Boss Lady

Brainstorming

"How much money are we talking about?", I said my jaw tense.

"About 70 million, Ms. Bianchi.", Georgiana, my head of Finance said tightly.

"Are we prepared to take the hit?"

I did not want to hear the answer. We had incurred nearly 70 millions in loss due to the failure of our spring-summer bikini collection.

I had issued express orders to stop selling the collection at stores. We would not sell anything less than the best at our stores.

"As long as it does not happen again.", Georgiana replied.

"You won't believe this ma'am but our social media follow up just exploded to 20M. We are trending on Twitter and Instagram. There is even a tagline
#BossLadyWeTrustYou. This might be a burden for us financially but it has had unexpected advantage. Our customers are very satisfied with how quickly Boss Lady has responded to their complaints.", Laura from Tech Support piped up.

"We have received nearly two million pre-orders for the autumn-winter collection. This could be a brilliant opportunity for us to expand our lingerie lime as well.", Bree, my new favorite employee from Advertising and Marketing said.

Finally some good news.

"I have  a better idea."

So, much bad PR was not good for my company but any press was advertisement. It had been a genius move to address the concerns. Now, we had more orders than ever.

God! I loved my brains. Who needed an hour glass figure when I had such a brain?

Not that I wouldn't like an hour glass figure.

My team looked at me eagerly. They fed off my ambition as much as I did on theirs.

"We bring in local designers, small business owners to send their designs in. We will throw an open contest and scout in new talent and select the best ones. That way we shake things up a little bit."

"You mean adopt the business strategy of Zara?", Jules countered.

" Not exactly. We won't change collections every 15 days. Fast fashion causes massive environmental damages. Plus, it tricks customers to buy more clothing than they need. We are not doing a Just In Time business model. We won't trick customers.", I said ending that discussion.

Zara had applied an ingenious strategy for business but our motto was strictly,

Protestatem pro omnibus

Empowerment for all.

Jules agreed with me.

"We bring in fresh talent from Brazil's poorest favelas like we do every year and also a mix of bohemian and crocheting styles", I set down.

Everyone started typing furiously on their IPADs. This was going to be epic!

My team had that look in their eyes that soldiers had before war.

I looked at my commanders-in-chief.

Bree, Georgiana, Laura, and Jules from Advertisement, Finance, Tech support and Management and I felt prouder than ever. These were women, that I had hand selected, groomed and built from the ground up. Today, they made me hold my head high in pride.

Each one of them had come from nothing, just like me.

And together we had conquered the fashion industry and weathered storms together.

I wanted nothing more at the moment to show the people who had mocked me, the power of sisterhood.

These were my sisters in arms more than any blood family.

"All hail the Boss Lady.", Jules cheered.

" Here's to making more money and being a wicked, wicked bitch, mate.", she said, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

"I will cheer to that.", I replied and stepped out of the conference room.
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" Are you having a seizure?", Jules popped up in my office.

"No, why do you ask?", I said confused.

" You are smiling. Do I need to call the hospital?", she said horrified.

I took major offense to that.

"I will pretend I did not hear that. I smile all the time, Jules. Plus, show some respect to your boss or I will fire you."

"Something happened, didn't it?", Jules said narrowing her eyes at me.

"Nothing happened. You are being  tres nosy Jules. Leave me alone. Por favor.", I said switching to Spanish just to annoy her. Nothing irritated Jules more than speaking Spanish. She had a unique passive-aggresive relationship with a certain Spaniard in my company.

It had the opposite effect

"Huh, speaking Spanish and smiling. What disease did you catch? Is zit zee love bug?", she said comically widening her eyes.

" Effective immediately, you are fired as my COO. Please clear your desk."

I said and returned back to emails. Her echoing laughter could be heard for minutes after she had left.

But she wasn't very wrong. I might have been a thinking a TINY TINY bit
about a handsome blond doctor who was taller than a bloody oak tree.

But whatever he was so not my type.
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                    _____________
Hey people, it's Della here. Hope you are well and having a good day.

Our girl might just be  a tiny bit smitten.

Also, what I wrote about Zara is not to discourage people from buying stuff but it's absolutely true. Zara's business model is based on Just in Time policy wherein they change stock every 15 days and people but it due to the Just in Case rule because they fear they would not have access to a dress 15 days later, ending up wasting all their money on clothes that they don't need.

Fast fashion retail does irreparable damage to the environment.

So be careful about buying clothes.

P. S. - What do you think of our Boss Ladies?

P. P. S- What do you think of Sana as a CEO?