Julia Hipori was irritated.
The gentle tap-tap-tap of her chromium plated pen on the glass tabletop in the boardroom demonstrated that fact, as did her general manner thus far in the meeting. It had been called by their logistics officer, Dryden Duo, after one of their shipments had been halted by a somewhat overzealous imports officer. Exactly why this warranted the entire board was beyond her - but hey, maybe I’ll find out?
Dryden was not a man she liked, at all. He was a slovenly excuse for a pencil pusher in her eyes, the sort of guy who looked at a spreadsheet and got all hot under the collar.
Yet here on the forty-second floor of an office block, their floor at least, the board of the Systech Corporation had been called up to listen to one of their members complain. Lovely.
Luckily for Dryden his office was only down the corridor, so he sat there picking in nails and huffing to himsel. At the head of the table, Davik Massa, the CEO, was projected in - he was offworld for some conference in the core - whilst Ko Deluto sat opposite Dryden, looking as prim and proper as ever.
The CFO, Mik, one of the few people Julia considered worth her time, had yet to arrive. He wasn’t late, the meeting was set to start in five minutes, and Julia was kicking herself for arriving early.
”You look like your about to pop Dryden.” Julia snapped across the table, as the man rocked in his chair, his face red. ”Rough day?” the man didn’t reply, as the CEO shot her a warning look across the table. She smirked, and stopped winding him up, as she waited for the meeting to start.