Year starts with Shiro tantrums as CEO quits after poor results

The year is off to a flying start. There is so much happening. In fact, I feel like the Christmas break was a long time ago. At the start of this week, the CEO called us into a meeting. During the meeting, he told us, “I will be leaving at the end of this month and Sofia, the operations manager, will be the acting CEO until the board recruits my replacement.”

I could see that everyone in the room was taken aback by this announcement because Sofia was the least likely candidate to be an acting CEO. To begin with, Sofia has only been with the company for two years and she rarely says much during meetings. I could see that a few managers were masking their disappointment because they had hoped for  a different outcome.

The CEO  gave us a long lecture about how dismally we performed in 2016 and how we need to pull up our socks in 2017 if we want to continue enjoying any salaries and bonuses. 

After the hour-long meeting, we all went back to our offices to figure out how to manage our working lives now that Sofia is in charge.

I had just got to the office when I received a call from Shiro sounding frantic asking, “Babe! Where are you?” Her tone on the phone was clear indication that I  needed to be somewhere  or doing something which for the life of me I could not remember. She said, “I have been waiting for you for the last half hour.” I foolishly asked, “Where?”

She sounded exasperated when she said, “At the school uniform shop.” That is when it all became clear to me. Shiro and I were meant to have gone shopping for the children’s uniforms together. Frankly, I did not see the benefit of both of us going to the shop but my feeble attempts at getting out of it were met with accusations that I was “absconding my parental duties”.

Realising that I could not get out of this one, I said, “Sorry, something came up in the office but I am leaving now and will be with you in a bit.” I quickly picked up my wallet and car keys and got ready to leave the office.

Just as I was leaving, the HR manager walked in holding a cup of coffee and in a mood to chat. I told her, “I really cannot chat now. I need to dash out.”

She replied, “but this will only take a few minutes. In fact, just one minute.” Well, when someone from HR insists on having a conversation, the wisest thing to do is to shut up and listen. Looking back, I should have known that this was going to be a long conversation.

It turns out that the HR manager had some ‘dirt’ on our acting CEO. The  HR manager told me something about Sofia having issues of integrity in her former role and how she had to be sacked because of horrible “interpersonal skills.”
At a certain point, I had to stop the very animated manager and ask her, “What do you want me to do with all this information?” She said, “We who love the company must protect it.” I was taken aback by all this and said, “Listen, I need to rush. Can we talk about this when I get back?” She did not appear to take this kindly but she  said, “Okay, but keep it a secret for now.”

As I left the office, I looked at my phone and saw that Shiro had called me more than 10 times. I decided that the best option was to just focus on getting to the  shop and dealing with the uniforms matter. When I got to the shop, I looked all over but there was no sign of Shiro and the children. I tried calling her but her phone went unanswered.

I had to decide whether to go to home and face Shiro or maybe wait for her or go back to the office. I tried calling her one more time. When she did not answer her phone, I decided that it was best I go back to office and do some work.