“You’re late, Gene.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry… my phone. I lost my phone… it’s my clock… I’ve been behind all day today… just running around.”

Gene set a brown take out container and his bag down on the table and proceeded to drag an assortment of cords, crumpled papers, pens, and a MacBook out onto it. The laptop was plastered with stickers from various long board companies, radio stations, and novelty stores.

“We’ll just wait for you to have a seat then before I continue,” said Roger.

Gene averted his eyes from Roger. He then set his bag on the ground and unraveled the MacBook’s power cord. The board room table was in the center of the rectangular meeting room. Gene’s power cord was about a foot shy from the wall behind him.

To compensate, Gene walked back to the table and mumbled something about moving it before dragging it sharply backwards. The V.P. next to Gene grunted as the table crushed his gut.

“Gene, please. Just sit down so we continue reviewing this quarter’s progress metrics.”

“Oh yeah sure… I have a full charge anyways,” Gene laughed.

“As I was saying earlier, this quarter is potentially on track to be our best in the past five years, and we can owe that to Sandy’s team’s product releasing two months early.”

Several Facebook Messenger notifications went off from Gene’s laptop and were followed by a series of rapid electronic clicks as he mashed the volume down button. He looked up and smiled sheepishly at Roger.

Roger continued lauding Sandy.

Gene leaned over to Bill, the senior HR Manger at Carter & Associates, and motioned to his own computer screen.

“Lose your phone and all you got is Facebook, hey?” Gene whispered, “They probably hire people to just walk around stealing phones all day, hey?”

Bill, without looking at Gene, nodded once.

“I wish I bought some stock or something in it when it first came out,” continued Gene, “Probably wouldn’t have to be sitting here all day then, hey?”

Bill checked his watch.

“Gonna get an iWatch?” Gene asked, gazing back to his screen, “Did you see that all gold one they make? It’s like twenty thou-, or something crazy like that.”

Bill’s mouth opened and he glared at Gene, but he held his tongue. Instead he just blinked and swung his chair to face Roger, and away from Gene.

Gene grabbed the brown take out box and opened it, releasing the steam from his lemon chicken and rice into the board room. He pulled a plastic fork from his grey hoodie’s pocket and dug in.

“…So, once again, great work Sandy. Gene, how are you and the team coming along on your tax assessments?”

Gene, startled, looked up from his MacBook and swallowed the bite in his mouth. The expression on his face seemed to suggest that he had no idea there were other people around him, let alone that they would address him.

“Sorry, what?”

Roger blinked, “The tax assessments on the SafeCo account? How are they coming along?”

There was a pause.

“I don’t know.” Gene said finally.

“What do you mean?” Roger said.

“I’m a little behind on things this week… Sorry.” Gene laughed, looking away from Roger.

Bill coughed, then drank from his glass of mineral water.

“Well… that’s unacceptable… I don’t even know what to say right now.” Roger said as he reddened. Silence engulfed the room.

After the pause, Gene looked down, then back to Roger and said, “Look, to be honest, the material we’re going over isn’t really that engaging for me. And I’ve got a lot going on right now too, so I guess I’m not really focused on this stuff right now… but I do plan on catching up before the quarter’s over.”

Gene smiled.

“Okay… well… I guess we’ll need to talk about this after the meeting is over then,” Roger said.

“Actually I gotta run right after this. The bus leaves at like five after, so can I just email you with the assessment later today?”

“No.” Roger replied, instantly, “No you can’t. We needed to know about it today. Right now.”

Roger stepped back and wiped his forehead. He was sweating now.

“Alright...” Gene said slowly, slumping back into his chair.

He looked back to the video he was watching on mute again.

The straw haired woman across from Gene cleared her throat, “Mr. Carter, I think I have time this afternoon to assess the SafeCo account.”

“Fine. That’s great. Thanks Andrea.” Roger said.

Gene picked up his lemon chicken again and began scraping the last bits of rice and sauce into his mouth.

“Uhh,” Roger continued, “Thanks everyone for presenting today and…”

Gene, standing up, began packing everything back into this bag as fast as he could.

“…hope we can make next quarter as strong as this one has been so far. I’m looking forward to…”

The zippers on Gene’s backpack drowned out a few of Roger’s words.

“…and seeing all your progress metrics by the end of the week. Have a great afternoon everyone.”

Gene was through the doors and halfway down the hallway by the time Roger had finished shaking hands with his V.P.’s.