Chapter 439: Road To Management

"I discovered that customers are not always right."

Mrs. Edith sighed. "Sacha."

"I know, I know. That’s apparently not something you’re supposed to say aloud."

"What did you do?"

"Corrected a customer."

"How?"

"Politely."

Stan raised an eyebrow. Sacha pointed at him at once. "I was polite."

"I believe you."

"You don’t sound like you believe me."

"I believe you were polite by your standards."

Mia covered a smile. Sacha shook her head and continued.

"Anyway, that job wasn’t terrible. I learned a lot. Handling people, managing complaints, keeping calm when someone is shouting over something they don’t understand. It was useful."

"You kept those skills?" Mrs. Edith asked.

"Obviously. They’re one of the reasons I’m doing well as a manager now. If not for them I would have run the company into bankruptcy." Her gaze shifted to Stan as she said it, and that earned a small smile from Mrs. Edith.

Sacha continued eating for a moment before adding, "Then came the one that nearly killed my patience."

"The company you’re with now?" Mia asked.

"No. Before that." Sacha leaned back. "I joined a mid-sized company. Good salary. Decent position. Plenty of room to grow."

"And the boss?"

Sacha’s expression changed. "He was the problem."

Stan finally looked up. Mia noticed the slight shift in his face.

Sacha sighed. "He wasn’t just incompetent. That would’ve been easier. He was annoying." Mrs. Edith waited, and Sacha pushed on. "He took credit for other people’s work. Played favorites. Made promises to clients without consulting anyone. Then when those promises became impossible to keep, he’d dump the mess on whoever was beneath him."

"That sounds unpleasant," Mia said.

"It was exhausting."

"You argued with him?" Mrs. Edith asked.

"Sometimes."

"Of course."

Sacha sighed and pushed a piece of meat around her plate. "He was a terrible manager, honestly. He kept piling work on me because he knew I could handle it. I’d finish one thing, and he’d immediately hand me three more. Late nights became normal. Weekends too, sometimes."

Mrs. Edith’s expression tightened. "He was overworking you?"

"Constantly. And the worst part was that he wasn’t even doing his own job properly."

"How so?"

"The company’s stock had been falling for months. Investors were losing confidence, sales were slipping, and instead of actually fixing anything, he kept making bad decisions and pretending everything was under control." Stan listened quietly while Sacha went on. "He’d ignore reports he didn’t like, dismiss warnings from the finance team, and push strategies that clearly weren’t working. Then he’d blame the market whenever the numbers got worse."

Mrs. Edith frowned. "And you told him?"

"More than once."

"And what did he say?"

"That I should focus on my own department and leave management to him." Sacha gave a dry laugh. "Which would have been easier if he hadn’t kept dumping his work on me."

Stan chuckled quietly.

Sacha pointed at him. "Don’t laugh. You weren’t the one answering emails at eleven at night because your boss suddenly remembered a report existed."

"I remember you telling me about that."

"Exactly." She turned back to Mrs. Edith. "I wasn’t even angry about the workload at first. I was angry because I knew the company could do better. People were working hard, but the man at the top kept making decisions that were dragging everyone down."

"And that’s when Stan stepped in?"

"Eventually." Sacha glanced at Stan. "He looked into what was happening, saw how badly the company was being managed, and apparently decided he’d had enough."

Stan shrugged. "He was costing the company money."

"And overworking me."

"That too."

Sacha smiled. "That’s how I ended up becoming manager."

Mrs. Edith looked between them. "So you went from being overworked by him to replacing him?"

"Pretty much." She lifted her cup. "Best promotion I’ve ever received."

"So that’s one of the companies under him?" Mia said softly.

Sacha nodded. "Yeah." She lifted her cup again. "The manager absolutely deserved it." Then she set it down. "To be fair, Stan didn’t simply walk in and fire him because I complained."

"I would have liked to," Stan said.

"I know." Sacha’s smile softened. "But the man had already been doing stupid things. Stan just happened to uncover enough of them to make sure the company couldn’t ignore it anymore."

Mrs. Edith looked impressed. "And after that?"

Sacha grinned. "They offered me his position."

Mia blinked. "You became the manager?"

"Yep."

"Just like that?"

"While under Stan’s order the job’s technically mine. There were interviews, meetings, paperwork, and several people suddenly discovering that I was apparently qualified to do the job I’d already been doing for months."

Stan nodded. "They were slow to notice."

"Very slow." Sacha leaned back proudly. "But eventually they noticed."

Mrs. Edith smiled. "And you like it?"

Sacha’s expression became more genuine. "I do." The answer came without hesitation. "I actually do. It’s stressful, but it’s different when you’re the one making the decisions. I can change things instead of complaining about them. I can protect the people working under me from some of the nonsense I had to deal with."

Mrs. Edith nodded approvingly. "Then it sounds like you found your place."

"Maybe." Sacha looked down at her plate. "I still complain."

"That’s because you’re you."

"Exactly."

Stan smiled. Sacha glanced at him. "And don’t think I’ve forgotten that you’re partly responsible."

"For what?"

"My promotion."

"You earned it."

"Maybe. But you opened the door."

Stan shrugged. "You walked through it."

For once, Sacha didn’t have a clever response. She simply smiled.

Mia watched the exchange quietly, then passed Sacha the bread. Sacha accepted it.

"Thank you."

"You’re welcome."

A beat passed. Then Sacha’s eyes narrowed playfully. "See? Mia appreciates me."

"I never said I didn’t."

"You implied it."

"I did not."

"You did with your face."

"My face doesn’t speak."

"But it does when you’re around him."

Mia nearly choked on her drink. Stan calmly continued eating. Mrs. Edith shook her head.

"Leave her a little pride, Sacha. She has to swallow food as well as your comments."