Conversations

9 Conversations with the Boss

"We need people who can actually do things. We have too many bosses and too few workers."

-Andy Rooney 

"Speak of the Devil and the Devil shall come." Marge muttered under her breath as she caught sight of Dana stalking down the corridor towards Lizzy's office.

"More like the Devil's mistress." Lizzy mumbled to herself as she stratigically placed herself behind her desk as Marge walked out. 

Dana had her usual frown on her face, the sort of frown you have when there's something smelly in the room. She walked into Lizzy's office with an air of authority and seated herself in the plush sofa in the corner of the office.

"To what do I owe this pleasure, Dana?" Her voice was dripping with sarcasm and unfriendliness. She sat down on her chair and placed her joined palms on the table in front of her.

Lizzy was usually the nice girl next door. Everyone loved her because she was kind, polite, didn't get on anyone's badside and was just generally likeable. But all of these personality traits were throw out the window when it came to dealing with Dana and a few certain others. 

Dana, being herself, ignored the obvious dislike in Lizzy's voice and made herself comfortable. "I see you're done with the initial advertisements for Arianna Architects." It wasn't a question. "So where is the file?"

"What file?" Dana stared at Lizzy irreduculously. "Oh the file that's currently with Mr. Waldon? You'll have to ask him Dana." Lizzy smirked.

"With Henry? You were supposed to get my approval on it first!" Dana stood up with the intention of being intimidating but Lizzy wasn't fazed at all. She maintained her position behind her desk.

"Yes, with Henry. The boss. You know...the man who employs you. He told me to bring the file to him once it got approved by the clients and that's what I did."

"But...I'm the one..." Dana's face reddened in what could be anger or clear embarrassment that no one bothered to consult her and that she wasn't aware of what was happening.

"Do you want me to go get the file? I'm sure it's in his office."

"I'll get it myself. I'm sure Henry was going to hand it over to me himself." Huffing, Dana stormed out of Lizzy's office.

Lizzy relaxed her stance behind her desk and chuckled to herself as her chair spun slightly. There was something she found profoundly amusing in mocking Dana. One reason could be attributed to the fact that Dana refused to do any work herself but constantly undermined the work of others. 

A few seconds later, Marge stuck her head into Lizzy's office, startling her. "Don't you have any work?"

"Of course I do. Part of my work is delegation which essentially means others do my work and I tell them what to do."

"Sounds a lot like what Dana does." Lizzy joked.

"Oh please. I still have to do the grunt work of compilation and final drafting. You know it's much more difficult to fix mistakes than to do the entire thing from scratch."

Lizzy held up her arms in defeat. "Okay, Ms. I'm-not-Dana."

"Whatever."

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"Hey Ben. Mr. Waldon wanted to see me?" Lizzy nodded at Ben, Mr. Waldon's assistant. 

"Yup. He's waiting for you. Step right in Lizzy." Ben smiled at Lizzy before going back to typing viciously on his computer.