“Monica, Chris—my office, please.” Greg did not seem pleased. He waited until they were behind closed doors to begin. “I watched the video clip, Monica, and I saw that it went to the client as well—”
“Did it? Oh no.” Monica hoped she was convincing but she was pretty sure Greg knew it was intentional anyway. Not getting that cat back in the bag.
“Uh huh. Anyway, I actually spoke to the client before I read the email—he got to it first. He is deeply concerned about deadline issues, as am I.” Greg cleared his throat. “Chris, if something is wrong with your workstation, you have to tell us.”
“You mean other than every week at the team meeting, and every time we’ve met to talk about my progress, and every time you’ve happened to walk into my office, not counting the times when you started the conversation by saying, ‘I don’t want to hear about your computer problems?’”
Greg cleared his throat again. “Regardless, I’ve promised the client that we would call an Engineer today and see what could be done to improve the situation. I just wanted you to know that we are aware of the problem and will be addressing it as soon as possible.”
“Do you have someone in mind?” Monica asked.
Greg stared at her flatly. “No. Step one is research. That’s the first thing on the schedule today.”
“Because I know someone, if you’re interested,” Monica said.
“You do.” Greg paused. “I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that given the…circumstances.”
Monica smiled at him. “You mean you don’t like that the person who noticed and reported the problem also has a suggestion on how to solve it?”
The silence lasted a full ten seconds before Greg answered. “Fine. How do you know this person?”
“He works with most of the other agencies around here, he comes highly recommended, and he will be on a plane to help us tomorrow if you ask.” Monica was prepared. “I’ll email you the information, along with a list of people I know who are already working with him.” She stopped, but no one else spoke. “Unless you’d rather start your research with a Google search? I would think you’d want to make the most of our time rather than duplicating efforts. Smarter not harder. That’s what you always say, right?”
Greg cleared his throat again. “I’ll look forward to your email.”
Monica stood to leave with Chris in tow, “Well, I’m so glad everything worked out ok, then.”
Greg glared at her. “Uh huh.”
The tight line of Monica’s lips managed to hold in the giggle, but she had to turn her head away and leave quickly to try to hide her smile. She was pretty sure Greg saw it anyway. She was completely sure that she didn’t care.