Chapter Text
“’Morning, all!” Stede announced his presence in the office.
It was met mostly with grumbles and groans, but Mr. Buttons, the office director, shouted back an encouraging “G’morning, Sir.”
“No need for the ‘Sir,’ Mr. Buttons,” Stede reminded him, “It’s just Stede. I’m just one of the crew, here.”
When it became clear that no one was listening, Stede proceeded across the open-floor of the work room and into his glass-walled office. He left the door deliberately open to the floor.
The Bonnet Inclusive Apparel Company was a relatively new venture. Stede had an eye for fashion and a dream. He wanted to bring fun and vibrance to the wardrobe of every man with access to a computer. BIAC specialized in inclusive sizing and variety of function. And Stede was proud of every item on the site. Carefully selected fabrics in all manner of styles. Something for everyone. There were just two problems he felt were possibly holding the company back from reaching its full potential.
Problem 1: The staff didn’t like Stede very much. They made it clear at every opportunity. Orders were carried out, and well at that, but they didn’t connect the way Stede dreamed they would.
Problem 2: The investors were constantly watchful and had opinions on how Stede should be running BIAC, almost none of which Stede could agree with. They wanted things to be more practical and efficient. They wanted to make more money than they were making now, which wasn’t high on Stede’s list of priorities for the company.
If he could just get the investors to see things his way – if he could just get the staff more interested in his vision for the company – he was sure everything else would fall into place and the business would be a huge success.
Stede opened his laptop and signed into the company page, but had barely begun to look at the site’s daily statistics when Buttons knocked on the open glass door.
“Like we’ve talked about, Mr. Buttons, you don’t have to knock. The door is open, you can just come in.”
“Aye,” Buttons agreed but didn’t move further into the office. “Those brother investors are in Conference Room C downstairs. Lucius tried to send them away but they’re insisting on an impromptu meeting.”
Stede’s heart sunk. The brothers had to be the Badminton brothers, Stede’s largest backers. An unfortunate amount of the company was dependent upon their support.
“Thank you, Mr. Buttons. I’ll be right with them.”
He stalled leaving his office and he meandered in the hall, mosied down the stairs to the conference rooms shared by the building’s many offices. He stood before the door marked “C” and took two deep breaths before pushing it open.
The Badminton brothers were, of course, waiting for him. Nigel stood in front of the room’s Smartboard, looking at whatever had been left by the previous attendants, while Chauncey sat with his hands folded at the head of the conference table.
“Morning, Bonnet, thanks for joining us, finally.” Chauncey had a way of speaking that always gave the air that you were the butt end of a joke he was making in his head. Or out loud.
Nigel turned around but did not sit down.
Stede put on his friendliest smile and sat beside Chauncey. “Good morning! Lovely surprise to see you here, what brings you all the way into the office, today?”
“Your numbers are down,” Chauncey got right to the point, “We and some of the other investors are concerned.
“Ohh, numbers go down and they go back up. I’m not worried about that,” Stede assured him.
“Maybe you should be, Bonnet” Stede hadn’t noticed Nigel coming to stand behind him. “This isn’t the first dip you’ve taken, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that you have no control over how or when these little dips occur. Your advertising team is a joke, whoever is running your site is asleep on the job. You need to get your staff in order.”
“Our concern,” Chauncey interrupted, “Is that you need to get more than your staff in order. Personally, I think the biggest problem here is you, Bonnet.”
“Ah,” Stede swallowed. “I hear your concerns, and I am ready to address them.”
There was a long and stressful silence, before Nigel said, “Well, then? Address them.”
Stede looked wildly around the room. He needed something to buy him time. He knew he could make progress with the staff with just a little time.
“Help is on the way, Gentlemen,” he smiled and hoped his nerves didn’t shine through as clearly as they felt they would. Once again they waited for him to continue, eyes boring into him, making his neck warm. “I’ve got myself a mentor of sorts. A fellow entrepreneur,” Stede could feel the first beads of sweat gathering at his hairline. He didn’t think he knew a single “fellow entrepreneur” who would be willing to mentor him, but they didn’t need to know that. “Who is willing to get me on the right track.”
The brothers looked at each other. They seemed to have an entire conversation without moving their eyes or their mouths.
“You have three months, Bonnet. Three. And if your entrepreneur friend can’t get you to meet our performance goals by then, we’re pulling our contract.” Nigel said plainly.
“And we’re taking the rest of the investors with us,” Chauncey warned.
“Not to worry, gentleman, it’s all under control,” Stede smiled reassuringly, but his mind was in a million places.
“How was the meeting, Sir?” Mr. Buttons asked, once Stede was back, settled in his office. He was tempted to correct the “Sir” once again, but didn’t think he had the energy. He sighed. “Well, I won’t lie to you, Mr. Buttons, it wasn’t great.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Buttons laid a thick file in the paper tray on Stede’s desk. “Quarterly report,” he announced and excused himself from the room.
With dread, Stede pulled the file to himself. There was no way to fix these numbers in three months. Years. He needed years to get things on an even keel. To be sailing on the water instead of drowning in it. But if the investors were to pull out, that was it for Bonnet Inclusive Apparel. It would all be gone in three months.
Sometimes, after five o’clock, the staff would all head out together to a bar called Queen Anne’s Revenge. It was on the same block as the office building, but no one had ever invited Stede and had thus he had never been. But with the threat of three months to pull his team together, he had to do something drastic. So when he heard them talking about stopping for drinks on the way home, he inserted himself into the situation and accepted Lucius’s non-invitation to join them before the conversation could move past him.
Queen Anne’s was darker than Stede had imagined. There were dart boards and billiards tables and a long, sleek, wooden bar at the head of the room. He found his staff all gathered around a single table in the back, talking loudly and passing drinks around.
“Hi, all!” He waved cheerfully as he approached. The closer he got, the less noisy the group became. Conversation petered out and came to a full halt by the time he reached them.
“Hello, Sir.” Oluwande offered a salutation, but Stede could feel it dripping with pity.
“Just Stede, right?” Stede nodded encouragingly. A few people around the table muttered ‘hi, Stede,” without enthusiasm. He deflated internally. He kept his smile plastered on his face, but he didn’t need any more hints that they were even less happy to spend time with him out of work than in the office.
“I’ll, er, just be at the bar, then,” he tried to keep his voice as peppy as his face. “Come find me when you’re looking for another round. That one’s on me.”
He slid into a stool at the bar, listening to the sounds of his staff members laughing and shouting once more.
“Something to drink?” The bartender asked. He had long thick locks on the half of his head that wasn’t shaved, and a dark, messy beard.
“May I see your wine list?” Stede requested.
The bartender gave him a strange look. He pulled over a napkin and a marker from under the bar and wrote the words “Red” and “White” on it and handed it over to Stede. “Wine list.”
“Ah, I see,” Stede’s neck was warm again. “Thank you, I’ll just have a brandy. Whatever’s on your top shelf.”
The man continued to eye him for a moment before moving to pour him a glass of brandy.
The brandy was middle-shelf at best. It lurched in Stede’s throat as it went down. He ordered another.
It went down smoother this time, and Stede looked up to see a different bartender than before. He had pulled a different bottle from the shelf than the previous man had.
This person had a wild mane of salt and pepper hair, half pulled back into a messy bun, and a full beard of white and gray that curled playfully at the ends. His face was mostly hidden in his hair and beard, but his eyes were big and dark.
“Start of a new shift?” Stede asked, personably.
The new bartender shook his head. “Nah, Mate, I own the joint. I’m here all the time.”
“Oh! This is a nice place you’ve got,” Stede winced as someone behind him broke what sounded like at least three glasses at once.
“Sure is,” the man looked over Stede’s shoulder, presumably to make sure the mess was being cleaned up. “But what’s your story? Haven’t seen you in here before.”
Stede felt the brandy in the ends of his limbs, crawling through his body. “Nothing terribly interesting, just…” Stede trailed off and looked behind him to the table full of his staff. “Here for a drink with some friends.” He held up his snifter in a salute in the direction of their table and sighed, turning back to the bartender.
“They’re yours?” He asked.
“They’re my staff,” Stede explained. “And I’ve got to figure out how to make them my friends if I want to get through to them. But I’ve never been very good at that.”
“Ahh,” the bearded man poured his glass full once more. “So it’s social troubles for you, then?”
“I do wish it were only that,” Stede grimaced. He didn’t know whether it was the brandy or finally having someone to talk to who seemed to want to listen, but Stede kept going. “My small business is in trouble as a whole. Staff’s a mess, no one communicates with me, we’re not meeting the performance goals of investors and if I can’t magically fix all of it in three months, it’s over for the company.”
“Hmm,” the bartender – bar owner – contemplated. He poured himself a glass of the same thing Stede was having, though his glass was a less traditional tumbler. “That’s a lot of problems.”
Stede sipped again at his brandy. “I lied to two of my investors today. Told them I had a friend who was going to help me out with the business aspect of things. Mentor me, give me advice and the like. I have no such friend.”
“Well, maybe that’s one of the places you’re going wrong,” the bearded man said.
“How do you mean?”
“You said you need to be their friend in order to make things work. Maybe you need to try less to make friends, and try more to figure out what they need as employees.”
Stede gave this some thought. “What might they need as employees?”
The man shrugged. “That’s for them to tell you, mate. Everyone needs something different.”
Stede sat back and considered the man in front of him. “You said you own this establishment?”
The man nodded proudly. “For the last twenty-two years, yes.”
“That would make you an entrepreneur, wouldn’t it?” Stede asked.
The other man frowned. “I suppose it would.”
Stede set the empty snifter on the glossy surface of the bar. “How would you like to join the Bonnet Inclusive Apparel Company team? For, say, three months? I could really use advice like this.”
The man’s eyebrows raised in surprise, but he did not laugh and dismiss him as Stede thought he might.
“I’d be the mentor person? The friend who gives you advice, like you told your investors?” He asked.
Stede nodded. He could feel the anxiety of asking this of someone just under the surface of the brandy. Not quite reaching him.
“And I’d be in on the company?”
“Paid a full, fair wage for your efforts,” Stede promised.
The man looked down at the counter for a long time, then picked up the bottle of brandy and poured them each three fingers. “Cheers, mate. Let’s fix a clothing company together.”