Thread: Taming the Boss from Hell  (RaegingDesire x dale232)

Aubrey Lake picked up a handful of her hair, holding it at the nape of her neck to let herself cool down a little as she sighed, staring at her computer screen. She'd asked George to redesign the quiz for the upper midwestern reason - a simple enough request, she'd thought - and it was still glitching all over the place. One of the ways Check attracted single subscribers was with their region-specific quizzes that playfully helped potential customers rank how well they were adulting, then guided them to a page laying out a rudimentary custom plan for how Check could help them meet their needs. Minnesota drew the outdoorsy types year round, so she'd been working hard with the teams on the ground there to put services in place to bring bait, ammo, etc. to hunting and fishing sites. Now that she'd gotten the services in place, though, George was fucking up the codes to route customers to the appropriate questions in the survey. He'd promised that it was working when he left, but it sure didn't look like it was working now. She scowled at his empty desk, scrawling a post-it for him to email her. Just because she was on vacation didn't mean she'd let her team slide. Any more than they were, anyway. It was barely dusk, and the office was empty. She'd been the first to arrive, and she'd be the last to leave. Again. Why was it so hard to get good help? She was twenty-nine, and had been with Check since its inception six years earlier, steadily rising until her job was nearly all she could ever have hoped for it to be. None of her employees were radically younger than her, some older, so the work ethic couldn't be a generational thing - they were just lazy. And she was giving them a week without her to develop more bad habits. Aubrey sighed again, letting her hair fall and beginning the process of shutting down her work station. She had to have this week off - the company couldn't tout vacations for all managers if all managers didn't take one - and she'd done everything she could to set her team up for success. She'd have her phone on her the whole time, she reminded herself, as she sat at home and ate pizza and watched reality television...and made sure the ads were playing where they'd paid for them. And when she came back, if her team hadn't met their targets, it would be time for some pink slips. She'd tried to work with this bunch, she really had, but you couldn't grow a company if people weren't willing to put work in, and it was becoming clear that this whole team was subpar. She clicked the computer and the monitor off, picked up her bag, and locked the door behind her, dropping a post-it off at George's desk. She glanced at herself in the reflection from her office window, brow furrowing. Her makeup was still in place, but her hair was flatter than it had started, certainly. She paused to make sure her black top was properly tucked into the grey skirt - it had shifted as she sat - before heading down the hall, heels clacking on the tile, hose whispering as her legs brushed. A bath, a glass of wine, she decided as she pushed the elevator button to take her to the parking garage. She'd relax a little and call it an early night.