the right one for the woodwind section for La Bohème could take months, without that catalogue. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.’
Now when he stared down at me, I shuffled and swallowed. The blood pounding quite hard in my veins. Fear, obviously at how close I’d come to messing things up. Who knew that a little box with all those wires could have such significance?
‘When you happily downloaded your little virus, it slowed the whole network down. Every computer in the building was busy sending out emails to every contact on every email account in the building. To stop it we had to shut down most of the network, in order to ensure that the vital systems could carry on. Luckily for you the real damage only started after the opera had finished for the night. Otherwise the show would not have gone on.’
Shit. That would have been serious. We’d weathered storms, riots outside, transport strikes, but we’d never missed a show.
‘But I thought we had virus protection things and isn’t that your job to install those things?’
His jaw tensed and I could see his throat working. I got the distinct impression he was holding something in. ‘They work just fine, as long as idiots don’t open suspect attachments.’
He leaned back against the door with his arms folded. ‘Can I ask that you never, ever, ever open another attachment if you don’t know where it’s come from or who has sent it to you? In fact, don’t answer or respond to any email unless you know who has sent it or you ascertain that it has come from a bona fide contact. Do you have any concept of e-safety?’
‘Erm, sort of.’ My half-hearted smile elicited another narrow-eyed stare.
‘It’s about keeping yourself safe on-line. Protecting your personal information. Privacy settings on Facebook. Limiting the information you share on-line. In emails. Twitter, etcetera.’
‘You can rest easy there. I have a habit of frying my phones, so I don’t tend to do much on-line stuff.’
‘Frying your phones?’ The patient tone radiated scepticism.
‘Yes. Phones. Watches. Those Fitbit things. Anything electrical seems to be allergic to me.’
‘Really?’
I shrugged. I’d been through enough phones and watches not to care whether people believed me or not.
‘When it comes to attachments on emails,’ he paused and a brief smile flared at the corners of his mouth. Had he seen Santa Baby in action? ‘In future, if in doubt, call myself or Fred.’
‘Yes sir,’ I said with a sudden smile. He was kind of cute when he was being all earnest and entreating. I decided against accompanying my words with a salute. He was after all a director and only trying to do his job. ‘I don’t mean to be useless with technology, it just doesn’t like me.’
I could see him bite back a smile.
‘Tilly, computers don’t like anyone. They’re not people. They’re machines. They work for us. Do what we tell them. As long as we treat them properly.’
‘Are you sure?’ I asked doubtfully.
‘Yes, I’m sure. Hopefully you’ll feel a bit more confident when we’ve had a few sessions.’
‘Sessions?’ That wasn’t the deal with Alison.
‘Yes. As our first champion for the make-up department, we need to spend some time together so that we can identify what processes and systems we can implement to improve the way you do things. While you’re here, we’ll diarise a few dates to get things moving.’
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. But I must have signalled my dismay.
He had to be kidding? We were absolutely fine as we were. Hadn’t he ever heard the saying, ‘If it isn’t broke’?
‘I think a couple of half days in the next week or two, to get started, and then once we’ve identified those areas that we can work on, we’ll develop appropriate systems, get you trained up and then you can introduce them to the rest of your team.’
‘What?’ A couple of half days? ‘Is it really going to take that long? I’m sure there’s not a lot you can help with.’
‘Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?’
I sighed. ‘And why me?’
He smiled, not a nice friendly smile, but a shark going in for the kill type.
‘I think unplugging a computer to reboot it, I think the phrase was, is a perfectly good starter for ten.’
Our eyes met.
I let out a long huff and glared. The room seemed to get smaller as he lifted his head and stared me down. It drew attention to the handsome jaw-line which was smoothly shaven, not like Felix’s sexy but occasionally irritating stubble. This man was the total opposite, a corporate robot, looking to improve things, take the soul out of everything with his streamlining and rationalisationing. Well, he needn’t think I’d be going over to the dark side. I’d grown up with all that crap and escaped it.
‘I thought we’d start with our first meeting a week on Thursday. Have a chat about what you do in more detail and what areas could do with some improvements. I hear you’ve had a few …’ he was fighting back a smirk, ‘issues in the past.’ Alison had clearly gone to town telling him how rubbish I was. ‘Sent a few emails to the wrong people. Copied in the wrong people. Attached the wrong file?’ I could see merriment dancing in his eyes. ‘Dr Who, was it?’
‘Might have been,’ I muttered.
‘Tennant, Smith or Capaldi?’
‘Tennant,’ I muttered, blushing. To be fair, I had been trying to send a picture of the potato headed man, Drax, to illustrate an idea but had got a bit carried away when I started searching the internet for pictures.
As I turned to leave I noticed one more thing. He had really nice lips.
‘You never know you might enjoy it.’
‘What?’ Was he some kind of mind reader?
He lifted one sardonic brow. ‘Learning more about IT?’
With a quick glance at my watch, I figured there was just enough time to finish the hairpiece I was working on before a mad dash to meet up with my sister. The strand of hair wrapped around a piece of doweling only needed a quick spray with setting solution and the last perfect ringlet would be done. I held up the piece with its bobbing curls and admired it, imagining the way it would look on the dancer playing Juliet.
‘Ooh Tilly. You might wanna see this.’ Vince let out an alarmed squeal. He bounced up in his seat, where he’d been ensconced in front of the department computer since ten o’clock that morning. Allegedly he was looking for Byronesque style headshots but as far as I could tell he’d done nothing but sigh over pictures of good looking male movie stars
