Nick just shook his head in bewilderment. ‘How can you even ask that? That’s totally inappropriate for an office environment. What kind of image do you think it gives our company? How do you think women will feel when they look at it?’
Andy folded his arms. ‘Tell me, when do we ever get any visitors to this office? And there aren’t even any women here.’
‘What about Sadie?’ Nick couldn’t believe his ears.
‘Her? She’s just part-time admin. She doesn’t count.’ Andy clearly didn’t even see her as a member of staff. Which made Nick angry. Before he knew what he was doing, he had grabbed the calendar off the wall and torn all the pages in half.
He dumped them in the bin, trembling, part with rage and part with fear. ‘There you go. That’s the only good thing that your calendar is good for.’
Andy grabbed Nick and raised his fist under his nose. ‘That was my calendar, you little shit!’
‘Gents! Please!’ Their boss had pushed himself through the group of people watching at the doorway. ‘What is going on here?’
‘He put up a calendar with naked women on it.’ Nick was still angrily defiant.
‘And he ripped it in half and threw it in the bin.’ Andy crossed his arms again.
The big boss sighed. ‘Andy. Nick is right, unfortunately. A naked calendar is not appropriate for the office.’
Nick didn’t like the word unfortunately, but since he was being backed up then he supposed he couldn’t complain.
But the man wasn’t finished yet. ‘But you, Nick. Ripping up other people’s property is not an appropriate way to resolve a conflict.’ He gave a theatrical sigh. ‘Since you’re so junior, I’ll overlook it this time.’
The man turned on his heel. ‘Everyone, back to work! Work doesn’t do by itself, you know.’
Andy gave Nick a dirty look and walked off back to his desk. Nick took a deep breath. He almost wished he hadn’t said anything in the first place, but as he passed Sadie’s desk, he looked at her and saw her mouthing ‘thank you’ at him. His heart lifted. Maybe he had done the right thing?
It was a week later when Nick finally felt ready to go to his boss with his ideas. This was a real gamechanger. It could make them a lot of money. He’d prepared a presentation to show to him, with details of the potential market and everything. He’d grab him right after their weekly team meeting and ask for some of his time. He could barely contain his excitement when he got in that morning.
‘Right, everybody,’ the boss said as they sat down in the conference room, around the white-topped table. ‘We’ll go through the regular business soon, but meanwhile Andy has some exciting new ideas to share with us.’
Andy stood up to the usual claps and hoots of approval, and Nick sat back, curious to know what was coming next. But as the slides displayed on the screen, he felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was his presentation. OK, changed a little bit, but his charts were there. And his ideas. All of his precious ideas.
Nick barely registered the rest of the meeting, so caught up was his mind on how Andy had stolen his work. How had the man done it? And then he suddenly remembered. He had stored all his work on his personal folder on the shared drive. And none of it was password protected. Anyone could have looked at his stuff.
As the others were filing out, he grabbed Andy by the arm. ‘I can’t believe you did that.’
‘Did what?’ Andy looked at him innocently.
They were the only two left in the meeting room. Nick kept his voice low. ‘That was my presentation. With my ideas.’
Andy looked him and folded his arms. ‘Prove it.’
Nick looked at him. ‘I have a copy of it in my folder on the shared drive! You stole it from there!’
Andy shrugged. ‘Like I said.’
Nick made his way back to his desk, his hands shaking. He clicked into his personal folder. And then blinked. The entire folder where he had stored the presentation, and all the research that had gone into it, was gone. Just deleted. He clicked around for a couple of minutes, thinking maybe he’d been mistaken, that he had maybe stored it somewhere else, but when he looked up and caught sight of Andy smirking at him from the other side of the office then he knew. This was revenge for the calendar.
Nick got up and marched straight into his boss’s office. ‘Excuse me. Can I have a word?’
The man leaned back in his chair with a friendly smile. ‘Sure. What can I do for you?’
Nick closed the door, then sat down in the chair across the desk. ‘It’s hard to say this, really. But I need to tell you that those ideas, the ones that Andy showed us this morning, they were mine. I came up with them. He took them off me without me knowing.’
His boss was silent for what seemed like a long while, and then he finally spoke. ‘Nick. I know you’re very new to the team. And all this may seem very new to you, being fresh out of university. But I have to say that we’re a team. We work together. There’s no point putting someone down just to make yourself look better.’ He leaned his arms on the desk, looking very stern. ‘And I have to tell you that accusing someone of stealing your ideas is a very serious accusation.’
He waited a while longer, while Nick shifted in his chair, feeling the blood rise to his face. If even his boss didn’t believe him, what was he going to do?
Then the older man sighed suddenly and leaned back in his chair. ‘Look, Nick. Whatever issues you and Andy have, you need to sort them out. He’s a longstanding valued member of this team. The clients trust him. I trust him. And if you can’t make this work between you, then maybe you should think about finding another job.’
He held up a hand as Nick started to speak. ‘I’m not saying that in a bad way, Nick. I really like your work so far, and I think you have a long and promising career ahead of you. It’s just that if you want to get on in this world, you need to learn how to fit in. And become a team player.’ He smiled at Nick brightly. ‘Now. Is there anything else?’
Nick shook his head, feeling his shoulders slump. ‘No. I understand.’
Nick’s stomach growled, bringing him back to the present. It was after the presentation fiasco that things had really turned toxic in the office. The subtle bullying. The not-so-subtle comments. It had got to the point where he felt physically sick every time he walked through the office door. That’s why he had started applying for new jobs. And had been so elated when he thought he was finally getting away, only to have his dreams dumped in the bin.
He checked his watch. Way past dinner time. At least he felt
