Press on. Push forward.
You have a job to do.
*
The room was hot and stuffy, despite its size. A table of thirteen rather stern, bored-looking people sat waiting for them. Eyes wide and unblinking. Suits, every shade of grey, rustling impatiently.
‘Just one moment, we seem to be having a little technical trouble. Nothing to worry about, though, nothing at all!’Phil babbled, sweat beading across his reddening forehead. ‘What the hell is wrong with this thing?’ he hissed out of the corner of his mouth.
The brick of a laptop, which had been working fine only moments ago, was now making a disturbingly loud whirring noise, and the whole screen had turned black.
‘I don’t know.’ Olivia bent down to check the connections once again. ‘It should be working.’
‘Well, it’snotworking, is it?’ Phil spat, speckles of white saliva showering Olivia’s face.
‘Is there a problem?’ a droll voice asked from the table.
Phil stood up sharply. ‘No, no, all fine. Like I said, just a little technical issue. We’ll have it fixed in a jiffy.’
Jiffy? Since when has Phil ever said ‘jiffy’?
He crouched down and put his now scarlet face uncomfortably close to hers. ‘Do something soon or it will be the end of us.’ The smell of nerves and stale coffee made Phil’s breath even more putrid than usual.
‘Shall we try turning the whole thing off and on again?’ she asked, offering the only solution she could think of under the pressure of the executive board’s intense collective stare.
‘Fine.Fine.’ Phil waved her away frantically. ‘You do that, and I’ll start the introduction. That man there looks like he’s already asleep.’
Olivia peered up to see an elderly gentleman towards the back, whose eyes were very much closed.
‘It’s because it’s about a hundred degrees in here,’ she whispered, resenting even more the grey fitted suit that was now sticking to her body. As great as the views were from the top of the building, the floor-to-ceiling windows made the whole room cook like a conservatory.
‘Just turn the bloody computer off, will you,’ Phil ordered, standing up to his full height and plastering a maniacal smile on his face. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, let’s make a start, shall we? I know how precious your time is and I don’t want to keep you any longer. The slides’ – he shot Olivia a warning look – ‘will be ready shortly.’
Olivia did as she was told and switched the old, whirring laptop off and on. After a painfully long two minutes, the presentation finally burst into life on to the screen behind them. Phil’s shoulders visibly relaxed, and Olivia shuffled forward to take her spot next to him.
‘We’ve prepared the following presentation to highlight just how much we believe you could save over the next five years with a few minor tweaks to your business,’ Phil continued, his bustling bravado in full swing.
Olivia had known that her job would be hard. She was prepared for the long hours and weekends working. The one thing she wasn’t prepared for, however, even after seven years in the game, was just how difficult making decisions about people’s lives was. For Olivia, being a business consultant was all about how to get the most from employees. How to motivate, inspire and re-energize a business so that satisfaction soared along with productivity. Unfortunately, for nearly every other person she’d met in her company, it meant streamlining and firing. Making redundancies and ending contracts. Advising on who should stay and who should go. It wasn’t always an easy job, but until she’d gained enough experience to set up solo, she would keep her head down and continue to play by their rules. ‘Their’ essentially being Phil and his now very sweaty shirt.
‘Olivia here is going to take us through the figures.’ Phil gestured towards her, his broad grin still fixed in position.
Olivia took a step forward. The eyes of everyone at the table were on her.
She opened her mouth to speak but found herself unable to form the words. Her body ran cold and then instantly hot again. She tried to clear her throat, but in doing so only made it constrict harder.
Sweat was now pouring from her, and she was finding it difficult to breathe.
‘Olivia?’ Phil grimaced, his small watery eyes narrowing at her. ‘Could you take us through the figures, please.’
Breathe.
Take a breath and speak. It’s just like you practised.
But try as she might, no sound would come from Olivia’s mouth. Her heart was beating loudly – so loudly, in fact, that she could hear it pulsing in her ears. The thudding was drowning out every other sound in the room.
‘I … I …’ she stuttered, fear slithering from the pit of her stomach up to her chest. It was as though someone had run razor blades down the inside of her windpipe, and her fingers were starting to feel oddly numb.
‘I need water,’ she rasped.
