One of the senior managers in the marketing arm was given a 24-hour notice and asked to leave the workplace due to a very serious breach in company protocols that "compromised his integrity", according to the email that was circulated to the management team.
While I don't usually dig about scandals like this, my guess is, in plain vanilla English, the guy probably committed some form of fraud, and the company chose to let him go instead of escalating the thing into a police case.
In any case, someone had to be moved up to take over, and the powers that may be in C-suite decided who else but Liz, given her "wealth of experience and proven track record within the Company."
I'm not overly concerned, because I really don't need a deputy anyway, and in terms of hierarchy, she's still technically subordinate to me. It only means our office liaisons would now entail either of us walking across from one end of the building to the other, since her new department would be located in another corner opposite from mine.
And not that I doubt Liz's capabilities too: she's a driven and ambitious woman who's street-smart and knows how to work her way up; only in this case, I kinda suspect she probably had her way by sleeping with one of the C's, to be very honest.
It's an open secret that the Chief Marketing Officer has a thing for Liz, and she had indulged in his little attempts at getting to her by having lunch with him on a number of occasions-- and they're often extended lunch breaks, from my observations.
I suppose in the end, it's all about power and he who had the larger rubber stamp wins; I'm 2 steps away from being a C myself, but until that time comes, I suppose I don't yet wield the kind of authority and power that some women would find sexy enough to want to sleep with to get to the top.
In any case, I wouldn't be surprised too if the promotion would mark the end of Liz's affair with me. Not that it would be any great loss to me, except I probably now have to find a new toy to have fun with at the office in those long night hours.
...which brings to the point that while I don't feel the need to have a deputy (Liz has had a good time sitting pretty since I took over, really), it's still a vacant post, and I need to find someone to take over.
I now have 2 potential candidates: one, a young brilliant chap (male) with first-class honors in aviation engineering who would make a damn good deputy because I could probably push the job to him and spend my time socializing with the other senior executives and build even stronger networks and extending my base; problem is, Engineer dude probably wants my job too, and one of the unwritten laws of power is never to have a deputy who would someone appear to be more brilliant than you are.
The second is a no-brainer: a pretty twenty-something Australian girl we dubbed "Sunshine Girl" because she was always smiling and chirpy (her tits are chirpy too) who would be the target of Liz's outbursts simply because she was her assistant, and more to do with the fact that Liz probably felt Sunshine Girl was a threat being younger and more attractive than she was.
The problem with Sunshine Girl is that she isn't ready, in my opinion, to take on strategic management responsibilities, and she can be quite ditzy at times when it comes to the really big and important assignments.
Which makes the need for her to stay back longer at work with her Vice-President perfectly justifiable, given I probably have to work with her on a lot of things, not to mention work "on" her.
I was deliberating over this with a friend while having drinks last night, and his opinion: screw Engineer Dude, and take Sunshine Girl as the deputy. That way, I'd have twice the fun at work (assuming Liz and I haven't broke it off yet) without worrying about a power-hungry and ambitious deputy trying to out-do me and present himself as my replacement.
To be honest, I'm inclined to think that way too, but at the same time, from a practical perspective, I don't want to spend too much time having to pick up the bits where Sunshine Girl would screw up, and she would, believe me.
Some of you would probably find my post disturbing, but that's the reality that happens in the workplace. There was a controversial study in 2012 that suggested that women who flirt at work are more likely to succeed, although the flipside to it would be this would make them appear more untrustworthy than women who don't; controversial, because it's definitely sexist, yet I tend to think there are major degrees of truth to it-- Liz is a very clear example.
As for Engineer Dude, well, being the brilliant chap he is, I don't think he would have any problems finding his own place any time soon.
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