My Boss Put Me on Toilet Duty Until a French Tycoon Refused to Meet Anyone Else Chapter 04
Seraphina came to the warehouse to find me that afternoon. She stood in the doorway, frowning at
the mops and buckets scattered across the floor.
“You know about all the problems at the lobby?”
“I do.”
“Clients are complaining about broken phone lines.”
“I heard.”
“People are upset about missing packages too.”
“I know.”
She waited for me to say more. “Why didn’t any of this happen before?”
I lifted my head to meet her gaze.
“Because I was at the lobby before. I greeted every guest, answered every call and sorted every
package personally.”
“Automated systems can’t calm a frustrated client down. They can’t read between the lines of what
someone is trying to say.”
“They won’t notice missing labels on lockers, and they can’t stop people from stealing parcels.”
“I handled all these small problems before they ever became issues for the company.”
Her heels clicked against the damp floor as she stood there.
“Are you blaming me?”
“I’m not blaming anyone. I’m just here to clean floors now. You asked questions, so I answered
them.”
She had no response. After a few seconds, she turned and left. The sound of her footsteps faded
away.
I went back to my mopping. As I passed the lobby, the kiosk’s looped announcement continued
nonstop.
“Check-in failed. Please try again. Check-in failed. Please try again.”
Seraphina rolled out another set of new rules soon after. All administrative requests had to go through her assistant first, for her final approval.
Even printer paper, pen refills, catering, and conference rooms now required a request ticket and Seraphina’s approval.
Before, staff only needed to tell me at the lobby, and everything was done within five minutes. Now the process took a minimum of three days.
On the third day, the entire company erupted in frustration.
The sales team ran out of paper while preparing client contracts. They headed to the warehouse to
restock.
“Did you submit a request form?”
“Did you send the email for approval?”
“We have to wait for sign-off.”
Hours passed with no update. The sales lead called Seraphina’s assistant directly.
“Ms. Voss is in a meeting. You’ll have to wait.”
The contracts needed to be mailed out that same afternoon. Unable to wait any longer, the sales
team drove to a local print shop.
They printed over three hundred pages, costing thirty dollars total. The sum was small, but
everyone felt disrespected.
The sales lead posted a message in the group chat.
[We wasted an entire afternoon waiting for basic supplies. Is the sales team’s time worth nothing?]
The technical team faced even bigger troubles. Elias Tate’s computer crashed and needed a new
hard drive.
His request sat in the approval queue for two days.
“These rules exist to standardize operations for everyone equally,” Seraphina stated.
“Standards are fine,” Elias argued. “But I can’t sit idle for two days. I have three major project
deadlines looming.”
“Then find a solution on your own,” she replied.
Elias bought the replacement hard drive out of his own pocket for six hundred eighty dollars. He kept the receipt for travel expense reimbursement, unsure how long he would wait to get his
money back.
The design team placed their annual order for industry magazines three months prior. By the time approval came through, every copy had sold out.
The design supervisor posted in the group chat.
[I submitted this request three months early. The order gets approved after the stock is gone. How is this proper standardization?]
The finance team struggled with invoice reimbursement. Before, I collected all receipts and delivered them to the finance office personally, with payments processed the very same day.
Now staff had to fill out forms, attach receipts and wait for approval. A full week passed with no
movement.
One employee posted a question in the group chat.
[When will last month’s travel expense reimbursement go through? My credit card bill is due
soon.]
