Chapter 33"That girl is just imposible! Thank God Adi wears the same size shirt, or I don't know what would have happened. We would have lost the Chopra project, that is for sure. At least they liked the preliminary designs, but they want to see a final project on Thursday. I didn't think it would be so soon. There's that conference, but there is no way that I can leave the office, especially with Geet around. Who told her to make me coffee anyway?"
The only reason Maan didn't tell her to get out, was that as long as she was in the office, it would be easy to keep track of what she was doing. Under no circumstances did he want that walking disaster to be roaming around his home freely, destroying it one catastrophe at a time. He wasn't sure that his office would fair any beter, not after this coffee spilling incident, but at least he was there and could keep an eye on her.
The one benefit in the whole situation was that, unlike his last few secretaries, Geet actually seemed able to do the work. Yes, sometimes she made small errors, but they were much less frequent and problematic than he would have suspected. He also liked how she never repeated a mistake twice, though he would never admit that to anyone. Maan still did not trust her, and he didn't want to give her any kind of an advantage against him.
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Sasha couldn't understand how that behenji was still on the job after the coffee incident. She had been sure that Geet would be kicked out just as fast as the last girl. She had even put as much sugar in the coffee that she thought she could get away with, hoping it would ensure a swift exit of the irritating secretary. After all, the other girl had been fired just for making the coffee too sweet, where as Geet had actually spilled the coffee all over him. Contrary to what she thought, MK didn't do anything to the low class female, let alone, fire her.
Sasha had intended to investigate the situation further, to find out why MK didn't behave as expected with Geet. Unfortunately, she had been sent off to a conference as KC's representative for two days, postponing any possible action. Normally, Sasha would have been very pleased that MK trusted her enough to send her in his place, but not this time. She was sure that MK must know Geet from somewhere else, and she wanted to find out as soon as possible what their connection was.
When she got back to work on Thursday, MK called her into his office to discuss the upcoming presentation to Mr. Chopra. Sasha expected that, for MK always consulted her before a big meeting. What she didn't expect was that behenji to be in there, taking dictation and discussing the project with MK, going so far as to suggest some ideas. That was going too far, and she didn't know why MK tolerated it.
"This stupid Geet," muttered Sasha under her breath. "I have to do something to get her out of here."
In the end, Sasha didn't have to do much at all. During their discussion, MK's grandmother called, distracting him enough that he gave Geet a wrong file. Sasha quickly realized that rather than correcting the error, she should let it stand, for it was sure to cause a big problem which would get the young woman fired. Then Sasha would step in to save the project, earning MK's admiration.
"Sir, are you sure you want me to make ten copies of this file?" asked Geet uncertainly.
"Geet, why are you bothering MK?" Sasha broke in before her boss could realize his mistake. "He told you he wanted ten copies of that file, so he wants ten copies of that file. Go and do your job."
Sasha smiled as Geet left the room, unaware that these would be the last few hours of her time at KC. Taking a contented breath, Sasha then excused herself by saying she would see that the conference room was set up and ready. Walking into the corridor, she was met by Tasha, who naturally wanted to know why she looked so happy. Sasha was only too happy to explain the whole thing.
"But Sasha...I mean, Ma'am. Won't this cause the client to take the project away? That can't be a good thing."
"Tasha, this is why I am the one in charge and you are my secretary. Of course Mr. Chopra is going to be very upset and want to leave, that's only natural. But I will be there to apologize and put the blame on our new, inefficient employee, Geet. I will ask Mr. Chopra to please let us show the slide-show presentation, while I send you out to make the correct copies. That way KC will still keep the project, but this upstart Geet will not keep her job."
"Oh, Ma'am, you're just so clever. But I don't get one thing. I am supposed to make the copies now, or later?"
"Later, you idiot! How can you make the files now, when the file is in MK's office?"
"Oh, sorry. Silly me!"
Sasha and Tasha hurried along to the conference room to start setting things up. When the clients arrived and started looking through the files provided, Mr. Chopra reacted just as Sasha had expected that he would. When he moved to leave, Sasha tried to stop him, but someone else got there first. To her annoyance, Geet herself stopped the group with some dumb reasoning that Mr. Chopra actually fell for. Sasha couldn't believe it, but at least MK was smart enough not to fall for her innocent act. Once the clients were gone, he blasted Geet as she had never heard him do before.
When Geet left the room, Sasha hurried to MK's side, saying, "Oh my God, MK! This Geet almost lost the project for us. I can't believe that she was this irresponsible, but then I never thought she was someone who could work in this kind of environment. Really, we can't keep dealing with messes like this. I'll see to it that her termination papers are prepared immediately."
"Sasha!" barked Maan, to her great surprise, "are you part of the HR department?"
"No, MK," she uttered softly.
"Then kindly do not keep telling me what to do about my own employees. Now, since we weren't able to give them to our clients, I want you to ready copies of the blueprints to be sent to Mr. Chopra tomorrow."
Maan stormed out of the conference room, angry at the situation, angry at Sasha's nonsense talks, and supremely angry at Geet. Taking out his frustrations on any hapless employee in his way, he quickly walked back to his office. Once there, he remembered everything that happened, hating that he had been made to look weak infront of a client. Maan Singh Khurana was anything but weak.
"This Geet! It is all because of her. Ever since she came into my life, nothing has gone right!" he raged, throwing a file from his desk in anger.
After pacing a bit more, his gaze fell on that same file, opened, it's pages catching his attention. "But, this is the finalized Chopra file...Then which file did I give to Geet?"
Thinking back, he realized that he was so distracted by Savitri's pestering of him on the phone, asking this and that question about how Geet was, that he had given the girl in question the wrong file. Shaking his head at his own stupidity, Maan couldn't believe that he had made such a mistake. That mistake could have cost the company its biggest deal ever, and he had falsely blamed Geet. If this wasn't bad enough, he also noticed a small envelope with a note laying on his desk, a note that was from that same Geet.
Opening it up, Maan read, "Maan, I've been trying to find a way for two days to tell you sorry, ever since Dadima tried to force us to ride to work together. I know that you've faced a lot of problems for me, and I really appreciate that. I made the coffee as a peace offering, but I didn't know that you don't like to drink sweet coffee. I promise not to make the same mistake again. Geet."
Precap"I knew she was the one for him. Now all I have to do is make him realize the same thing."
Edited by laxmi2010 - 13 years ago
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