office manager for this private consulting firm for the last fifteen years, and Doug had been her boss since becoming the CEO five years ago when his father had retired. Doug was a good boss: he was competent, usually in a good mood, and most of the time was not overly demanding. Ginny was comfortable working for him. They could joke around together on slow days, and while their conversations never strayed too much outside the bounds of small talk, they also weren't completely fake or empty. Doug was in a completely different financial class than Ginny, but he never made her particularly conscious of that fact. Basically, he was a great guy to work for, and an easy guy to completely forget about when she left the office. But that was about to change.
Ginny was a bit ο¬ustered as she entered Doug's office and closed the door behind her. She was still catching her breath from running up the stairs, trying--unsuccessfully--to get to her desk by 8am. She'd been late for work a few too many times this year, and Doug had actually had to mention it to her recently. Overall she'd been a very dependable worker in her time with the firm, and it wasn't as if she'd ever get fired for tardiness. Still, it was embarrassing that Doug had felt the need to point out her lapse, and it was especially troubling to her that she'd arrived late on a day when Doug had left a note on her desk to see him immediately. He'd only left her one such note before, when she'd forgotten to mail an important client file, and she was pretty sure he wasn't calling her in to give her a raise. Plus, Sam and Andy (the firm's full-time lawyer and the head of IT, respectively) had given her slightly worried looks when she'd rushed past them in the break room five minutes ago.
"Hi Ginny." Doug's tone was measured, serious.
"What's up?" she asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.
"Ginny, would you sit down?" He motioned to the chair across from him. She sat. Doug's desk was massive, and she was glad for the distance separating them right now. She didn't know what was going on, but she was nervous, and was hoping it wasn't too obvious.
"It's the Miller account. There's a problem with the spreadsheets you forwarded to them at the end of last month."
Ginny felt instantly sick. She knew immediately, or was pretty sure she knew, what Doug was talking about. She remembered having a problem with one of the files. She had gotten into a conversation with Sam as she did her updates, they were having fun talking about their spouses, and they had talked for too long. She'd been working as she talked at first, but had finally given up and talked to Sam intently for over half an hour. When he was called out, she'd returned to her work and realized that a bunch of data was missing; important data. She must have been clumsy on the keyboard while they were talking. It was late in the day, everyone was out, and she was panicked. She'd finally managed to find a recovery file, and saved it over the damaged version. She was relieved, but was still slightly worried that she didn't have all the original data. However, she'd also bungled a newsletter PDF just two weeks prior. Ginny didn't make many mistakes, and it was simply bad luck that this situation had happened so close on the heels of her last error, her first one in recent memory. So she decided to just send the files on, being 99% sure that she had recovered the one file completely, and not wanting to admit to another failure so soon. She was about to find out what a huge mistake this was.
"--and the missing pages caused some real problems on their quarterly returns." Doug was talking; he'd been explaining for a while, but Ginny had tuned out for...she didn't know how long. "They had backups, and everything's been put in the right place by now. But as I'm sure you knew at the time, they were in a hurry to include those new accounts, which is why we were helping them on this--"
"I'm SO sorry about this, Doug. I knew they were rushed, and I--"
"I know, I know, I'm sure you're sorry, and I have no doubt that you won't let that happen again. But the missing data meant that Miller had to re-file, past the deadline, and they incurred some heavy fees. About $140,000."
Ginny's eyes bulged. Fuck. That was over twice her salary. The Miller Corporation was probably 20% of her firm's business. If they were to lose an account like that due to her stupid mistake, she could kiss this job goodbye. FUCK. She was 43 years old, and had worked here since she was in her late twenties. Her husband Mark had just changed careers and took a big pay cut. Their daughter was in college, and their aggressive refinance last year had bumped up the mortgage payments considerably. Ginny made good money for an office manager, and with her salary they'd be fine. But without it, they were screwed.
"Is Miller going to...?" She trailed off.
"Are we going to lose the account? No. Our board met yesterday about this. We've compensated them partially in future fee reductions, and I'm doing a couple of other things for them...the details aren't important, but I took care of them, and they're satisfied with the solution. But Ginny..." Doug sighed and stood up behind his desk.
"Ginny, I'm not fond of delivering bad news to people, but I guess I have to ask you to read this." He grabbed hold of his monitor, and carefully managing the cord, turned it around to face her, then slid it toward her a little. She saw it was opened to an email, but still couldn't read it. She stood up and leaned on the huge desk to get close enough to read the email, which was sent by Dan Greaves (whom she'd always hated) to Doug and the rest of the board. Doug walked around the desk and paced a little as she read.
"Ginny, Dan has asked that you be dismissed, and several of the board members are in agreement with him. I know you and Dan don't like each other, and I know this could be at least partially a vendetta,"--(several years ago Ginny had called out Dan on a lot of extra 'vacation' time he'd been submitting, and Dan had been reprimanded)--"but the truth is, this was a serious fucking fuck-up, and people lose their jobs all the time for less than this."
She was near tears. This was the end for her here. Still leaning at the edge of Doug's desk, Ginny collapsed her head into her arms on the slick wood surface, trying not to cry. Doug was still talking, pacing behind her.
"I don't exactly have a free hand to do whatever I want here, Ginny. I know this was a mistake, I know it's not the kind of thing you do very often, and I personally don't want to fire you. But Dan's on a tear, and he's got some important people on his side. Now, I've been the CEO long enough, and have enough people in my own court, that I might be able to overrule Dan. But I'd be calling in some favors, and I'd end up owing some favors of my own."
She pulled up her head, but kept leaning on the desk, pretending to look at the email from Dan Greaves. Doug approached the desk and stood right next to her, so close that their hips touched.
"Ginny, I can save your job. But it wouldn't be without cost to myself. I'm willing to go out on a limb for you, but I would want you to do something for me in return." Doug spoke quietly, deliberately, and she could feel his weight push in on her just slightly.
Instantly Ginny went from almost crying to being indignant. She stood up straight and walked around to the other side of the chair, putting a few feet between her and Doug. She spoke slowly and evenly: "What exactly are you saying to me, Doug? Because it sounds like you are proposing something that could get you and your company sued. It SOUNDS like you are sexually harassing me. I could almost swear you were on the verge of saying 'I can save your job, Ginny, if you'll just fuck me.' I really hope that's not where you were going, Doug."
