Orna Mulcahy on people we all know.
Carol takes her holidays every year at the same time as the chief executive so, as far as he knows, she is never away from her desk. It's just one of the ploys she has used in her short but meteoric career to date. Naturally, her five-year plan is to take over his job, but, in the meantime, she has the carpet worn out to his door. Never a problem, never a demand, just reminding him how fabulous she is. Yesterday, for instance, she made a tremendous breakthrough in the design department - he knows how tricky that lot can be - but now that she's sorted out various issues, he won't have any trouble from them again.
Secretly, the CE is terrified of her, though she is quite an asset at meetings - who needs minutes with her steel-trap memory of who said what, when? There's a briskness about Carol that is quite scary. She dashes across the open-plan office at high speed, usually with a concerned look on her face that says: "Don't even think of stopping me for a chat. I'm far too busy and important." Then she always looks so ... right. No one has ever, ever seen Carol in anything other than a smart little suit, accessorised with a folder clutched to her chest. "I bet there's nothing in that bloody folder anyway," a bitter colleague - one who used to work with Carol in Sales but now finds himself way behind - might say.
Carol has no time for that kind of sarky banter. She has done a course in neuro-linguistic programming so she knows just the right tone to adopt with her team - a low, modulated one with no hint of arrogance, nastiness or neediness. "May I suggest something here?" she will say to Laura, who gets into a terrible twist over her flow charts. Or: "could we maybe try it this way?" Before Laura knows it, the problem is being solved and Carol has had a good look at her confidential files. Not that she interested in personal stuff. Gossip, like lunch and hauling bags of groceries back to the office, is for losers.
Carol's most important tool is her diary, a leather-bound monster that allows her to show off long tapering fingers (she went to stage seven in piano) as she riffles through the pages seeing when she might possibly be available. She doesn't like to be too available, and will often suggest a 20-minute slot 10 days hence.
Some very crass people have suggested that Carol would step over her dead granny to make a good contact, and it's an education to watch her work a room at conferences. Tossing her perfect curtain of hair from side to side, she will move from group to group, instantly identifying the person with the most clout and rewarding them with her undivided attention. As she's quite tiny, this involves a lot of looking up at them with huge eyes, furious nods of agreement, and forward leaning to catch their every word. This is how she met her husband-to-be Dermot, CE of a bigger and better company, who has to sort things out with his current wife before they can go forth and network beautifully together.