The Third Floor | Thirty Million Reasons (55.03)

[mragland]

06.25.2055 – Santa Clarita

Alden is running very late. Phoebe sat down at their table more than half an hour ago, around the same time he let her know he was stuck in a meeting at work, and when he ought to have been arriving.

He enters the restaurant at a brisk trot and heads over to the table. “Again, very sorry. I had a terrible time trying to leave work,” he says as he takes his seat. “We're struggling to get ready for month-end.”

“It's okay,” says Phoebe, “I got your message. Though the wait staff have been giving me very sympathetic looks for the past fifteen minutes. I think they were worried for me.”

Alden shakes his head. “You're not the sort of person that get stood up,” he says, looking down at his menu.

“I think you'd be surprised,” replies Phoebe. “Anyway, it sounds like you've had quite a day.”

Alden looks up, meeting Phoebe's gaze. “It's been a brutal past six months, to be honest. You can shrink a department all you like, but if the volume of work remains the same...”

“New Version,” says Phoebe.

“New Version,” replies Alden, nodding his head.

It's a bit of dark humor going around the accounting department in 2055, something Alden shared with Phoebe a few months ago and has since become their way of explaining Alden's difficulties on the job. In January, without warning, the baseball club's owner unilaterally revised the 2055 budget for baseball spending down from $146M (in 1995 dollars) in 2054, to $116M. This, a few weeks after she had set the budget at $152M going into the winter meetings. Few organizations can weather a 20% reduction in spending from one year to the next without adverse consequences. The Valencia Stars were no exception.

The team owner, for her part, made no explanation for this change of heart, and for the first time since acquiring the team, made no visits to the club's west coast facilities at all during the spring and summer, at least so far. The changes were so abrupt that Alden and his coworkers described this as the 'new version' of Sofia Corretti-Dobbs. A version they didn't care for at all. In time, they started to blame every setback at the club on the New Version, fairly or not.

Spending cuts were called for not just in baseball operations, however, and reached every facet of the organization. It was a miserable time to be working for the Stars. The maddening thing for Alden, who knew just how strong all of the many and various revenue streams (both directly baseball related, and those at least baseball adjacent) remained, is that this drastic change was a needless, self-inflicted wound for the club.

Alden was seriously looking into other work opportunities, and he wasn't the only one. It didn't seem worth it to try and muddle through in an organization that was going to be so arbitrarily run, but on the other hand he hated to leave his coworkers in the lurch. They were all doing the best they could, in the circumstances. What really annoyed him was that he couldn't really hold the New Version to account. Let her know that this simply wasn't acceptable.

“I think I'll get the pork chops,” says Alden, closing the menu. “What looks good to you?”

[Jwalk100]

I knew Sofia was gonna be a problem. But for Hawaii, not the Stars.

[RonCo]

At least Sofia's public face is quite charitable.