A note to readers:
This is a long story that unfolds chapter by chapter through the eyes of two protagonists - Mark and Elsa, and as in many of my other stories involves a growing spate of horny characters.
Every ten chapters or so I will provide a short summary at the start of that episode to bring new readers up to date (see start of Ch. 30).
This story could appear in a number of genres (Loving Wives, Incest, Lesbian, Fetish, and more) depending on the chapter, but the overall theme is Group, so I have applied this moniker to all chapters. The story is still being written, yet I intend to post a new chapter every couple of days. Enjoy.
Chapter 33 - Girl Power In The Boardroom and Bedroom
Mark
Melanie had been around so many of my senior staff that she wasn't the least intimidated by the room full of high powered executives at our plant in San Diego. Unfortunately, she was the only woman - a situation I'd have to remedy. I called the meeting to order and then introduced Melanie. A few of the men knew her as my aide or assistant, but not much else. I preferred the term executive assistant but after this I'd have to give her a more august title.
I explained as how we had been 'traveling' the week before and that Melanie had come up with a couple of ideas I thought they should hear. I purposefully understated what she'd done so that after she'd presented it, her ideas would look that much more profound. Based on what I knew of their operations, the concepts were indeed profound and very implementable in a short time period.
The men kept any snickers to themselves about my relationship with Melanie. I had not made a secret of the fact that I had a plural relationship with several women ever since I started to go with Elsa and Cindy. Some of the men knew that I'd given 'love rings' to Melanie and Sheila, my chief of staff, a few months earlier, so my having been traveling with Melanie was not anything new. If any of them looked closely, the would have seen that Mel and I wore identical rings on our left hand. Most of the men just nodded and leaned in to hear what she had to say.
Melanie added a couple remarks to her introduction about how she happened to have background in marketing, logistics, and manufacturing, by way of an industrial management degree from Northwestern, but hadn't been able to find a job when she got out of school, so here she was now as an executive secretary. A few more heads nodded. She could have been the daughter of every man at the table and perhaps the granddaughter of a couple.
Mel had twenty well-done PowerPoint slides she'd put together that demonstrated great proficiency in making presentations. I hadn't helped her. She laid out three major improvement areas in the subsidiary, and then showed summary cost-benefit analyses for each one. Each idea was overwhelmingly weighted towards the benefit side, with near instantaneous positive impacts after implementation. In business slang, they were low-hanging fruit that no one had seen.
When she'd come to a number or cost figure, she'd pause and give the rationale or analytical approach she used to derive the result. She was detailed and didn't lose anybody.
After twenty minutes, she stopped, having shown the last of her primary presentation. The marketing VP, an ass if I say so, started to snipe at her ideas. Had she considered this or that in her analyses? He was trying to discredit her approach.
Melanie went to her shoulder bag and pulled out a bound report about an inch thick; probably about three or four-hundred pages. "I'm glad you asked that question. The presentation I finished is really just a summary of my top three ideas. Here is the complete description and analysis of all three idea categories, with details and all the assumptions used in the cost-benefit analysis. There are another ten ideas in the book, and I still have several others I haven't started to flesh out yet. I also took the liberty of putting a draft implementation plan in the report for your consideration. Of course, I hadn't talked to any of you, so I'm not entirely sure how relevant it is given your actual situation."
She dropped the heavy report on the table in front of the company president with a loud thunk. She then passed out a dozen CDs, one to each executive. "The entire report is also on this disk in PDF format. To Mr. Marshall's concern about the impact on the assembly line and warehouse workers, I believe the line can be completely restructured and the equipment moved over one weekend. I think the workers could then receive in situ training on the next Monday morning, showing them how the process was reengineered and demonstrating the reasons why. Since no one loses their jobs and their jobs are actually enriched, I believe the changes in that area would be a success and that the need for change management tactics would be minimized. I believe that morale and productivity would significantly improve as well."
The VP Logistics asked a simple question, and got a precise answer from Melanie. A couple dozen other questions received similar well-prepared replies. She'd obviously covered all the bases and knew what she was talking about. I remained mute but watched her élan.
Later, I asked her how she got so much inside information on the company to be able to rifle shot her recommendations so well.
Melanie smiled, "I talked to the clerical staff, you know, secretary to secretary, assistant to assistant. I got the straight poop. They know better than their bosses what's going on, what works and what doesn't. Figuring out solutions was easy after that."
"Could you do that again, in some other company unit?"
"Probably," Mel replied. "So long as I can call around inside the company. I networked. I also owe some people some favors."
"Do you need me to help pay off some of your promises?"
Melanie grinned, "It wouldn't hurt. Some employee recognition, a bonus, and things like that would go a long way to spreading the word that I was a good guy and could follow through."
"Make a list, and we'll be sure it happens. Also, find a way to get some female talent on that executive committee, and not just in HR. There's just too much testosterone there now."
Of course, I made a mental note to do similar things for Melanie in my own office. She'd just saved that one business unit about three to four million dollars a month, and eliminated the need for a capital expenditure to build a new warehouse at a cost of about thirty million before it got filled with finished products that would have to sit there for months unsold.
Melanie went off on her own, I think to talk to the president's secretary and admin assistant. I remained in the meeting with the executive team to go through the implementation plans that Melanie had laid out and support her work. I didn't want to see them stall on implementing the changes she'd recommended. The benefits were too real to ignore.
I collected Mel about six o'clock, and we left with a couple of the execs and had drinks and dinner at a Japanese steak house where they prepare the dinner on a hot grill right in front of you. Mel, being the youngest and the prettiest of our party, got all the attention from the sharp witted Japanese chef who tended our table. She proved an equal tease back at him, and lauded his culinary skills as he flipped various parts of our meals six feet in the air and caught them on a spatula behind his back.
We bid our companions goodnight, and headed back to the Four Seasons Hotel for the night. The limousine ride was quick, and I spoke mostly with how impressed I was with everything that she'd done that day. Melanie beamed.
Mel threw herself into my arms in the backseat, and pledged her love. "I did all this for you. I love you. Yes, I want you proud of me, but I also want your business running the best it can be, because then you'll have more time for me - for all of us who love you."
