Novel Square
Chapter 0010
Chapter 0010
“What? Me? Why?”
“Somehow a large order of office supplies for one of our biggest clients just…up and vanished? No one seems to know what happened to it. The client is pissed, the higher ups are pissed. This was our biggest order of the quarter, we are losing a ton on this,” Maria explained.
“They think I did it?”
“I think that’s what they’re looking into now, nobody knows for sure yet who’s to blame,” she said. “Everyone’s nervous though, those orders go through a lot of hands before they’re processed. But I heard some whispers about who they’ve narrowed it down to, and you’re on the list.”
Bob, our immediate supervisor, stepped into the center of the room. Everyone in the office went completely silent.
“Can I please see Elena, Hazel, and Janice in the conference room?” He said solemnly. He turned and headed that direction.
“Oh my god,” I said. “I didn’t mess up this order, you know how careful I am!”
“It’s okay,” Maria said, She placed a hand on my shoulder. “There’s always a huge paper trail for these things. They’ll be able to tell it wasn’t you.”
Maria’s words soothed my nerves some, and I walked towards the conference room behind Janice and Elena. Bob stood in the front of the room, and he gestured at the seats in front of him when we entered. We sat.
He cleared his throat. “I’m sure by now you’ve heard the news that we’ve lost a large shipment that was to go out to one of our biggest clients, Office Surplus.”
The three of us nodded.
Bob continued. “We’ve been hard at work trying to resolve the issue. We’re hoping we don’t lose our client over this, as they’ve threatened to end their contract with us over it.” Property belongs to Nôvel(D)r/ama.Org.
My eyes grew wide. That would really hurt our company if they took their business elsewhere. They were responsible for at least 50% of our profit every quarter.
“We’ve also been looking into who may be responsible for the mistake,” Bob said. “Whoever is responsible will receive a demotion, and will be in serious danger of losing their job here altogether. We don’t know who is to blame yet, but we have narrowed it down to the three of you.”
“Bob,” I jumped up. “I handed this order over to Elena at Logan’s request, so I could focus on a task for him.”
Elena jumped up. “Then it is your fault! Neglecting your work because you’re playing teacher’s pet with Logan just to get that promotion.”
“Ladies, please,” Bob said. “Hazel, if it is found that you’re to blame, you’ll no longer be a candidate for that position.”
“I can prove to you that I’m not,” I snapped, mostly at Elena. “I have the emails to back me up.”
I stormed out of the room to my computer to pull up my work email. I typed in any search word I could think of: Office Surplus, orders, Logan, Elena. But my searches didn’t return any of the emails about that particular order. Somehow they had all just disappeared.
Bob and Elena walked over to my desk. “Well?” He asked.
I grew flustered. “I…I can’t seem to find…”
“Because they don’t exist!” Elena said.
“But they do! I’m sure they’re in here somewhere, I just need a little more time to…” I quickly began scrolling through my email.
“I’m sorry Hazel,” Bob said quietly. “But I need you to pack up your things. You’ll report to the first floor for your new assignment.”
He started to walk away. I jumped out of my chair. “Bob, wait! This isn’t fair, I didn’t…”
Logan suddenly appeared, stopping Bob in his tracks. “Excuse me, Bob. Is is your decision who is or is not a candidate for the position of my assistant?”
Bob, Elena, and I were all taken aback. Logan had only been there one week, and sure, he technically was over Bob, but up until this point he had kept his nose out of our department. Why was he sticking up for me? So far our only interactions had revolved around planning things for his wife. He barely knew me or anything about me.