I grimaced and shook my head. “I’m sorry. I brought in coffee pods and donuts.”
“Our lord will not like that,” she warned.
“He’s already seen them, and he didn’t say anything.”
A few more people trickled in. They were all surprised—and I wanted to believe happy—to see me. Some of them looked a little irritated to see me. I owed them all an apology for the way I left.
I turned to Lana. “Can you put out the word that I’d like to have a quick meeting in the conference room this morning?”
“Is he going to be there?” she asked with a slight sneer.
“I don’t think so, but he is the owner, and if he chooses to be there, we need to accept that.”
She didn’t look happy but nodded. “Fine. If you say so.”
“I’m going to see what my office looks like,” I said with a laugh. “Has anyone been in there?”
She shook her head. “Nope. We’ve all been piling our files on his desk, which he just loves.”
“I noticed that yesterday,” I said. “He looked a little overwhelmed.”
“Good. He’s overwhelmed us. We are so far behind. I don’t see how we are ever going to make the deadline. I see us filing a lot of extensions this week and next.”
“Let me get caught up and we’ll come up with a plan,” I told her.
“I’m glad you’re back,” she said with a sigh. “Seriously, this place is a shitshow right now. I think Lennie quit.”
“Lennie?” I asked with surprise. “Really? Didn’t he just have a new baby at home?”
“Yep, but he was actively looking for another job. Any job. He didn’t care. He just couldn’t stand to work for that man anymore. He said he was going to quit before he could get fired.”
“Is he coming in today?” I questioned.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. He said when he got a job, he was out of here. I don’t see him or anyone here giving the dictator the courtesy of a notice. If he’s willing to fire people with little provocation, no one is willing to be the bigger man.”
“Does that include you?” I asked.
“Yes, to be honest. I have a lot of applications out there. I’m not limiting myself to CPA work. I’ll take just about anything.”
I hadn’t suspected it was this bad. “I’ll talk to everyone in thirty minutes.”
I walked into my office and flipped on the light. It looked exactly as it had when I walked out the door last week. I sat down at my desk and turned on my computer. I could check everyone’s work from my PC. I started popping in on various accounts and cringed when I realized we were really in bad shape.
I jotted down a few things, got myself organized, and then headed for the conference room. It was going to require nothing short of a miracle to get these people on board. Nash’s office door was closed. I was hoping he wouldn’t attend my impromptu meeting. I wanted to connect with what I very much considered to be my people.
“Hello, everyone,” I said as I walked in.
I noticed Lennie wasn’t there. He’d quit before I got the chance to retain him. “Another one bites the dust,” I murmured.
I stood at the front of the room and felt the tension and general apathy for being at work. It was sad to see how far the morale had fallen. “I want to start off by apologizing for what I did. I shouldn’t have up and left without giving anyone a second thought. I was dealing with my own issues.”
“Him you mean,” someone said. “He is an issue for everyone.”
“Guys, I’m not here to disparage the new owner,” I said. “Nash is the owner, and he is learning the ropes. We need to do our best to support him as the owner. We have all worked here a long time and each of us is invested in the clients we work for. Things have been tough these last few weeks, but we are tougher. We can do this together. We’ll get through this season and then we can take some time to reflect and maybe make some changes.”
They didn’t look convinced. “The only change we need is for George to come back.”
“Guys, George deserves to retire and be happy. And honestly, George wasn’t doing a lot of the hands-on stuff. That’s always been us.”
“But we had a good leader,” Lana said. “Someone we could trust to be good to us.”
I nodded. “I understand, and trust me, I get it. We have to make some changes. That’s evident and I am going to work hard to restore the high morale. We have all worked together for a long time. Don’t let one person destroy that. Think of the clients you’ve been working with for years. They trust you. They don’t care who signs the paychecks. I know many of you have developed great relationships. Let’s not mess that up. The clients don’t deserve to be put in a bad spot.”
“We’re so far behind,” Lana complained.
I nodded. “I get it. I can pick up a lot of the slack. Guys, I know no one wants to do it, but we’ve got some long days ahead of us. We’ll do what we do every year. We’ll pull some late nights and have a little fun. We’ll catch up. We always do. We can’t let this be the thing that destroys our excellent track record. I brought in donuts and the good coffee. We’ll load up and bust this out. If you guys want to work in here for a change of scenery, do it. I know this is going to be tedious, but we can do it. We’ve done it before.”
I felt the shift in the room and knew they were buying into my speech. I hated that I was going to have to work late. I hoped Jace would let me make it up to him. “I’ll order dinner,” I threw out. “Who wants Mexican?”
That pushed them over the line and onto my side once again. “Let’s get this done!” I said in my best cheerleader voice.
Everyone got up and started to filter out of the office. I felt better. My little speech actually pepped me up as well. I stepped out of the conference room and ran smack into Nash, who’d been lurking outside the door.
“What was that about?” he asked with his arms folded over his chest.
“We’re buying dinner for the team,” I said. “I’ll need the company credit card.”
“We?” he questioned.
“Yes, we. You’re paying. I’m ordering.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve essentially killed their drive. They’re all dead inside. They’re here because they need a paycheck, which means they’ll only do enough to not get fired. We need them to be here because they care. It’s going to be a late night and rewarding them for hard work is going to help us get caught up. Demanding they do it is only going to cost you more money in the long run. Trust me.”
He shook his head. “Whatever. I’ll handle dinner.”
“Mexican,” I said. “Tacos and good guacamole.”
He nodded and walked back to his own office. I was pushing him, but it needed to be done. We were really in the weeds and it was going to take a small miracle to get out.
Chapter 34
Nash
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. She was a miracle worker. It was all coming together. Hell, better than that. It was more than just caught up.