Michael's Love The Office Surprise 1 (An Interracial Romance) *COMPLETE*

Laura's Mistake

Tina went to open the door and told them “room 1203, go.” She then went behind the desk and sat down.

“Are you going to show us where it is?” Laura asked.

“The doors have numbers on them, I trust you are smart enough to find it on your own…Please shut the door on your way out.” Tina said.

Laura and Micheal walked around the place for a few minutes and finally found the place. Joe and Carl were in the office talking and laughing.

“What’s the joke?” Micheal asked.

“Oh no joke.” The room immediately stopped being jovial when Micheal and Laura showed up.

“Well, let’s get down to business.” Laura said while sensing that an us versus them mentality had suddenly invaded the room.

Micheal took some papers out of his briefcase and laid them out on the table. He then walked Joe and Carl through the steps that he and Laura worked through back in the office in Nashville.

He then broke out the calculator and showed that the numbers were off.

“Looks like a rounding error.” Joe said.

“That’s what I was saying.” Micheal said happily.

“Now hold on.” Joe said.

Joe pulled out a similar paper and threw it out on the table on top of Micheal’s and worked through the numbers. He then showed how Applied Research had done exactly what they had been tasked to do.

“I don’t get it.” Micheal said.

Then Laura had a flash hit her. “What version of the model are you working with Joe?”

Joe pointed to the top of the paper, “This is version 5.1. Remember that was the final version according to our project plan.”

Laura felt as if she had been hit in the stomach with a ton of bricks. “The latest version that we have been working with is version 5.3.”

“We never received notification of version 5.3.” Joe said.

“But didn’t you email it to them Micheal?” Laura asked Micheal. “No, you said that you would send it to them a couple of weeks ago.”

Carl looked at Joe.

“We are talking about an hours worth of number crunching, can you get it to us?” Laura asked Carl.

Carl said, “We can do anything, but we have to have authorization to do it. I need to let Ms. Simmons know and ask her what we should do.”

Laura looked dejected.

“Why are you so glum? We have figured out what the problem is and we know exactly what to do to fix it.” Carl said.

“And we even know that it is going to only take an hour to get you the numbers and verification of your model that you are needing for your meeting.”

“Thanks guys, you have really been helpful.” Micheal said, “But Ms. Simmons has stated that the cost to our small company will be prohibitive to do this.” Micheal said.

“Well maybe we don’t have to rerun all the numbers.” Joe said. “What are we tasked to do in this meeting?”

“What are you talking about?” Carl asked Joe.

“I need to know what can we do in this meeting?”

“Determine why the numbers that we are providing for the model is different from the numbers that they have generated.”

“Doesn’t that mean that I have to compare their model’s numbers with the model that we were using?”

Carl laughed, “Well I guess so, Now we can’t give them the numbers of the latest model, we have been tasked not to.”

“But if I somehow created a program that translated the numbers from the old model to the new model and then somehow that formula got into the hands of Watts Research. Now I wouldn’t be breaking any laws right.” Joe asked.

Laura and Micheal looked over at Carl.

“Exactly.”

“OK, guys, I can’t give you new numbers, you have to pay for that. But I can rerun the new numbers and then create a formula that will trnaslate the numbers that you have into the correct numbers.” Joe said.

“I think I understand.” Micheal said, “Ms. Simmons said you can’t supply us new numbers, but she dind’t say that you coudn’t give us a formula to translate the old numbers into the new numbers.” Micheal continued.

“Will you get in trouble?” Laura asked?

“I don’t really see how, I mean no one really needs to know how you got the correct numbers, all they know is that it didn’t come from us.”

“Hold on…you guys keep acting like you are working.” Joe started typing feverishly with a devious smile on his face.

“Computer programmers are not like you and me,” Carl said to Laura and Micheal while laughing.

The room lightened up as Micheal, Laura, and Carl talked about old war stories.

“You know life would be a whole lot easier if it weren’t for upper management.” Carl said with a smile.

“Hold on, Laura might take offense now that she has moved into the upper heights of management.”

Micheal said while poking Laura. Laura seemed still a bit shaken. She realized that this was her mistake.

After about an hour, Joe jumped up and said, “here ya go, I am emailing you the formula to put on your spreadsheet now. If you do that, you will have all the proof of your model you need.” Joe said.

Carl smiled. Micheal took the formula and ran through a few of the numbers and saw that they were now exactly what was expected.

“We owe you a steak dinner.” Micheal said. Micheal and Laura looked a few more of the numbers and then kicked off the formula to run on all the previous spreadsheets.

“By the time you get back to the hotel, the document will be done and ready for your owner.” Joe said.

Laura and Micheal walked to their car.

“You want to eat?” Micheal asked.

“I want to get back to the hotel and get these numbers to Dr. Stevens, then we can eat.” Laura said.

They drove back to the hotel and made sure the models were verified and working and producing correct numbers. Everything was perfect.

The phone rang Laura’s hotel room.

Laura picked up the phone.

“This is Ms. Simmons. My managers told me that we have completely fulfilled our side of the deal. So if you need these numbers you will have to pay…”

“Never mind.” Laura said.

“What do you mean nevermind?”

“We don’t need your numbers.”

“WHAT?”

“We decided to verify the project through other means.”

There was a pause on the line.

“So you don’t need Applied Research to do further work?”

“No your engineers were very helpful and we are very helpful with Mr. Travis and Mr. Perry and we look forward to working with you in the future…Now I must get back to the fun that I will have with my co-worker…” Laura said as she was interrupted by the phone clicking.

Laura looked over at Micheal and said nonchalantly, “Tina’s mad…But I am so happy I don’t know what to do.”

“Here we go, I just sent an email of the package with the updated PowerPoint presentation to Dr. Stevens right now.”

Laura smiled and looked over at Micheal and said, “So what’s next?”