Monday Again

LAYTON

Monday came too soon, just like it always did. It didn’t matter too much to me, since I spent the weekend catching up on work anyway. It would have been nice if the weekend had been a day or two longer, though. I could have used more quiet time to catch up.

The office was best for me when there weren’t a lot of people around. Fewer interruptions, and fewer other things requiring my immediate attention. When I hired all those people on, I thought getting them to do some of the jobs I had been doing when I was still alone in the firm would lessen my workload, and it had, but only by so much. I still had to sign off and give the final say about most things.

I wouldn’t complain about it, though. It meant business was good, and since I’d spent my life focused on building up the business, it meant life was good.

The morning passed by quickly, in a haze of pencil lines and paperwork. I was relieved and satisfied to see the number of new projects we were being requested to take on for the year. If we could keep it up, it would be another good year for us.

Hiring an accounting manager might even turn out to be exactly what we needed. The accounting firm I had on retainer was doing fine, but it was becoming a nuisance couriering documents back and forth. If we had someone in house to run our numbers for us, to do the day-to-day things like projects and cost-saving measures, we could end up saving a lot of time.

Don’t put the cart before the horse, I mentally chastised myself. I still had to meet with this woman. Just because she was an accounting manager and it was something we could use around here, didn’t mean she would be suited for the job.

She could be terrible at it, or she could not fit in with the company culture at all. If that was the case, I was going to have to think long and hard about what to do with her. Turning her down for the job when it was the only condition to my inheritance would be downright stupid. I might not be as intelligent as my father had been, but I also wasn’t stupid.

On the other hand, if her appointment was going to upset the balance in the firm, I would have to think of a different plan. The firm was too important to me to jeopardize the harmonious working environment we had established for some woman my father insisted on me having.

Perhaps I could appoint her as my personal accounting manager if that was the case. The will only specified that I had to hire her, it didn’t say in what capacity I had to do it. If she managed my personal finances, she could work from home or wherever else and I would hardly ever have to see her.

Assuming she wasn’t terrible at her job, of course. If she was, it was on to Plan C. A plan I hadn’t formulated yet. I made a mental note to check the references I’d managed to get ahold of on her before she arrived.

Drawn out of my thoughts, I heard a knock on my door. “Come in.”

I straightened my tie and turned away from the city I’d been looking out over to face my desk again. Craig came striding in, shrugging out of his coat and hanging it on the rack by the door. “Mornin’ boss man, how’s it hanging today?”

“I’ve never quite understood why people ask that, but, it’s a little to the left if you must know,” I smirked, gesturing for him to take a seat. “How’s everything going down at the site?”

Craig’s lips formed a wide smile under the stubble he was sporting on his face, apparently not having shaved all weekend. I preferred being cleanly shaven myself, but that was just one of my little quirks. I didn’t remember ever wanting a beard.

“We’re all good on the job,” Craig told me. “We’ve moved fast in the week since you were there. Finishing touches today and tomorrow, then the interior people are moving in.”

“Basically done, then?” I wasn’t surprised at Craig and his guys finishing up slightly ahead of schedule. The man was a machine when it came to his job. He often put in overtime himself to get things done.

He nodded, his shaggy hair moving against the stubble on his chin. “Basically, yeah.”

“That’s great work, Craig. Really. I was worried the weather was going to hold us up.”

Shrugging, his head bounced up and down. “It could have, but we pushed when we could. The next couple of days are going to be a rush, so I wanted to come in today to thank you again for coming to me with the project.”

“No problem,” I told him, actually meaning it for once. Craig, like me, was trying to build up his own business. He started out a couple of years after I did, though and was still getting settled.

A lot of his early business came from me. It wasn’t just because he was my best friend that I supported his business to the extent that I did. “You’re the only contractor I trust to get the job done right and on time.”  

“Means a lot,” he said modestly, then heaved himself into the chair across from my desk. “So business being done with, how did your meeting with the lawyer go? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” There really wasn’t much to tell about the meeting. “Nothing really happened that I wasn’t expecting, except that he’s making me hire some accounting manager as a condition of getting my inheritance.”

“An accounting manager?” Craig looked as taken aback as I had been. “Why?”