The Garamond incident had left me with a newfound, slightly paranoid respect for typography. For two whole days, a fragile peace settled over the executive floor. I mastered the coffee thermometer. I exchanged increasingly elaborate emails with Alistair Finch about the ebony slab's "emotional resonance." I even managed to anticipate Alexander's need for a specific, moss-agate paperweight before he vocalized it. I was, against all odds, starting to find a rhythm.
This, of course, was the calm before the storm. The storm's name was Steve.
It began on a Thursday morning. Alexander was in an unusually good mood, having successfully "negotiated with the sunrise" (his words) to achieve a more dramatic lighting effect in his office. He was dictating a memo—a truly unhinged document about infusing the company's mission statement with "the heroic spirit of migratory geese"—when Sterling materialized at my desk.
"Mr. Wilde has a scheduled call with the Zurich office in four minutes," Sterling intoned. "The quarterly expense reports from Accounting are due for his signature beforehand. They are… late."
I glanced at the time. "How late?"
"Six minutes and forty-two seconds." Sterling's face was, as always, impassive. "The delay originates from Department 4B. The department of Steven."
There was a weight to the way he said "Steven" that suggested a history. A dark one.
Before I could ask, Alexander's voice cut through the air. "Sterling! The Zurich geese await their inspirational briefing! Where are my expense ledgers?"
Sterling didn't flinch. "They are currently detained in Accounting, sir. Steven is finalizing them."
The change in Alexander was instantaneous and profound. The good humor evaporated from his face, replaced by a look of thunderous, Shakespearean betrayal. The paperweight he'd been admiring clunked onto the desk.
"Steven," he breathed, the word a venomous curse. He rose slowly from his chair, a general learning of a traitor in his midst. "He does this deliberately. A calculated act of psychological warfare. He knows Zurich is a pivotal audience for the new goose paradigm!"
I was lost. "Steven, sir?"
"Steve from Accounting!" Alexander clarified, as if this explained everything. He began to pace. "My arch-nemesis. A man whose soul is constructed of beige cardigan and spreadsheet cells. He weaponizes bureaucracy, Miss Chen. He suffocates innovation with triplicate forms!"
This was a new level of drama, even for him. An arch-nemesis in Accounting? It sounded like the plot of a very dull comic book.
"I'm sure it's just a minor delay, sir. Perhaps a system glitch—"
"A glitch?" Alexander whirled to face me. "There are no glitches in Steven's world! Only meticulously planned obstructions! This is a power play. A challenge to my authority, launched from the trenches of general ledger code 7B!" He pointed a dramatic finger at me. "Go. Go to the accounting department. Find Steven. Look into his eyes—if you can find them behind the glare of his bifocals—and tell him that the King of the Geese will not be kept waiting!"
This was, without a doubt, the strangest errand I had ever been sent on. "What… what do I say, exactly?"
"Say nothing! Your presence will be the message! The silent, chilling wind of my displeasure! Now, go!"
I went. The elevator ride down to the accounting floor was a journey into another world. The minimalist temple of the executive suite gave way to a landscape of beige cubicles, the soft clatter of keyboards, and the faint smell of stale coffee. It was profoundly, blessedly normal.
I found Department 4B. And I found Steve. He was a man in his late fifties, with a kind, tired face, a comfortable sweater, and glasses that were, indeed, bifocals. He looked up from his monitor as I approached, a sheaf of papers in his hand.
"Can I help you, dear?" he asked, his voice warm and paternal.
"I'm… Chloe Chen. Mr. Wilde's assistant. He's waiting for the expense reports? For the Zurich call?"
Steve's face broke into a sympathetic smile. "Ah, right, the Zurich call. Sorry about the hold-up. The new system was being a bit fussy about the Swiss Franc conversions. Had to do it manually. All done now." He handed me the thick folder. "Here you go. Tell Alex to just sign on the highlighted tabs."
He called him Alex. Not Mr. Wilde. Not the CEO. Alex.
I took the folder, bewildered. This was not a titan of corporate evil. This was someone's nice, slightly overworked dad. "Thank you, Steve. He was… quite anxious to get them."
Steve chuckled, a low, rumbling sound. "Oh, I'll bet he was. Gets himself all worked up, doesn't he? Tell him I said to take a deep breath. It's just numbers. They'll still be there in five minutes." He leaned forward conspiratorially. "And between you and me, the 'geese thing' last quarter didn't qualify as a team-building expense. I put it under 'miscellaneous wildlife consultancy.' Saved him a nasty argument with the board."
I stood there, holding the folder, my entire worldview shaking. Alexander's "arch-nemesis" wasn't a villain. He was a benign, slightly mischievous guardian of corporate sanity. His "psychological warfare" was just… responsible accounting.
"I'll… tell him," I said, utterly defeated by Steve's mundane decency.
Back in the executive suite, Alexander was pacing like a caged tiger. "Well?" he demanded. "Did you see him? Did you feel the chilling aura of his petty defiance?"
I held out the folder. "He said the system was fussy with the Swiss Francs. He did it manually. He said to tell you to just sign the highlighted tabs."
Alexander snatched the folder. "A likely story! A flimsy excuse to mask his true intent!" He flipped through the pages, his eyes scanning for a trap. "And? What else did he say? Any veiled threats? Any subtle criticisms of the new mission statement?"
I took a deep breath. "He said… it's just numbers. And that you should take a deep breath."
Alexander froze. He looked from the perfectly filled-out forms to me, his expression one of utter outrage. "The audacity! The condescension! 'Take a deep breath'? I am piloting the ship of enterprise through the iceberg-filled waters of global commerce! I do not have time for deep breaths!"
He scrawled his signature on the pages with a furious flourish and thrust the folder back at me. "Return this to Sterling for immediate dispatch to Zurich. And Miss Chen?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Mark this day. The battle lines have been redrawn. Steve from Accounting has raised the stakes." He lowered his voice. "This means war. A cold war, fought with decimal points and expense codes. But war nonetheless."
I walked back to my desk, the folder in my hand feeling infinitely heavy. I had just met the sanest man in the entire company. And my boss saw him as his greatest enemy.
Sitting down, I opened a new document. I set the font to Garamond. And I typed a single line, just for myself:
Note to self: Steve from Accounting is the real hero of this story.
It looked appropriately dignified. And for the first time, I felt a pang of something that wasn't just amusement or panic. It was a flicker of alliance. I was stuck in the gilded cage with the Drama King. But somewhere, down in the land of beige, there was a resistance. And its leader wore a comfortable sweater.