Seven Dwarfs: An Incompetent Board of Directors and a House of Cards

By Wilma Hayes

These stories are named for the Seven Dwarfs in Snow White, but that’s about all I’ve used.

Humour is fiendishly difficult for me to write; I don't understand timing, sarcasm, or one-liners. Maybe it means that I have no sense of humour. But here I am faced with Seven Dwarfs. Surely humour has to come into it. One of them is named Happy for heaven's sake. On reflection, Dopey should also be easy.

So, I’ve created a Board of Incompetent Directors of a small, reasonably successful company facing a crisis. Needless to say, they aren't entirely up to it and as we shall see, the company is really a house of cards.

Doc is the Chairman of the Board and founder. He has this great idea...everyone will love it. Really?

Happy, the Financial Director bumbles along keeping everyone on his side with jokes and cupcakes, but has a few things that need to be kept quiet.

Sleepy, the Health and Safety Director meets the worst crisis of his career and he has to keep it quiet too because he should have known better.

Dopey is the Marketing and Sales Director. Everyone keeps their distance from him or they open a window. Like his good friend, the Chairman, he is not an active Director. He has an office with staff who actually do the work. He's happy with his lot. It works well for him.

Sneezy, is the asthmatic Human Resources Director. All of a sudden, kindness in the past is holding her to ransom. Debts need to be paid.

Grumpy, the Operations and Production Manager is facing a massive hole in his personal finances that he is trying to fill. Does it change his loyalty?

Bashful, the Clerk and Legal Secretary wants the simple quiet life. She is terrified of taking any responsibility. Naturally it won't work out that way.

So, failing to make them funny, I thought it best to watch as they face their individual crises and see how deeply they dig themselves into more trouble. Dopey, Grumpy, Happy were reasonably straightforward, Doc and Sneezy but were a bit more of a challenge. Sleepy was the one who kept getting deeper and deeper into difficulty and that is very satisfying as a writer.

In the end, it was Bashful that was the most fun to write. Maybe I have a sense of humour after all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilma Hayes
• Release date: Oct 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9780995787094

Wilma Hayes

'The Welsh Marches is an evocative place. Full of mystery, history, and tiny old houses, it leads easily into Wales - a perfect place to write and to set romantic novels with mysteries and crimes embedded in them.'This is how Wilma summarises the inspiration for her four novels in the Welsh Marches series and the forty-nine short stories which follow and make up Sevens, Stories to Commute By.Luckily for her, she was able to escape to this scenic area and begin to write. It is not a gift that many people are given, but with a tiny cottage of her own, an accompanying cottage garden and a husband who is handy with a computer and a coffee pot, the opportunity was too good to ignore.

Book preview

SEVEN DWARFS

by Wilma Hayes

This little novella is all about an incompetent Board of Directors and the House of Cards they work in.

SEVEN DWARFS

by Wilma Hayes

Published by Wilma Hayes at Smashwords

Copyright 2019

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ISBN 978-0-9957870-9-4

All Kinds of Seven

Whoever thought that writing forty-nine short stories was a good idea needs to lie down in a dark room for a short while until it passes. That would be me, and I didn’t.

Seven is a lovely number and when I began these it seemed like an achievable task. The first little novella was quite good fun. I think you can see how it progressed from there and soon seven little novellas with seven chapters or stories each became the goal. It was a long slog.

The stories or chapters are all of similar length and I thought that they would make nice stories for a commute taking 10 to 15 minutes each, so 2 in a 20 or 30 minute commute and so on. Or a short or longer tea break if you prefer! Naturally everyone reads at different rates, so these times are my best guess.

Some of the stories in each set are like chapters in a book, in that one logically follows the other; some are quite individual tales but with commonality. None of them follow the Seven theme too strictly, but stories are like that; they wander off piste from time to time.

Naturally, I like some stories better than others and I am sure you will too. But I hope that they will help your commute to work or give you a few minutes for a cuppa.

See www.wilmahayes.co.uk for more information about me or other books.

Wilma Hayes

SEVEN DWARFS

These stories are named for the Seven Dwarfs in Snow White, but that’s about all I’ve used.

Humour is so fiendishly difficult for me to write; I don't understand timing, sarcasm, or one-liners. Maybe it means that I have no sense of humour. But here I am faced with Seven Dwarfs. Surely humour has to come into it. One of them is named Happy for heaven's sake. On reflection, Dopey should also be easy.

So, I’ve created a Board of Incompetent Directors of a small, reasonably successful company facing a crisis. Needless to say, they aren't entirely up to it and as we shall see, the company is really a house of cards.

Doc is the Chairman of the Board and founder. He has this great idea...everyone will love it. Really?

Happy, the Financial Director bumbles along keeping everyone on his side with jokes and cupcakes, but has a few things that need to be kept quiet.

Sleepy, the Health and Safety Director meets the worst crisis of his career and he has to keep it quiet because he should have known better.

Dopey is the Marketing and Sales Director. Everyone keeps their distance from him or they open a window. Like his good friend, the Chairman, Carl is not an active Director. He has an office with staff who actually do the work. All the rest of the Directors are more like managers in that they are very hands on.

Sneezy, is the asthmatic Human Resources Director. All of a sudden, kindness in the past is holding her to ransom.

Grumpy, the Operations and Production Manager is facing a massive hole in his personal finances that he is trying to fill. Does it change his loyalty?

Bashful, the Clerk and Legal Secretary wants the simple quiet life. Naturally it won't happen.

So, failing to make them funny, I thought it best to watch as they face their individual crises and see how deeply they dig themselves into more trouble. Dopey, Grumpy, Happy were reasonably straightforward, Doc and Sneezy but were a bit more of a challenge. Sleepy was the one who kept getting deeper and deeper into difficulty and that is very satisfying as a writer.

In the end, it was Bashful that was the most fun to write. Maybe I have a sense of humour after all.

Table of Contents

Doc

Happy

Sleepy

Dopey

Sneezy

Grumpy

Bashful

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Doc

Dr Eric Bradford, Founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board

Doc or doctor, n. a person who is a practitioner of medicine or who has a doctorate degree. Archaic. Any learned person, teacher or person who repairs things and situations.

THE MEETING OF THE BOARD

They will love this! If we all play our cards right. We will be rich! Beyond even my most outrageous dreams!

Board Room door still catches on the carpet. Why hasn’t someone fixed the damn thing? Years it’s been like that. Donald and Sarah in unusual tete-a-tete by the coffee table. My mistake, just pouring coffee. Does he look worried? Flushed? He needs to take better care of himself. Has his usual box of cupcakes and is putting them on a plate.

Sarah never gets out of the office. No holiday tan there. Needs to take a leaf out of my book. Get away more often. Small conversation abruptly ends.

Others arrive. Now we are seven. Good people all. Keep things running well. Can't complain. This is such a gift I have for them. A reward - a reward for all these years of being there, of problem solving, of surviving and developing. The Company has been lucky to have them. Now an Extra-ordinary Board Meeting and my chance to tell them so. They’ve no idea.

No doubt they were speculating ever since they received the meeting notice. Worrying? Well, they don't need to. They'll soon see that. In half an hour they will all be overwhelmed, over awed and very, very excited. Can't wait.

I knock my coffee cup with my expensive pen. Gold. A gift from ... well, it will all become clear. There is a sudden silence. Usually it takes them a few minutes to gather their papers and get seated. This time, they are ahead of me. Donald puts the plate in front of him. Then, all are leaning on the table, looking at me. Eyes wide. Clara, our Clerk sitting beside me looks worried, but that's to be expected. She always worries about things until she is gets the facts. The others look puzzled, apprehensive. A few of them are frowning as if expecting a fight. No one smiles. I’m not sure that anyone even blinks. For a second I’m amazed that I have that much power over other people. Am not sure if I feel good about that, but at this moment, the feeling of control is something like joy. I pause just to savour the moment. Carl – the odd man who I started this business with. Sometimes I think I could do without him, but we go back a long way. Grant, always looks a little unfinished; dresses well, his wife sees to that, but it doesn’t work. Francis, tall man but well turned out. Donald, overweight and always busy – humorous – forever the joker. Sarah, wearing a suit today – that’s unusual. Does she need to power dress or is that an old-fashioned idea. All good people. I owe them a great deal. Clara turns a page. And Clara.

‘Hello everyone,’ I say. ‘Thanks for coming.’ (They had little choice of course, but.... Extra-ordinary board meetings are a rare thing. I don't think I've ever called