Tony Hill u Carol Jordan 08 - Cross and Burn

here underpinned what he said. He had more sense than to refer to it directly.
    ‘Won’t she need a lot of exercise?’
    ‘I can’t deny that,’ he said, scratching the dog’s head. ‘But so do we. Problem is, we don’t take it. Here’s the thing, though, Carol. Collies love to run. And you’ve got miles of moorland on your doorstep here. You can let this dog run in absolute security because you know for sure the one thing she’s not going to be doing is worrying sheep.’ He smiled up at her. ‘Why don’t you give her a try? Give it a week. See how you both take to each other? No obligation. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll take her back without a word of recrimination.’
    ‘Back to be put down?’
    Nicholas rubbed the dog’s flank. ‘Hopefully, it won’t come to that. Look, Carol, I’m absolutely not going to guilt-trip you into taking a dog you don’t want. That would be even more unfair to Flash than having her humanely put to sleep.’
    ‘I don’t know anything about dogs. What they eat, what they need.’ She heard the whiny weakness in her response and despised herself for it. ‘I’m not the person you’re looking for.’
    ‘They don’t need much. I’ve brought her bed down in the Land Rover, along with a bag of dog food and a leash. She can sleep in there with you —’ He waved towards the closed door. ‘Or out here. Though she does prefer company. Human, if canine isn’t available. Feed her twice a day, three-quarters of a bowl. You can add table scraps to her bowl if you want to, but don’t feed her from your hand or you’ll make a beggar of her. She needs at least one good run a day, preferably two. How hard is that to accommodate?’
    ‘I won’t be doing this restoration for ever.’ It was a rearguard action, and she knew it.
    ‘You’ll be doing it for a good while yet. Look, you can cross that bridge when you come to it. But I think a dog in your life would be nothing but positive right now.’
    ‘How do I know she’ll do what I tell her?’
    ‘Try it. Call her. You might as well, Carol. What have you got to lose?’

28

    M arie Mather was pleased with how the new job was going. She’d split the team into groups of half a dozen and she was working her way through short but intense briefing sessions, group by group. She encouraged frankness in the people who worked for her. That meant the first step was making them feel secure in their dealings with her. They had to believe there was common ground they all occupied, and a common enemy in their business rivals. Once they’d reached that point, they could be manipulated into all sorts of work practices and agreements. Having everyone facing in the same direction – that was how to make progress.
    Rob had sat in on the first two group sessions. He claimed he wanted to see how she worked so he could make sure his tactics fitted in with her overall strategies. Marie suspected it was more to do with him wanting to stare at her legs, given that his eyes never left them and he didn’t take a single note. It didn’t matter; whether she won him over with the shapeliness of her calves or the competent way she wrangled her staff, he would be firmly on her side in no time at all.
    So far, the staff seemed eager to impress her. That was the joy of an economy in the doldrums. Anyone who was in work was desperate to stay that way. Even people whose natural inclination was to be cross-grained whatever the situation generally knew enough to turn on a smiley face when it came to impressing the new boss. They all wanted to make sure that if the new broom was going to sweep clean they wouldn’t be the ones in the dustpan.
    Of course, there were always the exceptions. Gareth, for example, had made no contribution in his group session. He’d sat with folded arms, head cocked to one side, an expression of bored superiority on his face. She had tried to get him to tell the group what he had hinted at when they’d spoken the day before, but he’d only grunted and said, ‘Best if I run it past you first. No point in getting this lot excited about something that isn’t going to happen, is there?’
    Maria had looked at Gareth’s performance indicators and understood that he was one of their most productive workers. It was clear he knew that too. But she wasn’t prepared to let him trade on it, to take his quarterly bonus as a given. If she didn’t turn the screws a little to show him who was boss, he could easily become a