Kell turned to Allan. “Did you give her financial targets?”
“Yes. They are aggressive and she wanted to figure out how to save more of her head count.”
“We didn’t discuss this,” Kell said.
Cari was glad she wasn’t Allan, as Kell looked like he wasn’t too pleased with his cousin. “No offense, Cari, but I didn’t think you had a chance of meeting them. I’d like to hear how you are going to do this.”
Cari nodded to Jessi, who passed out the presentation that she’d prepared with the financial numbers. She led them through the financial statement, which showed a clear 25 percent increase in profit margin with the addition of a new game.
“But this is all theoretical,” Kell said.
“No, it’s practical,” Cari retorted. “I have a demo of the game on my iPad if you’d like to play it.”
“A playable demo?” Dec asked. “When did you have time to develop it?”
“We used an existing game skeleton and changed the assets to Christmas. I used the staff who were scheduled to develop a new game for the second quarter next year, as we aren’t sure if we’ll need a game then. They have really worked hard on it.”
She handed the iPad over to Kell and all three of the men took a turn playing the demo before handing it back to Cari.
“I’m impressed. This is the kind of innovative thinking we reward at Playtone,” Kell said.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Cari said.
“Make sure that Dec has a list of everyone who was involved in this project,” Kell said.
Cari nodded, and Dec smiled over at her. She felt good about the presentation, and she hoped it was enough to make Kell see that there was merit to this generation of Chandlers.
“Should we reconvene in a few weeks?” Emma asked. “Now that you’ve seen what else we are capable of?”
Kell shook his head. “No, this changes nothing of our current plans. Dec, please begin your presentation.”
Emma paled and Cari felt a sinking feeling in her stomach as Dec stood up. “I’ve had copies of my report made and they will be available to you three after the meeting.”
“Why not now?” Jessi asked.
“I don’t want you reading ahead and reacting until I’ve had a chance to explain. The new revenue stream will be added to my revised report, but as Kell just said it really doesn’t change much of what we already had planned.
“When I first came to Infinity Games I noticed there was a lot of redundancy between what we do here at Playtone and what you do. For example, we don’t need two technical development directors, so that is one role I recommend we cut.”
Cari felt the anger simmer inside her as Dec went on and on, talking about all the areas he thought should be cut. She heard him say that three-quarters of the staff should be kept on as they were hard workers and possessed “cutting-edge design knowledge.” At least some of her people were going to make the cut.
“Finally, I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I am recommending we cut the executive staff of Infinity Games,” Dec intoned in an emotionless voice. “Though Cari, Jessi and Emma all seem to work long hours and are viable in their roles, there is simply no need to keep them all on. Initially I was going to recommend cutting all three but over the past six weeks I’ve seen how much the staff at Infinity depends on Cari. She’s their cheerleader, motivator and they all work harder when she asks them to. I think she’s an asset as long as we keep the Infinity staff on and recommend keeping her in an operations-officer role.”
Jessi jumped up and started talking but Cari didn’t really hear a thing that her sister said. Instead she only heard what Dec said. Was he recommending keeping her because of their relationship? She couldn’t keep her job if Emma and Jessi were both fired.
She stood up, pointed to Dec and motioned for him to step to the corner of the room. Her sisters were having a very heated discussion with Kell and Allan, but Cari was interested in only one person.
“What was that about?” she hissed when they were standing aside from the table.
“What do you mean?”
“Why keep me and not Jessi or Emma? We’re all vital to the longevity of Infinity Games.”
“You are because you’re in the trenches with your staff. But the other two—”
“Stop it, Dec. The ‘other two’ are my sisters. We can’t build a life together when you fired my sisters.”
“We’re not building a life together,” Dec said.
“What have we been doing, then?”
“Hell, I didn’t mean it like that,” he said. “I couldn’t save all three of you, Cari. Kell isn’t happy that I recommended you stay on staff, but I told him that was the only option that I would agree to.”