Getting some Office Politics advice

“Twice in twenty-four hours?”

I coughed politely and gave Vanessa my most winning smile. The severely pretty blonde was sitting in her office as usual, keeping the Vaso marketing machine on track.

She exhaled in exasperation and cleared a space on her desk for me to set down my offerings - I didn’t have the time to run out of the hotel before I had clients coming in for a meeting, so I’d stopped down at the bakery and convinced them to brew up a pair of double, steaming hot and dark as sin espressos. Plus the requisite oven-warmed cookies.

“What do you need from me?” she asked as I sat down the saucer and espresso in front of her, followed by the plate with the cookies and my own cup.

“Remember what we talked about yesterday?” I asked. “Maybe I’m coming here not to ask you for something, but to offer it to you.’

She narrowed her eyes and looked me up and down shrewdly before gesturing for me to grab the other chair and sit with her. I had no idea where Azir was, but once again he’d abandoned ‘his office’ to work elsewhere and leave Vanessa in command of her office. As I sat down and got settled Vanessa took a sip of her espresso.

“The fact that your ‘gifts’ are going down in quality is a disturbing trend,” she said, setting the espresso down.

“I’m on a time crunch here, Vanessa,” I admitted. “I have a client meeting in under thirty minutes.”

“So you do need something from me,” she said.

“No,” I said, drawing it out. “I actually don’t. Well, there’s something I could use your help on, but it’s more academic than a specific work favour. There is something I do need to tell you about, though.”

I had plenty of friendly acquaintances at work, all through the organisation and different departments. Some were better than others. Some I only saw once a month, others several times a day. I could count my actual friends at work on one hand, and I felt like that was a pretty healthy number. Dayana and Vanessa were definitely at the top of the list. And now that Dayana knew what was going on, I wanted to make sure Vanessa did as well.

Even if I knew telling Vanessa was a bit more of a risk, because she was much more cut-throat and could try to manipulate things to her advantage.

But I told her about the rumours. She immediately had the math of the potential shake-up figured out, shaking her head. “You need to take him out at the knees,” she told me.

“Jonas?” I asked.

“No, Doug,” she said, surprising me. But then, she liked Doug about as much as she liked Jonas.

“Why would I handicap Doug?” I asked. “The best-case scenario is everyone moves up a step.”

She gave me a look that could have been interpreted as ‘You’re dumb, but at least you have your looks.’ “That’s not the best case, that’s just the case where the least number of people get cut out,” she said.

“How is that not the best case?” I asked.

“Because the best case would be you leap-frogging Doug into the VP Hospitality role,” Vanessa said, then held up a hand. “But it’s not that likely to happen, so then you need to look at how to best position yourself. You and Dayana work as a pair, and we all know Dayana does almost all of Shaun’s job herself except the paperwork. When the shake-up happens, you want either Shaun or Doug on the outs while the other one looks strong, that way you control who goes into the VP Hospitality role while the other one gets canned. Then you both get promoted, stay at the same level working together instead of changing the dynamic that works, and both of your departments function at a higher level because of it.”

“Which makes things easier for you,” I said.

“It would,” she said, giving me one of her rare little smiles. Then she returned back to her cold business expression. “It will be easier for you to undercut Doug than Shaun. Dayana already doing his job for him and everyone knowing it means that anything against him will just reflect on her. You haven’t covered for Doug nearly as much, so he’s more **** without it blowing back on you.”

I grimaced and sighed. “You know this is not my MO.”

“I know,” she said, her voice sweet but her expression still cold. “And that’s why I trust you enough to lay it out for you, and not use it against me.”

“I wouldn’t ever,” I sighed. “And I hope you wouldn’t either.”

“I wouldn’t need to,” she smirked a little, her expression softening again. “You’d step out of my way if you were ever in it.”

That made me chuckle. “That’s fair, I would.”

She gave me a look that was a little confusing. Something floating around curiosity, sadness, pity and wistfulness.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Nothing, Robbie,” Vanessa said, her expression hardening again. “Nothing. Was this really all that you came up here to talk about?”

“It was,” I promised her. “I just wanted to make sure you knew things were… in motion.”

“Well, thank you,” she said. “Now what are you going to do?”

“About Doug?”

“About needing to find more last-minute bookings,” she clarified. “I can’t exactly start marketing that we’re seeking small, niche-timing events at full price.”

“Tell me about it,” I shook my head. “I’ll figure it out. If you do hear about any of the companies you network with thinking about something, let me know. Depending on what it is, I can probably do some sort of discount.”

“I’ll keep an ear out, but don’t expect anything,” she said.

I nodded. “Thanks. Anything I can do for you?”

Again she gave me a flash of a weird expression, and this one was even more complicated and hard to read. “I’m good, thanks,” she said. Then took a bite of her warm, gooey cookie and breathed in and out slowly through her nose as she chewed. Once she’d swallowed she sighed. “Better than good. Now get out of here, I have work to do.”

“And so do I,” I said, flashing her a smile and standing up. As I moved the extra chair - or Azir’s desk chair, if he ever dared use it - back to its position I had a flash of Deja Vu that made me laugh. Dayana had said the same thing to me that Vanessa had, and I’d responded the same. The idea of Vanessa giving me a playful, friendly smack on the ass to send me on my way was absurd, though.

“What is it?” Vanessa asked me as I headed for the door.

“Nothing, just a stray thought,” I said, lingering in the doorway. “Have a good day, Vanessa.”

“Have a good afternoon,” she replied, correcting me mildly. “And say hello to Cassidy for me.”

“I will,” I promised her, and left her to her work.

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