He opened his mouth to protest, but realized he'd already lost the battle. He ran his free hand through his hair and sighed. "Claire's also a cook, Mum. She'll probably be interested in anything you make." He walked back to the kitchen, where delicious smells escaped from the oven and permeated the air.
Now that his mother had gotten what she wanted, she moved on to family updates and other local events she felt he should know. His dad stayed on the line, occasionally adding in a word here or there, but mostly kept quiet.
The beeper on the oven went off and Noah interrupted his mother's monologue. "Hey, my food's ready. Can I catch you guys later?"
"Sure, sweetie. Enjoy. We'll see you and Claire on Friday."
His dad chimed in. "Get some rest, son. As soon as you eat, you're going to crash out. You'll want to be in your rack for that."
"Thanks, Pops. Mum, thanks again for dinner. It looks lovely. Love you guys."
He hung up and pulled the dishes from the oven. His stomach rumbled, and he settled at the table. Mum's comfort food was exactly what he needed right now. One hot meal, then a bed with clean sheets waiting to embrace him. The Claire situation could wait until he was better rested and thinking clearly again.
Claire had scoped out the small first-floor conference room when she and Noah first arrived this morning, so she'd know exactly where to go for the nine-thirty meeting. Nothing screamed you're new like being walked to the room—or worse, arriving late because you couldn't find it. Voices drifted down the hall as she approached. Good. She wouldn't be the first to arrive. Another awkward moment avoided.
She stepped into the room and looked around. The rectangular table seated six comfortably, and a projection screen hung at one end. Ben was fiddling with the projector remote. A man and a woman were at the table, chatting quietly over mugs of tea.
"Good morning," Claire said with a polite smile.
The pair stood. "Good morning," the man said. "I'm Paul and this is Florence. I'm the plant controller and Florence works with Ben on regional reporting."
"Nice to meet you both," Claire replied, shaking their hands.
Ben gave a triumphant little noise as the projector flickered to life—only to reveal a sprawling decision tree diagram that looked like it had been designed by a caffeinated spider. The branches stretched across the entire screen, some looping back on themselves, others ending in tiny, cryptic labels.
Claire blinked. "Wow. That's… thorough."
Ben chuckled. "That's one word for it."
Before she could ask what it was supposed to represent, the door opened and a tall man entered, his suit crisp and tie neatly in place. Despite the formal attire, he had a calm confidence that came from years of not needing to prove himself.
"Morning, all. Apologies for the delay," he said, then turned to Claire with a polite smile. "You must be Claire. Matthew Richards. Nice to meet you."
Claire's breath caught. She recognized the name from the org chart—VP of Finance, Eastern Hemisphere. She straightened instinctively, suddenly hyper-aware of her posture and the fact that she had no idea what this meeting was really about.
Matthew took the seat at the head of the table and glanced around. "So, Claire… we've been hearing good things about these site codes the project team is working on." He nodded at her, then turned to Ben. "Shall we get started?"
Ben smiled and looked at Claire. "We're interested in the site codes because we think we can use them also." He gestured at the diagram on the screen.
Matthew cleared his throat. "Before we dive in, let's give her some background first. We use a different reporting system on this side of the world. It's an Excel add-in that pulls data from a backend database. We've got a fairly complex ETL script that pulls from MADS and loads it properly into our reporting tool. Right now, we have to update it manually every time Caprock opens a new location. We'd like to incorporate your site codes into that process—but we need to understand how they work and what changes we'll need to make."
"From what we've been told, the site codes will drastically simplify our import process," Ben added.
Claire nodded, her nerves settling into focus. "Of course. I'd be happy to walk you through it. I gave a similar demo to Grace Simmons a few weeks ago, so I can use that as a starting point."
She opened her laptop while Ben disconnected his from the projector and handed her the cable. The screen shifted from the chaotic decision tree to a clean, color-coded report layout. She explained how the codes were structured, how they mapped to each site, and how the sites rolled up into their respective sales channels.
"They're not final yet," she added. "We're still finalizing the list of sites. But we've built enough to start testing, which Noah and I are working on this week. Once you're ready to update your ETL script, I can help with the mapping."
Paul leaned forward. "This is much cleaner than what we've been using. I like the logic behind it."
Florence nodded. "And the documentation's clear. That's rare."
Ben grinned. "I especially like the color-coding. It's like a traffic light for accountants."
Claire laughed, the tension in her shoulders easing. "That's exactly what I was going for."
Matthew smiled. "Well done, Claire. This will make a big difference for our team."
