The Road to Recovery

"It is us that should be thanking you Mike." One of the section heads stood up. "We, and I know that I speak for all of us, respect you for what you have done for us over the years. Sure there were times when things were tough and you could quite easily have sacked staff and we would have understood the reason for your decision, and there were other times when we had to work our arses off to keep on top of the work demands and it was in those times that we quite happily took on the extra workload. Thank you Mike and if these people are your choices to take control we'll respect them as much as we respect you. Thank you Mike."

The staff burst into spontaneous applause and I'd never been more proud of them than I was now. Millie grabbed my hand and kissed me starting another round of applause. In the foyer the assembled media heard the applause and cast their minds back to the dramas of Friday evening. Something was happening.

I walked into the foyer. "Thank you for coming here this morning. I think I should apologise for what I said on Friday, I was in a state of shock, not that that's any excuse for my behaviour, but today I have a completely different reason for speaking with you. As of this morning the sale of this company has been cancelled. Also of this morning I have replaced my brother Peter as Managing Director and we have instigated a shake-up in the management structure of the company. This had been conveyed to the staff and we have their wholehearted support. Thank you once more for coming and I'll leave it to our legal counsel James Dawson to answer the technical question as to what happened here. Thank you." I strode out of the room as James rose to answer the inevitable questions.

Millie was waiting for me in my old office. "You are a totally different person to the one that I met drowning his sorrows not four days ago and I have to admit that I much prefer this one." She kissed me and I thought that we were going to end up doing it on my desk. "I gotta go to work, I think they'll accept my reasons for being late, not everyone meets her dream man and gets engaged all in one amazing weekend. I'll see you at my place this evening, oh and don't you think that you should check out of that hotel. That's something that I've been meaning to ask you, why check into a hotel when you only live half an hour's drive away from the CBD?"

"Because I was pissed and angry and didn't want to take a chance at driving home, what with the booze buses so active on Friday nights."

"I'm glad you got pissed and angry, otherwise I never would have met you."