The Checklist by Addie Woolridge (color ebook reader TXT) 📗

she found a metered spot right in front of a popular coffee shop. Ordering her favorite skinny vanilla latte, she picked up coffees for Brandt and Charlie, hoping to buy herself a little goodwill and a lot of luck on her second day at the office.

After dispensing the coffees and begging the pair to spread the word that her assessment was not a Hunger Games–style selection of employees to fire (or ass), she got started on the interviews.

Several hours and six interviews later, Dylan wondered how Tim Gunderson had managed to go from principled hacker and computer genius to resident doofus without anyone stopping him. She was having a hard time reconciling the young man who had lovingly hired Frank—the now-tearful seventysomething head of admin from his old elementary school—with the man Frank was currently describing as having “callously dismissed half of the administrative team with no notice or severance.”

Deep’s pixie cut popped through a crack in the door. “Hey, Frank. Sorry, but I have to speak with Ms. Delacroix here before my three-thirty meeting.” She didn’t look the least bit sorry, but Frank seemed to buy it. Standing slowly, he prepared to go.

“Of course. I lost track of time. Ms. Delacroix—”

“Please, call me Dylan.”

“Dylan. Thank you for your time. I hope you get things turned around here. I mean, it’s so frustrating to put—”

“All right, Frank, I think she’s got it handled,” Deep said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and steering him toward the door. As soon as Frank crossed the threshold, Deep closed the door, letting out a little laugh, then sank into the chair across from Dylan as if she owned it.

Glancing down at the schedule in front of her, Dylan scowled.

“I’m not on it today. Or at all, I don’t think. I could hear Frank crying at you for, like, the last forty-five minutes, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to save you,” Deep said, a you’re-welcome look running circles on her face. “Frank is a big crier. You should see him when we do a charity event. Waterworks for days over the garden Technocore planted for a preschool.”

“Thank you.” Dylan sighed.

“So. What are our problems?” Deep said, examining her perfectly polished fingernails.

“I’m really not certain I should be discussing them with you before talking my findings over with Tim,” Dylan said, her back stiffening.

“Relax. First, I can hear everything because I’m right outside your door. Second, Tim’s office is like a sieve. Layla at the coffee cart tells everyone everything. And finally,” Deep said, ticking off reasons on her long fingers, “you need help. And God knows Brandt and Charlie are only going to get you so far.”

“Be that as it may, I still have quite a few interviews to get through before I can even start to come to anything conclusive.”

“Please. You must have some inklings,” Deep said, leaning forward as if she were about to hear state secrets.

“Fine. But do me a favor and keep them under your hat until I talk with Tim. Cool?”

“As if I tell these scrubs anything.” Deep grinned conspiratorially. “Now spill.”

“First, let me call Brandt.”

“We’re like a dysfunctional crime-fighting team,” Deep shouted at Brandt, who had become so pale as to be translucent. In the time she’d spent going over issues, Dylan had recognized two important facts. The first was that both Deep and Brandt had a knack for spotting behavioral patterns and tracing them to specific company policies or events. The other was that Deep, despite her many skills, could not under any circumstances whisper. Half the floor heard Deep shout every time she got excited.

“I think this is more of a loose affiliation, really,” Brandt actually whispered.

Deep shook her head. “Nope. This, right here, is a team. I don’t know what they taught you clowns at Lakeside, but when people work together and are clearly killing it, that is a team.”

“I didn’t go to Lakeside.” To Brandt’s credit, he was holding his own against Deep. An accusation that he’d attended Seattle’s most elite private school wasn’t going to stand with him. Dylan smiled despite herself. The idea of a team united against crappy corporate culture tugged at a corner of her brain, and she let it rotate in her mind a few times.

“Well, you act like—”

“All right.” Dylan cut Deep off before another volley of insults was fired. “Deep, as much as I like having you here, I have to ask—what is it that you do?”

Deep extended one finger and flung her bangs from her face so Dylan could see her pouting, then sat back in her chair. “Front-end developer. Well, I would be, if anyone in the new app group would stick around long enough to code anything worthy of a front end.”

“So I’ve heard.” Dylan sighed. Technocore wouldn’t have to fire nearly as many people if they could retain the good employees they had. Unfortunately, the mountain of issues in front of her made it clear that saving the development department would take a lot more than a few bonuses.

The crime-fighting-trio idea turned over in her mind again, then clicked. Dylan grinned. Tapping the page in front of her, she said, “I’m taking these issues to Tim. Assuming I get his okay, I have an idea I want to run by you both.”

“Which is?” Brandt asked, his usually cautious tone carried away by Deep’s enthusiasm.

“What if you two chaired a staff-appreciation committee?” Deep snorted before Dylan had finished the sentence. Brandt leaned back in his chair, like her idea was contagious. Shaking her head, Dylan rushed on: “Hear me out. You’re both good at pinpointing where the morale sinkholes are. It makes perfect sense that you use your powers to fix them.”

The skeptical lines on Deep’s face slackened ever so slightly at the flattery. Brandt still looked like he would rather jump over a canyon, but Dylan suspected that when push came to shove, he would probably do it. “Come on, you’re both in here because you care about