Chris received a meeting request from Vicky. It was entitled "Request for Flexible Working", which immediately set the overweight man on edge, because to make a request for "flexible working" was a legal right. The request had to be handled in a reasonable manner. If the request was declined, the employee needed the chance to appeal. It had red-tape written all over it.
'Vicky,' he said, as he waddled into her office. 'The meeting request; it says the attendees are to be Raffey and myself, you, and Mattie. Who is the request for?'
'Me,' she told him. He frowned.
'You already have flexible working; the days you leave early to do the school run.'
'Yes, but I require different flexible working,' she explained. Chris wasn't sure what to do. She was Vicky, so on that basis he was tempted to tell her that if her request was inconvenient, she could jog on. However, Vicky was an employee, which meant that although she was terribly unprofessional and familiar around him, he still had to be professional and reasonable around her, lest he find himself up in front of a tribunal. He pictured the tribunal. He set the scene in a high court which was quite unrealistic, but it added to the sense of drama and jeopardy.
'Well,' he said, tucking his double chin into his neck – or at least trying to; he struggled to find it. 'That's quite alright. Thank you for clarifying. I'll accept the meeting request immediately.' He'd turned about, poised to leave the office, when Vicky added, –
'I think Mattie might want flexible working, too.'
'She's already got very flexible working!' he said, spinning back to face her with red cheeks. If she even works at all! he grumbled to himself. And Chris did have a point. Rafe Paxton did not do the school run. At least, not unless he wanted to warn off a potential suitor for his wife. Mattie usually left early and came in late. She took time off for school things, and Chris was quite certain that she never bothered to make up the time.
'You might think it's very flexible, Chris, being a man, living in a patriarchal society, where your only real responsibility is work. Mattie has childcare and work to juggle. She is not a contortionist. She needs more flexible working.' But he drew the line at treating Mattie like an employee. Not when he felt that she was the bane of his existence. Except, looking at Vicky with her challenging smirk, he wasn't sure that she wasn't the true bane of his existence, instead.
'We can discuss this in our meeting, but I fear that if her employment becomes any more flexible, it will be non-existent.' He maintained this stance throughout the rest of the day, and arrived at their scheduled meeting determined to be polite and professional, whilst keeping a tight rein on his staff.
'Do you know what this is about?' Chris asked Rafe in a hushed voice, as they settled into their seats in the meeting room.
'Yes. A request for flexible working. The title of the meeting clued me in,' he deadpanned.
'Now,' Vicky began, 'I'd like to request more flexible working. I know I have some flexibility at the moment, but I'd like something more formal and more... flexible.'
'No shit,' Rafe mused. Chris scowled at him.
'I'm going to have to write that in the minutes!' he complained. 'This is a formal meeting. You can't say whatever you like just because these two are the ones involved.'
'I'm not sure I'm happy with the tone you used when saying, "these two",' Vicky complained, although she quite clearly only did it to wind Chris up. 'Now, as you know, I'm a parent, with another child on the way. The occasional early finish or late start does help, but I'd like to go part-time. I was thinking two full-days in the office and then two or three half-days working from home, depending on whether or not you felt you needed contact with me five days a week.'
'Working from home?' Chris asked, stunned. No one worked from home. Not at Paxton and Colville. Certainly, not during office hours.
'Yes. It happens now, in modern society,' Vicky told him.
'But why?'
'To avoid the commute, for one thing. To sign for packages, avoid having to wash one's hair... to cope with things like children and in my case, to deal with my husband's sodding parrot!' Rudy's African Grey was called Zephyr and he was exceedingly irritating. Chris looked stressed. He was breathing a little too hard. He was quite clearly annoyed, but trying his best not to say anything HR would disapprove of.
'Why don't you lay out why you need flexible working, and how you think you'd manage your role on the hours you propose?' Rafe suggested, because Chris clearly needed a moment.
'Sure,' Vicky agreed. 'Basically, I don't think I need to be in the office to do my job. It helps – that's why I'd still come in twice a week – but most of what I do could be done from home. We have video conferencing set up, so I could still attend meetings. My reports can obviously be done from home, and I'd be able to work longer hours, because I wouldn't lose time commuting. If we agreed to my proposed changes, I obviously wouldn't be working full-time anymore, but I think I could work more efficiently from home.' There would certainly be fewer distractions, because she wouldn't be able to stop and talk to everyone; to butt in on their business. 'I'd still be able to get all of my work done.'
'Why do you need this change?' Chris asked, scribbling notes. 'Is it because of the, erm...' He pointed to her stomach. 'The er...'
'Baby?' she suggested. He nodded. He hadn't wanted to say the word, for fear of drawing attention to the fact that she'd very blatantly had sex.
'That's part of the reason. The children will both be on different schedules, and it will be a lot to manage if I'm working full time and commuting five days a week. But Rudy and I want to focus on our new foundation, too. That's why I'd like to go part-time; so that I can work on the foundation with him.'
'But it's just a hobby,' Chris reasoned, because as far as he knew, Rudy and Vicky wanted to throw money at good causes. One of them apparently being Lukasz's quest for professional qualifications.
'It's not a hobby!' she replied indignantly. She turned to look at Rafe. 'You know it's not a hobby. You've seen all of our plans for "Beyond Bereavement".' Mattie's brow dipped.
'What's "Beyond Bereavement?' she asked.
'It's one of the charities the foundation is working on,' Vicky explained, turning to her friend. 'Raffey suggested it. When you were... y'know,' she said, referencing the shorter woman's father.
'Oh,' Mattie said, articulate as always. She turned to her husband. 'It was your idea?'
'Well,' he replied, with a pink tinge to his cheeks, 'yes. Because of what you went through, because I know how Rudy and I felt, too, but mostly because of how your dad struggled after you lost your mum.' He shrugged, demonstrably uncomfortable.
'It's going to have a telephone counselling service and an app for web chats and connecting with other people in the same position. If we can scale it up, it will have local drop-in sessions for people dealing with grief, so that they can share their experiences and make friends. We'll have resources for bereaved children and parents, but also something specifically for men,' Vicky explained.
'And you've been involved in this?' Mattie asked her husband.
'Not really,' he told her, but she sensed that he was lying. At the very least, he'd been the germ for the enterprise. A good germ. A healthy bacterium.
'You're incredible,' she said, moving from her chair and throwing her arms around him. 'You were doing this when I was ignoring you? You're just perfect.' Then she kissed him firmly on the lips, and Chris exclaimed, –
'Please! I cannot put this in the minutes, and promiscuous displays are for behind closed doors, in your own homes, outside of work hours.'
'Sit back down,' Rafe chastised, as he pushed his wife away from him, but he smiled at her all the while.
'So?' Vicky asked. 'What do you think?'
'We'd need to look into it; the reduced hours. Working from home should be straightforward, I think?' Rafe mused, looking to Chris for agreement.
'Perhaps,' the rotund man agreed. 'Vicky said something about you wanting flexible working, too, Mattie?' he asked doubtfully.
'I'd like one day off a week,' she nodded. 'I'm just too busy to get everything done, otherwise. Certainly, if I still want to be zen.' Zen? Rafe scoffed. She's never been zen in her life!
'I could cope without a P.A. for one day a week,' Rafe nodded, deciding that a "zen" wife might be easier to manage. 'So long as we're very organised and you keep on top of your filing system.'
'You do work short days as it is, though,' Chris pointed out. 'Doesn't that help with the boys?'
'Yes, but it's not just the school run,' Mattie told him. 'It's everything. I've only got two hands.'
'I'm sorry,' he said, shaking his head. 'I don't understand.' Because he was a man. Because Zoe was a saint.
'Here,' Vicky sighed, 'give me your phone.' And she held out her hand in expectation.
'Why?' came his suspicious, cautious response.
'So that we can compare your personal calendar with mine and Mattie's. Probably just Mattie's, to be honest, because Rudy is shit-hot at helping out and he's super-organised. Even so, we can do a "compare and contrast" between the men and the women. See if you can grasp what we're talking about.'
'I don't need convincing,' Rafe warned.
'No, because you already know what you're guilty of!' Vicky laughed. 'Hand over your phones.'
'I'm absolutely not giving you access to my personal calendar,' Chris insisted.
'Don't you care about our female issues?' Vicky asked him.
'About gender equality?' Mattie chipped in.
'Take mine,' Rafe sighed, rolling his eyes at the two women as they ganged up on his friend.
'Ah!' Mattie grinned. 'A recurring appointment with Ramona for Sunday lunch. A reminder for the school concert, and...' Her face fell as she clicked into a weekly reminder he had set. 'A reminder to "re-do Mattie's Waitrose order." What?' she scoffed. 'What the Hell?'
'You don't order the right stuff,' he told her. 'I have to amend the order each week, otherwise we'd only have toffee-flavoured hot crossed buns, pre-sliced cheese, grated cheese, children's yoghurts, Babybel and the odd two-person pack of pre-prepared chicken to feed a family of four.' Mattie's face contorted with displeasure. Her lips twitched with complaints she struggled to suppress. He watched her blink as her mind turned his words over.
'Fine!' she grumbled, ceding (inwardly, only) that he may have had a point. 'But that was basically all that was in there for a whole month. Look at all the free-time he has on his hands!' she announced, waving his empty calendar in front of everyone.
'Mine,' she continued, 'looks like this.' It was littered with overlapping reminders. 'Birthday party for Sebastian. Another birthday party later the same day. Birthday party for Isaac the following day. Football academy for both boys – each weekend – reminder for costumes for school concert, which means I need to make the costumes. Swim school every Tuesday after school. Reading with both boys after school. Sebastian's violin practice – nightly – although I can't read music so my supervision is utterly worthless. Isaac's piano practice with Rudy each Wednesday evening. H.D. brows and eyelash tint – that's monthly – virtual clubercise on Mondays and Thursdays, because Raffey isn't home in time for me to attend in person, although admittedly, I do like to do it with my camera turned off so no one else can see how terrible I am.
'I've got a new daily appointment for checking Raffey for cancerous lumps, the Waitrose order I might as well not bother doing, collecting Raffey's dry cleaning, monthly hair appointments for the boys – they cry if Raffey takes them – and Friday cake day at school, so I need to bake cupcakes two Thursdays a term, and remember cake money for the weeks we don't provide our own. That's on top of house work, laundry and the like. Obviously, I don't iron, because Raffey doesn't trust me with an iron, but I do wash, fold and put away. I'm in charge of buying and wrapping gifts and organising special occasions or festive events, most of the boy's entertainment and all of their clothes shopping.'
'See!' Vicky declared. 'That's why women need flexible working. Making the school run doesn't solve all our problems. 'Do you want to see my diary, or not?'
'Not,' Rafe said.
'My diary is very full,' Chris informed them, with a degree of self-importance. 'It does sound as though there's an unequal distribution of work in your household, Mattie, but it doesn't follow that every family is the same, or that you can't solve the problem yourself.'
'Or,' Rafe drawled, 'it could be that I possess the mental capacity to remember things without writing them down.'
'Care to prove how full your diary really is?' Vicky asked, arching her brow at Chris. She appeared to be accusing him of lying!
'If I must,' he replied, handing over his phone. His diary was chock-a-block.
'Car insurance renewal. Check interest rates. Transfer funds to ISA. Return library books. Window cleaner. Pay gardener. Check latest crime stats?' Vicky asked incredulously.
'For here, and for home. It can affect your insurance premium,' Chris defended.
'Check latest house prices,' Vicky continued, reading through his schedule. 'Check quarterly sold prices. Weekly badminton, call accountant, recycling, review CCTV?' she exclaimed.
'For our security cameras at home,' he explained.
'Neighbourhood Watch meeting,' she read out, brows raised. 'Turn mattress, cancel streaming free-trial. Check smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarm. Check dates on medicines and first aid kits. Valet car, haircut, check engine oil and windscreen wash. Carpet cleaner, check guttering and soffits, service toothbrushes and season griddle pans. Check clocks against talking clock. Chimney service, tree surgeon, general waste. School Governors meeting, "forensic" clean of kitchen?' she said incredulously.
'It's when I use a toothbrush to get in all the crevices,' Chris said stuffily. 'I do it once a month.'
'Check bank statements,' Vicky continued, unphased, because of course Chris would use a toothbrush to clean the kitchen. 'Change passwords and security questions, unsubscribe from mailing lists, make requests under freedom of information act! And... A recurring appointment for...' She bit her lip as she clicked into it, before bursting into laughter.
'What?' Mattie demanded, leaning across to look at the phone for herself. 'Friday night sex!' she announced.
'That's private!' Chris rushed, jumping from his chair so quickly that his man boobs jiggled.
'Oh!' Mattie gasped. 'I'm sorry Chris, but this Friday's appointment has been declined!' to which both women began to snigger. Rafe turned to his friend with a barely-supressed smile.
'Do you really schedule weekly sex?' he asked, in a low voice. Chris looked at him with great displeasure.
'Yes, to ensure we find the time. It's important not to neglect one's sex life when in a long-term relationship.'
'Once a week is neglect!' Mattie snorted, before sobering at the sight of Chris's inflamed cheeks. 'But if you and Zoe are happy with that then I'm very happy for you!' she insisted.
'Zoe suggested it, actually,' he replied, with a pompous air. The question they all wanted to ask was, "as a means to having more sex or less?". Still, they held their tongues, fearing that they knew the answer, but also supposing that a man like Chris was probably more aroused by a lowered insurance premium than he was by lingerie or a gyrating backside.
'Well,' Vicky said, 'you are obviously quite busy, –'
'Not in the bedroom,' Mattie said, still sniggering. 'It was only scheduled for fifteen minutes!'
'Out!' Chris barked. 'The pair of you. I will not listen to your debauched conversations, and I cannot – simply cannot – put any of this in our minutes.'
'You've had enough fun,' Rafe warned the women. 'Now, get back to work.' No sooner had they left, than Rafe said to his friend, 'thoughts?'
'On the flexible working, or my private life?'
'Preferably the flexible working. I actually have no interest in what you and Zoe do or don't,' – blatantly don't. Poor Chris! Lucky Zoe! – 'get up to.'
'Mattie can cut down to four days if you can cope with it. It doesn't really affect me. I'm worried that letting Vicky go part-time will result in her working full-time on this charitable foundation and then we'll be looking for a new business manager.'
'Would that be so bad?' Rafe asked wearily. Chris thought about it for a moment before deciding that it probably wouldn't. He also decided that to decline her request – when she was pregnant – probably wouldn't look good.
'Fine,' he sighed. 'We'll look into it, run it past Lydia, but I'm honestly not sure it's a part-time role.' Rafe pursed his lips in thought.
'What if someone else took on some of her work?'
'Such as?'
'Lydia is our number two. Why not make her a partner? Between the three of us we'd cope with Vicky working part-time, and she does deserve the position. She's got another ten years in her at least, and I wouldn't want her to move elsewhere or start her own firm.'
'But then it would be Paxton, Colville and Munro,' Chris said in consternation.
'Or Munro, Paxton and Colville,' Rafe suggested.
'I'm not going last!'
'She might not even want her name above the door. She might not even want to be a managing partner.'
'She'd better not!' Chris told him. 'I don't want to have to change our name. The paperwork would be endless!'
*** Author's Note ***
Poor Chris. They do tend to gang up on him, don't they? The question in, does he secretly enjoy it? I suspect he might. (Not the weekly appointment for Friday Night Sex though; I suspect he was mortified that they saw that!)
So, Vicky wants to go part time to work on Rudy's charitable foundation (and to prepare Isla not the impending arrival of he future nemesis, no doubt), and Mattie wants to take off one day a week in the hope that it will make her "more zen". I wonder how she'll spend her time?
And what about Lydia? Rafe wants to make her a managing partner, but he doesn't yet know that she's sleeping with the Ford Fiesta! I wonder how he'll take the news...