Executive

…40

A young technician waited for Alex to come in. As she approached her office, the technician came forward and touched Alex on her arm to get her attention.

"Hi," she said shyly, "I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you did for me yesterday."

"Ah, it's all right, Melanie, you're welcome," Alex said, "Did it go well?"

"Not sure yet, it might have though, I still have hope for us."

"Good, that's good to hear, I am sure things will work out just fine," Alex said.

"May I see you in my office, Miss Hoffmann?" Sheppard's unexpected request startled her. She turned to follow Sheppard, while the technician disappeared in a hurry.

"What was that all about?" Sheppard asked, sitting down behind his desk. His voice was the usual hissing whisper, only somehow it sounded even more threatening.

"Oh, that? Melanie needed to leave early yesterday to go to a marriage counseling session. She and her spouse have some problems, and she's desperately trying to save her marriage."

"Marriage counseling," he repeated, punctuating every syllable with an almost imperceptible pause. Words dropped like stones. "What is this country's divorce rate, do you know?"

"I am not sure," Alex replied, bracing herself for what was to come.

"It's about 50 percent. Your employee's marriage is nothing else but just that — a marriage. They fail anyway."

Alex was not about to interrupt him and argue in her defense. She hoped this would soon be over and forgotten.

"So, why should we care, exactly? I don't care about anyone's marriage, family, or issues," he continued in the same threatening, yet calm, tone of voice. "I do not have to care. What I do care about is that you don't even have the basic leadership skills required for this job."

Oh, boy, she thought, this is going to get much uglier than I expected.

"What do you want from your employees? Do you know?"

Not sure if he really expected an answer, Alex hesitated. The silence persisted. "I expect them to work hard, be dedicated, loyal, focused, and creative," Alex replied eventually.

"If you want your employees focused on work, then aren't they better off without a spouse? Huh?"

Shocked, Alex was speechless.

"You aren't very smart, I'm afraid. We have no interest whatsoever to make even the tiniest of efforts to preserve our employees' marriages. It is illegal for us to favor singles for employment or to actively pursue actions to get married employees divorced. But I sure as hell don't want to do anything to keep an employee married. If she were single, she would spend more hours in the office."

Alex swallowed with difficulty. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. The viciousness in Sheppard's voice added to the cruel callousness of his words.

"I am urging you to spend time thinking what you want, and make up your mind about how you're going to do your job. If you're not ready to be the executive I hired you to be, please be reminded there is a door you could be exiting through. Don't hesitate to use that door if you are not ready, with every bone in your body, to give me what I expect." He paused, apparently thinking what to do with her. "You are not very smart, are you? I'm afraid I might have been mistaken about you. This job is probably too much for you to handle. From now on, please run all such decisions by me. You seem to lack every single useful leadership skill, even the basic ones. Dismissed."

Alex stepped out of Sheppard's office without a word. She was heading straight for the smoker's area, but her private cell phone's message warning beeped and stopped her.

The message read emergency meeting at agency hq — asap.