Chapter 7: The Manager's Meltdown

Mr. Henderson stared at the red bar graph on his monitor as if it were a personal insult. The dealership’s weekly Customer Satisfaction Index had nosedived so sharply it looked like a topographical map of a cliff. Three new surveys, all from the same client, had single-handedly torpedoed his numbers. Three ‘0 out of 10’ Net Promoter Scores. Three one-star ratings. He scrolled through the comments, his face tightening with each word. Glib. Unprofessional. High-pressure. Breach of privacy.

This wasn’t just bad feedback; it was an attack on his kingdom. His bonus, his reputation with corporate, his very sense of smug self-worth—all were tied to these metrics. He had spent years mastering the art of keeping the numbers green, of cajoling mediocre reviews into acceptable ones. This… this was a declaration of war.

His eyes landed on the final, damning data point. Would you like a manager to contact you? The box was checked: YES.

"Good," Henderson muttered to himself, a predatory smile replacing his anger. "He wants to talk to the man in charge? He'll get him." He saw himself as a master de-escalator, a corporate whisperer who could charm the most irate customer into submission with a cocktail of feigned empathy and a voucher for a free oil change. He cracked his knuckles, picked up his desk phone, and personally dialed the number on the file for Kevin Vance.

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Across the city, a silent notification flashed on Alex’s screen: INCOMING CALL - STERLING MOTORS (MAIN LINE). The fuse had reached the dynamite. He took a calm sip of his coffee, clicked open his audio suite, and activated the voice modulator. He scrolled through his presets—'Disgruntled Commuter,' 'Confused Grandfather'—before settling on one he’d labeled 'Old Money Disdain.' It lowered his pitch a half-octave, added a subtle rasp, and laced his voice with the unmistakable texture of someone who had never waited in line for anything.

He answered on the second ring. "Speak."

A professionally smooth, almost buttery voice replied. "Good morning, am I speaking with Mr. Kevin Vance? This is Mr. Henderson, the General Manager at Sterling Motors."

"You're the one in charge of that circus?" Alex drawled, the modulator giving his voice a gravelly edge of contempt. "Took you long enough to call. I trust you've read my official correspondence?"

Henderson was momentarily thrown. This wasn’t the usual shouting, aggrieved customer. This was cold, aristocratic condescension. "I… yes, Mr. Vance. I've reviewed your feedback, and I want to personally apologize for your experience. It is far below the Sterling standard of excellence, and I—"

"The Sterling standard?" Alex interrupted with a dry, humorless laugh. "Is that what you call the cacophony you play for your hold music? It sounded like a dying fax machine being fed through a woodchipper. That alone should be grounds for a class-action lawsuit."

Henderson blinked. Hold music? That wasn't in any of the surveys. "Our hold music is a classically licensed composition, sir, but that's beside the point. I'd like to address the very serious concerns you raised about my sales staff—"

"You mean the boy band you have cold-calling people? The one who called me 'buddy,' and the other one who sounded like he learned his sales techniques from watching gangster movies? And then a third one, who just stammered like an idiot? Which one would you like to discuss first, Henderson? We can make a list."

"Sir, I assure you, I will be dealing with Todd and Barry personally," Henderson said, his voice straining to maintain its placid facade. "And I'm investigating the potential privacy breach you mentioned. It is of the utmost concern to us."

"Concern," Alex mused, savoring the word. "That's a nice, soft, corporate word. It doesn't quite capture the feeling of having my private details passed around your showroom like a cheap business card. You know, this whole disaster started months ago. Your other department was spamming my email. I spoke to the only person who seemed to have a single functioning brain cell over there… a woman. Martinez, I think her name was. She seemed competent. She fixed the problem. At least, she said she fixed it."

Henderson’s eyes lit up. A name. A tangible employee he could pin this on. "Chloe Martinez? In our service department?"

"That's the one," Alex affirmed. "She was polite. Efficient. A rare bird in your establishment. But clearly, whatever she did didn't stick, did it, Henderson? Because now, instead of spam emails, I've got your sales monkeys harassing me by phone. Your entire system is a leaky bucket."

Henderson saw his opening. This wasn’t his fault; it was a process failure originating in another department. He could deflect. He could delegate. "Mr. Vance, would you mind holding for just one moment? I'm going to get Ms. Martinez in here right now. We will get to the bottom of this together."

He jabbed the intercom button on his desk. "Chloe, my office. Immediately."

A minute later, Chloe Martinez entered, her expression a mixture of professionalism and apprehension. "You wanted to see me, Mr. Henderson?"

"Martinez," he said, gesturing to a chair while pointing a stern finger at the speakerphone. "I have our client, Mr. Kevin Vance, on the line. He has lodged a series of very serious complaints, which he says originated with an error from your department months ago. Mr. Vance," he said, his voice becoming smooth again, "Ms. Martinez is here with me now. Chloe, please explain to Mr. Vance why, after you supposedly handled his email issue, he is now being harassed by my sales team."

Chloe’s blood ran cold. She stared at the speakerphone as if it were a venomous snake. She pulled up the Vance file on her tablet, her fingers flying. The original email issue was there, marked as resolved by her. But there was no record of these subsequent sales calls. No notes from Todd or Barry. No log of a privacy breach. The file was clean. The complaints were ghosts.

"Mr. Vance," she began, her voice steady despite the frantic pounding in her chest. "I'm looking at your file. I can confirm I removed an incorrect email address from your service profile several months ago. I have no record of any sales interactions since then. Perhaps there's been some kind of misunderstanding—"

"A misunderstanding?" Alex’s modulated voice crackled with indignation. "Are you calling me a liar, Ms. Martinez? I praised you. I told your boss you were the only competent one. And now you're telling me the three separate phone calls I received are a figment of my imagination?" He shifted his tone slightly, injecting a note of patronizing disappointment. "I had higher hopes for you. At least you sound like you know how to use a computer, unlike those sales monkeys."

She was trapped. Henderson was glaring at her, expecting a solution. The disembodied voice on the phone was twisting her own past competence into a weapon against her. She was being forced to account for problems that never happened, in a system she couldn't control.

"Sir, I'm not saying you're a liar," she said, choosing her words carefully. "I'm only saying the system shows no record of—"

"Then your system is broken!" the voice boomed. "First it sends emails to the wrong person, then it misplaces call logs! What's next? Are you going to sell my car out from under me and claim there's 'no record' of it? This is unacceptable. I want a full, written report detailing how my data was compromised, a formal apology from every person who called me, and a lifetime service plan for my trouble. Have it on my desk by nine AM tomorrow."

Before a stunned Henderson could even respond, Alex delivered the final blow.

"You have my email," he said, and the line went dead.

A heavy, toxic silence filled the office. Henderson slowly placed the receiver back in its cradle, his knuckles white. His attempt to control the situation had backfired spectacularly, leaving him with an impossible demand from a phantom menace. He turned his gaze on Chloe, his face a thundercloud of raw fury. His charm was gone, replaced by the ugly snarl of a cornered manager.

"Well?" he snarled, his voice low and dangerous. "You heard him. A system failure. A data breach. All starting in your department. You have until nine AM tomorrow to find out what the hell happened and fix it."

Chloe sat frozen, the weight of the impossible task crushing her. She had been set up, forced to answer for a ghost story, and was now the sole target of her manager’s explosive meltdown. For the first time, her loyalty to Sterling Motors didn't just feel strained. It felt like a chain she desperately needed to break.