He frowned. “What’s the problem?”
“Some of the products have more bugs than the engineers expected,” she explained. “It’s in the beta process right now, of course, but it’s not looking good.”
He cursed under his breath. Damn it. If the roll out of the new products got pushed back, it would be a massive blow to Dover. The good press they had generated recently would go down the drain and the company’s reputation would be shot to hell.
His temples started to throb. Stress always had a way of creeping up on him. “Okay. Right. Thanks for telling me.” If he let on that the news worried him, that would just affect her and make things at work even more tense. Tension had a way of lowering productivity. Right now, everyone at Dover needed to be at their best. Even if he didn’t have a solution for the problem at the moment, he had to project confidence.
“What do I do?” she asked.
“Get the chief engineers down into a conference room and tell them to sit tight until I get there,” he ordered. “And have Linda sit in on this. We need to be able to spin this for the media if it turns out to be disastrous.”
Simon reached over to his phone and hung up before she got the chance to answer. He had given her an order. Heather was a professional and she’d get things done. Keeping her on the phone was only going to get a whole bunch of inappropriate thoughts racing through his head.
Finally, the traffic cleared, and he made it to Dover headquarters with time to spare. When he found Heather, she led him into the conference room where Linda and dozens of chief engineers had gathered. There was a nervous buzz in the room as the engineers spoke in hushed, worried tones. They all turned to him when he stepped into the conference room.
He gave Heather a curt nod and shrugged out of his jacket, ready to get to work. “What’s the situation like?”
All at once, the engineers started talking, drowning each other out.
“One at a time,” he said loudly over the din.
He didn’t have to tell them twice. The minute he spoke, they all quieted down.
One of the engineers raised his hand and Simon nodded at him in acknowledgement. If they had any hope of solving the product issues before the launch, they had to do this in an orderly manner. He didn’t have time for sloppiness.
“Some of the bugs have completely blindsided us,” the engineer said, his voice strained with an edge of panic. “Some of the newer coders—”
“Let’s get to work solving the problem.” Simon draped his jacket over an empty chair and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I don’t care who you all want to blame, or whose fault it is. Ultimately the buck stops with me, so it’s my fault.”
No one responded. Their eyes darted around. Good. That meant they were confused. If they thought they could come in here and toss around excuses, they were mistaken.
He gave the room a stern look. “Come on, people. We don’t have time to waste.” His tone made them all jump. “Tell me the problem and then we’ll work on a solution. Blaming the newbies isn’t going to solve this.”
For the rest of the morning, they spent time putting their heads together to come up with a viable solution. By the time a few hours ticked by, they had come up with something. Simon wasn’t sure if it would fix their problem, but as the engineers left the conference room he was at least satisfied that there might be a way out of the mess they were in.
Now, all he had to do was make some calls to board members and investors to keep them from panicking.
“Simon.” Heather closed her laptop.
He leaned back in the leather chair he had been sitting in all morning and looked at Heather. She had diligently typed up notes of the meeting, so if he forgot something he knew she’d be right there to remind him. The same way she recognized Santo Mattis at the conference. He hadn’t recognized the man, but Heather had.
And she had only been on the job for a few weeks. Already she was making his life easier. At least, his professional life anyway. His personal life was a train wreck that he had to fix. And fast.
He crossed his arms, making sure he looked as stern and professional as possible now that they were alone together. “Yes?”