The Summary

Short Story Day 114 of 365

When the title ‘SVP Reese’ displayed on Kate’s stationary phone screen, she tapped her cube mate.

“You’re in trouble now,” the cube mate said.

Kate answered, “Yes, sir?”

“Kate, could you come to my office for a sec?”

“Be right there, sir.”

Kate straightened everything that needed to be straightened and took out a mirror to check her hair and makeup.

“Wish me luck,” she said.

“Good luck. You’ll be fine.”

Kate knocked on Mr. Reese’s door.

“You wanted to see me, sir?”

Mr. Reese’s secretary, Gloria, sitting was off to the side with her laptop opened.

“Kate, I have an assignment for you. How are you with writing?”

“Depends on what I’m writing.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Makes sense. Can you write me 2-3 pages on our department? I’ll have Gloria send you the points we need to include, but I just need it in a 1-2 page summary. Can you do that?”

“You said 2-3 pages a little earlier,” Kate said.

“Yeah, I did. Yeah, I did. Um, better make it 1-2 pages. It’s for executive types. And you know how they just like to skim. Shorter the better.”

“Understand.”

Gloria said, “It should be in your inbox now, Kate.”

“When do you need this by, sir?”

“The Board Meeting’s two weeks from Friday. Can you get it to be by Thursday of this week? Is three days enough?”

“No problem. I’ll have it to you sooner.”

Kate spent the afternoon combing through Gloria’s points and by close of business, she had a full page of text to work with.

The next morning, Kate worked with the text and edited it. She had spent a total of eight hours preparing the Summary thus far.

She gave it one last glance, and gave it to Gloria, whose office was outside Mr. Reese’s office.

An hour later, Mr. Reese showed up at Kate’s cubicle, and said, “Kate, got a couple of minutes?”

She dropped what she was doing and walked with him to his office. He closed the door and stopped.

“Kate, is this the best you can do?” he asked.

Stunned at his question, she said, “Uh, uh, perhaps it isn’t. I haven’t done this in a while and…”

“Tell you what. Do what you need to do and bring it back tomorrow. Fair enough?”

She took the stapled copy back to her cube and put her head in her hands.

Grabbing a pen, she walked to the cafeteria where she could sit without distractions, and scribble notes all over her draft report. She was seeing things that she should have caught but didn’t. By the time she was done, it looked lousy, so she went back to her computer, entered the changes into the document, and printed it again.

Kate walked to the cafeteria a second time and did the same, but this time the changes were fewer. She felt better about the copy so she returned and entered more changes into the document and printed it out.

Stapling it, Kate Bernard now had a great paper to give her boss.

When she arrived at Gloria’s office, Gloria buzzed her in. She handed the summary to Mr. Reese and he glanced through it. He tossed it on his desk and threw his glasses on top of it. Rubbing his eyes, he said, “Ms. Bernard, is that the best you can do?”

Kate Bernard stared at the Senior Vice President of Operations and blinked a thousand times and gulped once.

“Tell you what, Kate. Bring this back to me by close of business tomorrow. I need your best this time. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Kate took her laptop home for the first time in a month. Getting the report to where it was now took concentrated time to make sure everything was perfect.

On the way home, she mocked him a million times, “Is that your best, Ms. Bernard? Is that the best you can do, Kate?”

Who does he think he is?

Kate ate supper with a friend and was home by eight. She went through the printed copy, corrected and tightened some places. By the time she was done, there wasn’t anything left to tighten. As she had done a half dozen times before, she entered all her changes and printed out a clean copy. Tomorrow, she’d probably see even more changes she needed to make.

When three o’clock came the next day, she had edited and revised until she could do no more. Satisfied with her summary, she went to SVP Reese’s office one last time and presented him with the final copy.

Without looking at it, Mr. Reese asked, “Is this your best?”

“Yes, sir. It is.”

“Great to hear. Looking forward to reading it for the first time then. I’ll let you know if I need changes. Send the soft copy to Gloria because I suspect the changes will be minimal. Thanks for your hard work, Kate.”