You say, "Berger's failure to notify Chairman Barfield is inexcusable, whether it is required or not." but then you proceed to try to excuse his absence by saying there wasn't anything urgent on the agenda. That doesn't matter! He works for me as well as you. Anyone working for me needs to call me if they can't show up for work. Period.

I agree that Chairman Barfield could have rescheduled IF Berger let him know he wasn't going to be there, but that is a moot point as Berger decided to just "skip" the meeting for whatever reason.