Christina was the assistant manager of a small out of town supermarket. She'd worked her way up from shelf stacker, through checkout assistant to shift supervisor before gaining her current position a couple of years ago. It was a very rewarding role and one that would otherwise be perfect except for one little thing, Henry the store's recently appointed manager.

He was a nice enough guy and certainly seemed to try his best, but he was totally unsuited to management or retail. He'd previously trained to be an archaeologist before discovering he had an allergy to dust and so had to explore other careers options. Apparently, he'd only applied for the post at the supermarket on a whim but had excelled at the interview. It also didn't hurt that he happened to have graduated from the same prestigious college as the regional manager and also the company's vice president.

So, Christine found herself not only having to manage the supermarket but also to manage her boss. After all the last time she'd taken a short holiday Christine had returned to find the store in chaos: the shelves mostly empty, the customers in uproar and the staff in all kinds of distress. In fact, she was hard pressed to think what Henry was actually good for.

* * *

Christina was at work early as per usual to check on the overnight deliveries and ensure all was in readiness for opening time. Not that she didn't trust her staff. This time was usually the most productive part of her day before Henry arrived and upset her plans. So, she was totally surprised when the office door banged open and her boss came striding in.

"Good morning Tina" Henry said.

Christina hated that nickname. Her family always called her by her full name and her friends called her Chris for short. Only Henry called her Tina, and despite numerous attempts to correct him he persisted in doing so. Finally, Christina had given up trying as compared to his other failings this one was relatively minor.

It seemed that Henry was in early because of an edict from head office. The company had recently suffered a lot of negative press after their latest publicity campaign had gone badly wrong and left them on the wrong side of an argument with a national charity. This had resulted in a small but noticeable reduction in customer numbers. So, they had challenged their store managers to come up with local initiatives to counter this bad press in hopes of restoring the company's good name and more importantly its customer numbers.

Christina was happy to leave Henry with the problem as hopefully that would mean he wouldn't involve himself in the day-to-day operations of the store. Unfortunately, she should have known better as he immediately invited the local press to a special charity event at the weekend despite not yet having thought through what it might consist of.

"What exactly are we supposed to do for this event?" Christina asked.

"I'll leave the details up to you" Henry replied.

And there went Christina's free time for the rest of the day. First, she quickly went round the staff checking to see who was willing to come at the weekend. Next was deciding what exactly to do. Yes, they could easily arrange for some stalls and probably entertainments for the kids, but they still needed something extra to make it stand out and justify the invitation to the local journalists.

Meanwhile having made one poor decision that day, Henry went on to make another. He decided to doublecheck Christina's orders for the following day. Most of them seemed to make sense but Henry decided that some of the quantities looked a little on the low side and so increased them. He didn't raise them much, just enough to show that he was taking an active interest in the work. Then without consulting his assistant manager he actioned the orders and sat back contentedly.

Christina only became aware of Henry's tampering when one of the store's regular suppliers phoned to confirm the increase that afternoon. Christina rapidly headed to the back office and logged on to her computer to check the day's orders. It didn't take long for her to spot Henry's changes and immediately went to confront him in his office.

"What have you done to the orders?" Christina accused him.

"I upped them slightly" he replied defensively.

"You do realise those numbers represent pallet of extra goods" Christiane asked.

Henry put his face in his hands as Christina grabbed the phone on his desk and started calling round all their suppliers to try and fix the problem. She made sure to loudly blame a new staff member for the fault and stated that they would be receiving remedial training. Luckily only one supplier, a national bakery chain, had already shipped so it was possible to correct most of the order.

So, other than decide what the hell to do with Henry, that still left Christina with two major problems: to come up with a special attraction for the upcoming charity event and what to do with all the baked goods that Henry had ordered. Neither problem seemed to have an obvious solution and yet both needed one swiftly.

* * *

The answer came to Christina the following morning as she was drinking to work. In fact, it not only solved both of her problems but would also teach Henry a fitting lesson. So, upon arriving at the store she immediately made her way to the loading bay to check up on the overnight delivery from the bakery. Sure, enough there stood three pallet loads rather than the usual one.

Christina got a couple of staff to help her unload two of the pallet and move the trays of pasties into the chill room to preserve them for the weekend. She then went to her office to review the arrangements for the weekend event. All was in order and Christina even managed to do her usual once over the store before Henry knocked on her door and came in.

"Morning Christina" Henry said.

By way of apology for his mistake yesterday he brought her a cup of coffee which he placed on her desk. Christina thought it a nice gesture, it was just a pity that she particularly like coffee. But she accepted the drink in the spirit it was offered and thanked Henry. He gave her a brief nod before allowing her to return to her event planning.

They would hold it in the field beside the store and she'd already made suitable arrangements with the landowner. She'd also contacted other local businesses and organisations to participate and had even organised some entertainments including face painters, fairground rides for the children and even a couple of local bands to play at the event. As for the main attraction, she already had all that she needed: the trays of pies currently in the chill room, a plastic stacking chair, a placard and of course Henry.

With the planning well in hand, Christina returned her attention to the daily routine of her job. She checked in with her supervisors and took a walk around the store to confirm there were no issues requiring her attention. Even Henry seemed to be behaving himself and a quick review of the following day's orders showed no evidence of his tampering.

"Wonders will never cease" Christina remarked.

In fact, everything went so smoothly that Christina left work on time for once. Things were so much easier when Henry behaved himself and kept away from the operation of the store. Still come the charity event she was determined that he would finally prove to be an asset, even if he didn't yet know what part he was going to play.

* * *

As the day of the event arrived, Christina was up early and one of the first to arrive to help set things up. Soon colourful bunting decorated the hedgerow and stalls began to appear in the field. Next to turn up where the guys with the kid's rides and the two bands. By nine o'clock everything was in readiness for the opening and a large queue had formed awaiting entry.
'
Henry had turned up shortly before nine dressed smartly in his business suit. Clearly, he'd been expecting to give a speech to the waiting crowd before officially declaring it open. Christina quickly quashed his expectations as she threw open the gates and allowed the people to enter before he could utter a single word.

"But I was about to give my speech" Henry complained.

"That's scheduled for later" Christina explained.

Somewhat mollified, Henry allows Christina to show him around. It was certainly an impressive accomplishment considering how little time she'd had to pull it all together. They even bumped into a couple of local journalists wandering around although Christina was careful to steer their conversations away from what was going to happen later to make the event so special.

Christina left Henry to his own devices whilst she went to check on the current state of the fundraising. She had decided that they would be supporting three local charities: a children's playgroup, theatre restoration and an old peoples support network. All the stalls had agreed to donate at least a percentage of their takings to the charities and so far, they had already raised over a thousand pounds. And of course, there was still the rest of the day to go as well as the money taken for Christina's special surprise.

And thinking about the surprise, where exactly was Henry? Christina did a quick circuit of the field until she found him buttonholing another of the journalists. She managed to extract Henry and shepherded him over towards the centre of the field where she'd made her preparations. There was already a small crowd gathered.

"Time for your speech" she instructed him.

As Henry addressed the growing audience Christina began to unveil her props. First was the plastic chair which she positioned behind Henry. Then she wheeled out two trolleys laden with the excess cream pies Henry had mistakenly ordered. Finally, she bought out the placard upon which she'd written 'Pie the Manager' and stuck it in the ground.

The crowd reacted with laughter especially when Christina picked up one of the pies and stood beside Henry. He tried to continue with his talk but realised that something strange was occurring and turned to Christina for answers. She took that as the perfect opportunity to take the pie she was holding and thrust it into Henry's shocked face.

"Roll up folks, three pounds a pie" Christina declared.

Christina forced a pie-blinded Henry to sit on the chair she'd placed behind him. Then for a suitable donation Christina began to hand out pies to the crowd such that by the time Henry had wiped the cream from out of his eyes there was a sizable queue of people waiting to pie him further. Henry looked at Christina pleadingly who shrugged her shoulder apologetically.

The first customer stepped toward and smeared his pie into Henry's face. This was closely followed by a pie from the second customer who also happened to be one of the store's shelf stackers. This began a bit of a trend with many of the store's staff taking the chance to mess up their manager for all the times he'd unwittingly messed them up their work life. But there were more than enough pies to go around including for some of the journalists that Henry had specially invited.

Some of the customers also purchased multiple pies. One thrust a pair of pies to either side of Henry's head whilst a middle-age woman brought six pies and one at a time smashed them into his face. Christina recalled the women; she'd been in the store a few weeks back and Henry had knocked over her shopping trolley.

"I'm sorry but we're down to the final pie" Christina stated.

Christina had saved the final pie for one of the local journalists who was reporting on the event. She did a short piece to camera describing the event and highlighting the work of the charities that it was benefiting. She also namechecked the store before directing the viewers' attention to its pie sodden manager before delivering the final pie into his face.

With Henry's ordeal finally over, Christina escorted him back to the store where he could get a shower and change into some clean clothing. Christina had to admit feeling a little sorry for him, but it had felt good to see Henry getting humiliated for all the problems he had caused her. And she wasn't worried about retribution, after all Henry couldn't organise a pie fight in a bakery.

The end.