Corporate Games

“Why is the bitch presenting our report?” Tia hissed beside me.
My phone rumbled next.
“She’s trying to take credit again”
“Should not have allowed her to collate the reports”
“Our account”

We were in the middle of our quarterly meeting with the department heads. Despite being as irritated as Tia, I couldn’t just interrupt the presentation. However I won’t say I was surprised. I was not new to corporate games.

Quietly I gave Tia’s knee a comforting squeeze and mouthed “Trust me.”

The bitch continued droning until she reached the slide titled ‘Profit Predictions.’
Suddenly there was a distinct energy spike in the room as the department heads perked up. This was what the vultures were after. Everybody stared expectantly at some promising graphs.
Now the bitch floundered. The graphs were there, but without any data.

“Can we see some actual numbers?” the financial head prompted.
“Eh…,” she stuttered, fiddling with the presentation to no avail.
Eventually she looked over to us saying, “I’ll let the actual team give you those numbers,” and sat down.

I calmly rose, requested Tia to pass around the hardcopies I had been carrying, and stepped forward to take back our presentation.