But I Smile Anyway…

Thanks so much to Tanmay Jain for including me in this collaboration and it’s the turn of Nideesh Samant, with the final prompt of the month.

Prompt  – A standard corporate boardroom meeting is underway, but the boss has hidden motives…

Boardroom Manoeuvres

The boardroom was like an oven. It had been a long meeting, and it was about time to wrap it up.
Clive Burnett, the Managing Director, cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention.
“Ahem, right, thank you. That has been a productive meeting, and I’ll be sure to get Mandy to send the minutes out to you all tomorrow. Oh, and one final thing. There appears to be a glitch in the system, and it seems to have muddled up everyone’s contact numbers. I need you all to write your names and your contact numbers on this piece of paper.”
“But Mr Burnett, don’t you have our numbers on your own phone anyway?” Dennis piped up.
There’s always one, trying to be clever.
“Actually, my phone syncs to the system, and I can’t get any of the numbers either. It’s a simple fix, but we just need them all, now, from you, so the system can be corrected. Everyone in the room, please.”
The paper was passed around, with some of the attendees rolling their eyes as they scribbled down digits.
The paper made its way back to him.
“Thank you everyone. I’ll give this to IT and get it sorted ASAP. Thanks again and good evening.” Clive smiled.
He folded the paper and pocketed it. Good job he was the MD and no one questioned him too much. He’d been dying to ask that new girl Alisha for her number, but GDPR meant HR wouldn’t give it to him…

Nideesh Samant

A weaver or short stories, mostly dark ones…
Blog – https://thedarknetizen.wordpress.com
Twitter – www.twitter.com/darthnid