Bossman

    Morris Namsob sat in his office early one morning, looking over reports.  He was the CEO of a snack food company and was a brooding man with thinning grey hair.  What he saw didn’t make him happy.  Profits were down from the previous month and he wanted to know why.
    “Reggie!” Morris roared from his office.
    A few moments later, a nervous young man entered shakily.  He was thin with red hair.  “Y-yes, Mr. N-Namsob?”
    “Sit down,” Morris ordered sternly.  Reggie did as he was told without hesitation.  Morris pressed a button on his desk and a projection of a bar graph appeared on the wall.  “Do you know what this is?”
    Reggie glanced nervously at the declining bar, and then back to his boss.  “Y-yes, sir.  It’s this year’s income chart.”
    “Good,” Morris stated, still not pleased.  “Now, tell me what’s wrong with the chart.”
    “Um,” Reggie paused, studying the graph.  “The bar is going down?” he answered hesitantly.
    “The bar is going down,” Morris repeated callously, standing up.  He clicked another button and a new chart appeared, similar to the last.  “Now, tell me what this is.”
    “It-it’s a chart of our quarterly projections, sir,” Reggie answered anxiously.
    “And what direction are our profits going, Reggie?” Morris asked coldheartedly, though he already knew the answer.
    “D-down?” Reggie responded, cringing away from his angered boss.
    “They’re going down!” Morris shouted, slamming his fist on the desk.  He walked around his desk and stood right in front of Reggie.  “Now, tell me why we’re loosing money!
    “I-I-I don’t know,” Reggie answered uneasily.
    “You don’t know?” Morris said in an uncompassionate, mocking tone.  “You don’t know?”  He moved closer to Reggie until they were face to face.  “Isn’t it your job to know what’s going on?
    “But-but, sir,” Reggie replied nervously, staring into his boss’ enraged eyes.  “I’ve only worked here for two weeks!”
    Morris leaned back.  “And a fine job you’ve done so far!” he replied sarcastically.  “Now, get out there and find out what’s going on!”
    “Y-yes, sir!” Reggie jumped up and hurried towards the door.
    “And Reggie,” Morris added sternly, “don’t screw this up.”
   
    Edgar, Morris’ butler waited outside the company’s building later that day.  He stared straight forward, his eyes almost glazed over.  This job was excruciatingly boring for him, compared to his years in the military.  The radio droned monotonous instrumental music as he tried to keep himself from falling asleep.
    Morris exited the building sometime later, two hours late to be exact.  He looked tired and stressed.  Edgar sighed.  This, like many that had come before, wasn’t going to be a pleasant night.  Edgar got out to open the car door for his boss.  Morris didn’t say a word as he sat heavily in the backseat.
    By the time Edgar got back into the driver’s seat, Morris had received a call on his cell phone and was busily barking orders.  He tuned the conversation out, as he had learned to do many years ago.  After several minutes of heated conversation, Morris hung up the phone and sat back in his seat.  His shoulders slumped as he sighed and he closed his eyes while he rubbed the bridge of his nose.
    “How much longer, Edgar?” Morris asked tiredly.
    “Only a few minutes, sir,” Edgar replied with a British accent.  “We’re almost home.”
    “Good,” Morris stated.  “I’ve had a hell of a day, Edgar, a hell of a day.”

    Morris rode the elevator up to his office early the next day.  He was rarely inactive.  As he waited in the elevator he spoke on the phone with a business associate.  On the ride over he had organized the files in his briefcase and complained about the traffic.  The elevator opened on the top floor of the building.  The few employees that were there immediately stopped whatever conversations they were having and hurried back to work.
    He walked intensely by the numerous cubicles of exhausted employees, some already hard at work even though the official work day didn’t even start for an hour.  The ones that were there, tensed up immediately as he walked by.  Once he had passed, they let out a sigh of relief.  No one wanted to be in the way when Morris came in.
    “Margie,” Morris said to his secretary.  “Has Reggie come in yet?”
    “Um, I don’t think so,” she replied anxiously, though she’d learned how to calm her voice.  “I haven’t seen him come in.”
    Morris sighed, “Lazy kid.  How does anyone get any work done around here?”  He stormed into his office and closed the door.
    Reggie came into work thirty minutes later.  He carried a tall, wobbling pile of papers and file folders.  He carefully navigated his way through the narrow corridors between the cubicles.  He dropped the papers onto his desk and collapsed into his chair, relieved that he hadn’t dropped anything, as he had a habit of doing.  He looked at his watch.  He still had twenty-eight minutes until he was required to start working, but Mr. Namsob wouldn’t see it that way, especially in the mood he was in lately.
    As he started working, two serious-looking business men marched by his cubicle.  They were both tall and had rather squared features.  Each one carried a briefcase.  He leaned out of his cubicle and watched them approach Mr. Namsob’s secretary.
    “We’re here to see Mr. Morris Namsob, ma’am,” the first man said.  “Has he arrived yet?”
    “Uh, well, yes he has-” Margie began nervously.
    “We’d like to see him right now, please,” the second man interrupted her.
    “Okay, but I don’t think he’s available until two thirty,” Margie responded.
    “That wasn’t a question, ma’am,” the second man stated coolly.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper.  He handed it to her.  “Once he sees this, he’ll want to talk with us.”
    Reggie watched as Margie took the paper and anxiously entered Morris’ office.  She was only in there for a few minutes, but it seemed like ages.  The two men barely budged an inch.  After a while, Margie opened the door and invited the two men to enter.  Everything was eerily calm for sometime after that.  The calmer it was, the more nervous Reggie got.
    Morris’ office door swung open.  He stepped out of his office and whispered something to Margie before going back inside.  Margie went to Reggie’s cubicle to tell him to go to Morris’ office.  The fact that Morris hadn’t yelled for him made him even more uneasy.  Morris rarely showed restraint.  He grabbed his reports and apprehensively approached Morris’ office.
    The two men were seated next to Morris’s desk when Reggie entered.  They both were busy writing something on a pad of paper.  They both, almost in unison, glanced up as he entered and went straight back to their work.  Morris sat at his desk with an extremely displeased glare upon his face.
    “Reggie,” Morris began unhappily.  “These two men were sent by the Executive CEO of this company.  Apparently, he received a rather interesting letter addressing certain problems within this company that are limiting income,” he held up the letter, “a letter sent by you.  Would you care to explain this?”
    “Uh, y-yes, sir,” Reggie began approaching the desk.  “You told me to investigate why profits were low.  So, I did.  I w-went through reports and inventory.  W-when I found mistakes, I talked with the employees who worked on them to find out why the problem occurred.”
    “And did you uncover the reason for these rather sloppy mistakes,” the first man asked.
    “I think so, sir,” Reggie replied.  He glanced nervously over to Morris and back to the two men.  He took a deep breath and continued.  “The majority of the mistakes began to take place within the first weeks of Mr. Namsob’s promotion to CEO.  I, and several of my coworkers, believe he creates an overly stressful work environment that hinders productivity.”  He held up the file folder and handed it to the first man.  “This is everything I have.”
    “Thank you,” the man said.  “That will be all.  You may return to work.”  Reggie glanced back at Morris as he left, no longer frightened of the man who now sat with a defeated posture in the chair of the CEO.  The men looked through the file folder as Morris looked on in silence.
    “Mr. Namsob,” the second man stated after a few minutes.  He and his partner stood.  “From the evidence we’ve received, it has become clear that your promotion to CEO was a mistake.”
    “What?” Morris shrieked, leaning forward.  “B-but I was only trying to-”
    “We’re sorry, Mr. Namsob,” the second man interrupted, raising his hand to silence Morris.  “Our decision is final.  We’ll be expecting your resignation by the end of the day.”  With that, the two men turned and walked out.  Morris remained silent as they left.  He leaned back in his chair and stared straight forward as the office doors closed.