Solar Hallway Confrontation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘I just don’t see it, Diane,’ I sighed, walking back to my office. I’d been forced to sit through an intra-company seminar on sustainability in the workplace, and the number of crazy, whack-a-doodle ideas that my best and brightest had cobbled together was truly surprising. I didn’t even know I had that many eco-hippies on my payroll.

         ‘Sir?’ Diane frowned, walking slightly behind me with her tablet and diary. ‘I thought you liked those presentations, sir?’

         ‘Liked them?’ I scoffed. ‘Which one, the ridiculous carbon-offsetting scam or the guy who thought he could run the mill off a small potato farm. Please, I did that just to keep the board of my back, but it’s obviously all bull—’

         ‘Sir,’ Diane cut me off forcefully, stamping to a halt and letting me carry on a couple of steps ahead of her. I looked back at her, mouth set into a determined line and a puzzled frown sprung onto my face.

         ‘Something to say?’ I prodded her gently, lifting an eyebrow.

         ‘I just…’ she said, eyes flicking for the words. ‘There were real policies in there. Things that are important, that you should have been listening to.’

         ‘Oh?’ I chuckled. ‘Is that so, Diane? Like what, pray tell?’

         ‘Well,’ she shifted uncomfortably, then remembered her tablet. She tapped it awake and flicked to a page where she’d clearly made notes. ‘Solar power,’ she eventually stated.

         ‘Oh, please,’ I rolled my eyes. ‘That technology is decades away from being—’

         ‘What are the benefits of solar power for a large business?’ she asked me, abruptly.

         ‘What?’

         ‘The benefits,’ she repeated. ‘Do you even understand how much you could be saving on electricity? How much you could be helping?’

         ‘Please,’ I scoffed. ‘The costs alone—’

         ‘The costs?’ she said. ‘Seriously?’

         ‘Seriously!’ I growled, getting annoyed now.

         ‘How much then?’

         ‘What?’

         ‘How much do commercial solar panels cost? Near Melbourne, let’s say, to be fair.’

         ‘I-I,’ my face started to redden slightly. ‘Too much! That’s how much!’

         She turned the tablet around and showed me a number that she’d written out. Grumbling, I scanned it…. and reluctantly handed it back.