Mariah's messy meeting. For Mariah Part 1.

By PrimeSlimeTime, UMD.net, 2020.

Mariah was at her desk and livid, the steam almost visible blasting from her ears. The sheer incompetence from some employees ruining her day before it had started. Her cell phone rang again, this time it was maintenance, asking her again what the problem was. It was just past 8am on Monday morning, at her desk before the office team arrived as per usual, Mariah taking her time to look over the cubicles and offices around her, stern warnings already handed out for leaving for the weekend with paperwork, full waste baskets, some even leaving their breakfast and lunch on their desks over the weekend, the place was an abomination and in the space of ten minutes of her arriving somehow the main comms had broken down, half of the extensions not working at all, maintenance not getting the message through their heads that there was a partial comms blackout, some phones ringing out silently, some dead, not useable at all. In exasperation she called offsite maintenance and tech help, Gavin Washington answering her call, talking to her calmly as he raised the alert calling in immediate tech assist for an alert one on internal comms, him testing several circuits on his own systems and lighting up the connections board he found that a back up comms server had gone down, possibly a mdb trip, isolated to one section. He followed the protocol, ensuring Mariah that he had notified maintenance but nobody was picking up and their end was definitely live. He sent her an email which she got meaning her connection was live, promising to update her as things went along, immediate red flags on every system, people would fry over this and he did not want to be in her scope on a Monday morning. Mariah was ruthless when things went bad, incompetence her arch enemy, her doing everything possible to remove it.

She sat back in her chair and opened her office blinds, the weather miserable outside, the trees half bent over in the gale she could hear, her windows pelted by a mixture of rain and snow as she went over the last weeks reports, quickly identifying some areas that needed attention, drafting up her plan of attack to weed out the vermin from her office, the place was a disgusting mess and she would rectify it. She then took a walk around taking photos of the seven most messy people in her office team, several of them cautioned over health and safety, her having reviewed the summary dismissal documents already of a few, and having the power to action them, only needing a short discussion with Scott from the resources team to make it so. She emailed him a list with the photos, also asking for a please explain from the office manager, who was already under the scope for doing the same thing and already looking for another job, Mariah quickly adding her to the list, only needing for her be late one more time according to her file, her keen to add some new blood to her house and get the whip cracking as her office was one of the worst in terms of global house compliance, something she loathed, the very reason she transferred there almost six months ago, her already shaking up the place, the shareholders expecting nothing less than excellence in the highly competitive cosmetics market place, Mariah setting a very high bar in everything she did and expecting nothing less from her subordinates.

At 8:34am, she got the reply she needed from HR, and made herself a fresh coffee, posting a full team meeting notice on the front door, kitchen door and above the coffee machine and the bathroom doors, her team was in for a shock after the dismissals were done and dusted then she made a fresh coffee and went in search of Scott who was already on her floor surveying the damage in the office for himself, making a note that the cleaner was going on transfer to the car pool and would work outside as a last chance effort to see if they were worthy of keeping. Mariah's assistant Marcia arrived next, the notices all the warning she needed, having cleared the board room before she left on Friday and signing it off with a photo to keep herself in the clear, finding it how she left it with nothing to clean. She set about setting up the chairs and notices turning them upside down in front of each seat after carefully checking the name tags on the table to make sure the correct person would read them at the meeting. She was efficiency personified and Mariah was quick to snap her up when she started as regional CEO, thinking then she would make a great office manager, in tune with the workforce and able to get things done without the big bad boss poking her nose over what she was doing. Mariah spoke to her, with a cheerful good morning, the two women clasping hands with a genuine smile, Marcia going over the schedule for the meeting and the approximate time it would conclude, her notes already in hand, Mariah handing her the summary dismissal files to go over with Scott when he was ready to chair the meeting, Mariah purposely entering late on this one as an observer, leaving the management team to do its work, her having confidence in them to get it right on the night.

9am arrived with seven office staff absent, the office manager Stacey was in for a shock when she arrived, if she turned up today at all. Scott got the meeting underway promptly with Marcia as his aide already briefed on the office managers duties at meeting times, Marcia loving the opportunity to step up and get the office in order as quickly as possible. Mariah moved to the back of the room to observe and close enough that she could ask questions to the department heads concerning resources and production. She recently received an extensive report about a sister site manufacturing plant that was permanently closed down over chemical hazards and a near fatality, the injured worker taking some time to be revived, then spending two years in critical care and rehabilitation from chemical poisoning, the company hands down liable for failing to deliver on-site safety and reporting on harmful substances and hazardous plant and equipment, the whole fiasco costing the company millions.

Scott handed over to Marcia who left no stone unturned over site safety and worker health, her displaying several photos of hazards and risks to personal health in the workplace, her further stating there was no place for compromise nor non compliance in her admin office, showing the team where they stood on the global leaderboard, all she had to do was sign the job description and offer, qualified in worker health and safety and business admin, holding a double bachelor degree for both, her asking for the support from everyone on the team, deploying an approved daily reporting system to enforce the shape up or ship out policy Mariah had presented to her in a private meeting that she had followed and encouraged others to do the same in, some not as quick to get with the program, some not caring about it at all.

Scott then summarized the meeting asking for questions, some questions directed to Marcia about office compliance standards that she handled tactfully and beautifully, her research and journalism skills in presenting her responses amazing to watch, Mariah almost giggling under her breath at her composure with a doit or else response to office standards and presentation of environment. Scott then concluded the meeting asking for feedback within the allotted time noting some changes in the staffing that he would address in person privately, then he asked Mariah if she had anything to add. Mariah walked up to the table laying her hands on it looking at everyone seated over her glasses sternly asking if anyone had questions, to which there was no reply. With that done Scott adjourned the meeting with everyone scrambling to get out of there and back to their station, Marcia happy with the result, and collecting the notes ensuring they were all signed, except for the absentees, Mariah asking for them both to remain behind after the last person left the meeting.

She congratulated them both, offering Marcia the office managers position on-the-spot subject to due process, offering her the foyer office and desk as hers and she could clear it out and spend the day setting it up as per her draft from a few weeks earlier, describing some things that needed rectification, Stacey not having a bar of change nor forwarding the information for improvement on, those two things alone costing her her job when she turned up next apart from constant lateness. Mariah then excused herself for the morning, leaving Scott & Marcia to get the office sorted and the dismissals out of the way, happy to hear the comms breakdown cause was a rat having babies in the comms mdb which shorted out some circuits, killing the vermin, outside tech fixing the problem sooner than maintenance could even get their paperwork in orderto send someone to look at it.

Mariah returned to her office mostly content with her progress for the morning, staring out through her windows into the rain and snow, the wind howling outside still, her thoughts turning to the PTA meeting she had to chair as secretary later on in the day, wondering how she secured a second term as secretary, committees only subverted progress and argued over petty differences, her thinking she might resign despite the constant encouragement, her more so a status symbol to the group, and she went through her messages on her wall screen, hearing it beep. Two summary dismissals had been actioned since their morning meeting, Scott and Marcia dispatching them quickly, the remaining five missing persons unreachable by phone and absent without making contact, Mariah now keen to clean up the office with the help of Marcia's leadership, hopefully lifting their office into green status on compliance.

Continued..