#basically i went from an emails job to a spreadsheets job

[ot3]

i understand if it's too personal and you don't have to answer, but im so curious about your area of work. how were you able to get a job (assumedly) about setting up dates, what's it called? what kinda degree can you get to start working at that kind of stuff?

i am a nepotism hire a childhood friend of mine has been working at this company for a little bit and referred me to the job when they had an opening. so the answer to what kind of degree to get is i guess 'dont get one, start attending your local unitarian church.' i have an associates in studio art and then 180 credits of various animation and polisci classes that do not make up an entire bachelors degree between them. so zero marketable skills other than being on the computer, which is great for this specific job.

anyway i am just a customer support person and up until a couple months ago I did all of the stuff you would normally think of in terms of a customer service job for a website. i answered emails. i deleted peoples accounts. i answered the phone. that kind of horse shit. but then they decided to pretty much restructure the entire way the company actually functions internally in order to cut back on staff and now i spend 8 straight hours a day booking reservations and shit. the volume has been kind of insane because they gave our team a shitload of new work without letting us hire anyone else. its kind of amazing to see just how hard it is for some people to answer the question 'what time are you available for dinner'.

[nathanielbuildsatesseract]

This is the sort of post that'll probably get me in trouble and I shouldn't trust y'all to behave with it, but I'm in a dismal state and willing to take high-risk moves in an attempt to improve things. Nobody uses Tumblr on Friday nights anymore so it's not like many of you will even see this.

Recently I realized that my experience of being long-term single feels a lot like my experience of being unemployed. I met all the basic qualifications for all sorts of positions but couldn't get an interview. As far as I could tell, I was qualified, just a little light on experience. I was applying to jobs literally every day for months and maybe every couple of weeks would get some sort of indication that my resume had been advanced before ultimately getting the rejection email. After graduation, I was unemployed for a full year and got four (4) interviews in that time, one of which was a follow-up interview for a job I didn't get. Finally I threw in the towel and went to grad school. Two years later, I got plenty of interviews and multiple offers. When the job I took didn't work out, I got an offer for an even better position in just a few weeks. It's hard to express the difference between those three job search experiences. I never even finished the degree!

My attempts at romance feel very similar to when I couldn't get an interview after undergrad. I might not be an amazing catch, but I think I'm more than qualified for a serious boyfriend role. And yet, even when I'm active on Bumble every day for weeks at a time, I'm doing well if I match with someone every couple of weeks. Usually they send their mandatory first message, I respond as appropriate and ask a question in return, and I don't get any sort of response. I assume they're getting plenty of matches with men more attractive and neurotypical than me, just as I assume engineering firms were flooded with resumes from students at better schools with higher GPAs. Believe it or not, that doesn't make me feel any better about getting zero traction for months on end.

Just as when I was trying to get a job, it ultimately feels like getting into a relationship is a matter fundamentally outside of my control, that I have no ability to influence. All I can do is wait and hope that something turns up despite mounting evidence that it never will. Getting to a first date feels like a Herculean task when even the women who explicitly said they were interested choose instead to ignore my attempts at conversation. Actually being in a relationship is starting to feel like pure fantasy.

Perhaps I'm looking for love in the wrong places; neither of the firms where I've worked full-time were places where I applied when I was unemployed after undergrad. Of course, trying to figure out where women who want to date a nerd like me might be is not exactly easy, just like trying to find new firms that have relevant openings isn't easy when you have a niche resume and interests. (Tumblr worked once and never again since for reasons that are basically inscrutable to me.) Ultimately, the way I found those positions was just being systematic in checking the careers webpage for every aerospace firm I heard about and putting openings in a giant spreadsheet. I'd apply to at least one position a day, and started getting interviews that eventually led to an offer.

But I think what actually made the difference was going to grad school. For the life of me, I can't figure out what the dating equivalent of an MS would be. The only thing approaching a real suggestion that I've heard is Vibe Camp. Beyond the logistical nightmares I hear about every year, I'm very skeptical that something like that would meaningfully increase my odds of getting a girlfriend. I've been to special interest conventions (with better ratios) before and there doesn't seem to be any romantic value—immediate or long-term—to the experience. So as far as I can tell, I'm just stuck until I luck into meeting my wife randomly.

[standupcomedyhistorian]

Hey, everyone!

I know this doesn't have anything to do with comedy, but I just wanted to bring awareness to some weird phishing thing that happened to me today.

So I have been looking for a new job as a proofreader, and I applied for a few remote positions on Indeed and LinkedIn.

Anyway, I got a totally sketchy text this morning from Chegg Inc. saying I'd be perfect for their Remote Proofreader/Editor position. I quickly looked up the company name, found it was a legitimate textbook business, and thought "why not try for it?"

So I got on Skype and went thru the WEIRDEST "interview" I have ever been on.

Now, I know that some companies are using texting in early-stage interviews (you know, that point where they are just checking that you are a human lol), so I figured this made some sense. But everything about this felt off. The dude's profile picture was just a bunch of guys partying (not very professional), and the texts sent to me felt like a bot was chatting with me—real uncanny valley.

So I answered 12 questions that seemed like standard interview ones (what do you do if you make a mistake? Why did you get into proofreading?), but question nine had "Poofrading" instead of "Proofreading" (I pointed out this error in my reply).

Once that was done, the scambot said I seem like a perfect fit and then asked for some basic info so they could send me equipment (expensive stuff like a MacBook Pro that I couldn't afford). I gave them my name, address, phone and email (all basic stuff that's publicly available). They also asked for my bank's name, so I told them that (no question about an account number or SSN since that would be too suspicious, I guess).

After that, the bot said to be back at 8am tomorrow for the orientation.

It then said do you have any questions. I was like, yes...is this a contract or permanent position? And what health insurance do you have?

So the bot said it's a part-time and full-time job that is permanent or you can quit when you want (REALLY confusing answer there). It never answered my question about health insurance, which seems like a pretty simple query.

Anyway, after that WEIRD exchange on Skype, I messaged my sister and was like I need to talk to you NOW. I think I'm being scammed.

While waiting for her to reply (she's on the West coast and I'm near Philly), I quickly looked up this company in my spreadsheet of jobs to see if I'd applied to it and forgotten (nope!) and then searched on Chegg's website to see if such a job had been posted (nuh-uh).

So anyway, that's my story with fake recruiters. It seems that phishing has come a LONG way since Nigerian princes...I'm just glad I caught on before I got too invested or spent money I didn't have.

Has anyone else been through this sort of experience? I'd love to know I'm not the only naive knucklehead out there haha ✌🏼🐔

[nim-lock]

Art Career Tips, 2021 Edition

Here’s an edited version of my 2019 answered ask, because... this feels relevant. 

It is a problem of capitalism that folks equate their income as a judgement of their value as people; and let me preface. You are worth so much. You have inherent value in this world. Your income is not a judgement on who you are (plenty of billionaires are actively making the world worse). LARPing self-confidence will go a long way to helping you get paid more for your work, because clients will believe that you know what you are doing, and are a professional. 

& real quick—my own background is that I’ve been living off my art since 2018. I went to art school (Pratt Institute). I work in a publishing/educational materials sphere, and a quarter of my income is my shop. Not all of this information may apply to you, so it is up to you to look through everything with a critical eye, and spot pick what is relevant. 

So there are multiple ways of getting income as an artist; 

Working freelance or full-time on projects

Selling your stuff on a shop

Licensing (charging other companies to use your designs)

This post primarily covers the freelance part; if you’re interested in the other bits there is absolutely info out there on the internet. 

IF you are just starting (skip to next section if not applicable) dream big, draw often (practice helps you get better/more efficient), do your best to take "a bad piece” lightly. You’re gonna RNG this shit. At some point your rate of “good” works will get higher. Watch tutorial videos & read books. A base understanding of “the rules”; anatomy, perspective, composition, color helps you know what the rules are to break them. This adds sophistication to your work. One way you can learn this stuff is by doing “studies”—you’re picking apart things from life, or things other people have done, to see what works, and how it works. 

Trying to turn your interests into a viable career means that you are now a SMALL BUSINESS; it really helps to learn some basic marketing, graphic design, figure out how to write polite customer service emails; etc. You can learn some of this by looking it up, or taking skillshare (not sponsored) classes by qualified folks. Eventually some people may get agents to take care of this for them—however, I do recommend y’all get a basic understanding of what it takes to do it on your own, just so you can know if your agent is doing a good job. 

Making sure your portfolio fits the work you want to get

Here is a beginner portfolio post. 

Research the field you’d like to get into. The amount people work, the time commitment, the process of making the thing, the companies & people who work for them. 

Create work that could fit in to the industry you’re breaking into. For example, if you want to do book cover illustration, you draw a bunch of mockup book covers, that can either be stuff you make up, or redesigns of existing books. If you’re not 100% sure what sort of work is needed for the industry, loop back into the portfolios of artists in a similar line of work as whatever you’re interested in, and analyze the things they have in common. If something looks to be a common project (like a sequence of action images for storyboard artists), then it’s probably something useful for the job. 

CLIENTS HIRE BASED ON HOW WELL THEY THINK YOUR WORK FITS WHAT THEY WANT. If they’re hiring for picture books, they’re gonna want to see picture book art in your portfolio, otherwise they may not want to risk hiring you. Doesn’t have to be 100% the project, but stuff similar enough. If you aren’t hired, it doesn’t mean your work is bad, it just wasn’t the right fit for that specific client. 

If you have many interests, make a different section of your portfolio for each!

Making sure you’re relevant 

Have a social media that’s a little more public-facing, and follow people in the career field you’re interested in. Fellow artists, art directors, editors, social media managers; whoever. Post on your own schedule. 

Interact with their posts every so often, in a non-creepy way. 

If you’ve made any contacts, great! Email these artists, art directors, editors, former professors, etc occasional updates on your work to stay in touch AND make sure that they think about you every so often.

Show up to general art events every once in a while! If you keep showing up to ones in your area (when... not dying from a sneeze is a thing), folks will eventually start to remember you. 

Industry events & conferences can be pricey, so attend/save up for what makes sense for you. Industry meetups are important for networking in person! In addition to meeting people with hiring power, you also connect with your peers in the community. Always bring a portfolio & hand out business cards like candy. 

Active job hunting

Apply to job postings online.

If interested in working with specific people at specific companies, you could send an email “I’d love to work with you, here’s my portfolio/relevant experience”, even if they aren’t actively looking for new hires. Be concise, and include a link to your work AND attached images so the person reading the email can get a quick preview before clicking for more. 

Twitter job postings can be pretty underpaid! Get a copy of the Graphic Artists’ Guild Handbook Pricing & Ethical Guidelines to know your rate. I once had a twitter post job listing email me back saying that other illustrators were charging less, and I quote, “primarily because they’re less experienced and looking for their first commission”. This was not okay! For reference, this was a 64-illustration book. The industry rate of a children’s book (~36 pages) is $10k+, and this company’s budget was apparently $1k. For all of it. 

Congrats you got a job! Now what?

Ask for like, 10% more than they initially offer and see if they say yes. If they do, great! If not, and the price is still OK, great! Often company budgets are slightly higher than they first tell you, and if you get this extra secret money, all the better for you. 

Make sure you sign a contract and the terms aren’t terrible (re: GO GET THE  Graphic Artists’ Guild Handbook Pricing & Ethical Guidelines) 

Be pleasant and easy to work with (Think ‘do no harm but take no shit’)

Communicate with them as much as needed! If something’s going to be late, tell them as soon as you know so they aren’t left wondering or worse, reaching out to ask what’s up. 

And if all goes well, they’ll contact you about more jobs down the line, or refer you to other folks who may need an artist, etc. 

Quick note about online shops/licensing and why they’re so good

It’s work that you do once, that you continuously make money off of. Different products do well in different situations (conventions vs. online, and then further, based on how you market/the specific groups you are marketing to), so products that may not do well initially may get a surge later on. 

Start with things that have low minimum order quantity and are relatively cheap to produce, like prints and stickers. 

If you are not breaking even, go back to some of the earlier portions of this and think about how you could tweak things as a small business. Ease of access is also very important with this; for example, if you only take orders through direct messages, that immediately shuts off all customers who don’t like talking to strangers. 

Quick resource that you could look through; it’s the spreadsheet of project organizing that I made a while back 

Licensing is when people pay you for the right to use your work on stuff they need to make, like textbooks or greeting cards. This is generally work you’ve already made that they are paying the right to use for a specified time or limited run of products. This is great because you’ve already done the work. I am not the expert on this. Go find someone else’s info.

“I am not physically capable of working much”/ “I need to pay the bills”

Guess who got a hand injury Sept 2020 that messed me up that entire month! I had a couple jobs going at the time that I was terrified of losing, but they were quite understanding when I told them I needed to heal. So:  Express your needs as early as you know you need them. Also do lots of stretches and rest your hands whenever you feel anything off; this will save your health later. Like, the potential of a couple months of no income was preferable over losing use of my hands for the rest of my life.

This continues to apply if you have any other life situation. Ask for extra time. Ask for clarification. If you tell people ahead of time, folks are often quite understanding. Know how much you are capable of working and do your best not to overdo it. (I am.. bad at this)

Do what MAKES SENSE for your situation. If doing art currently earns you less money than organizing spreadsheets, then do that for now, and whenever you have the energy, break down some of the tips above into actionable tiny chunks, and slowly work at em. 

The original ask I got in 2019 mentioned ‘knowing you’re not good enough yet’. Most artists experience imposter syndrome & self-doubt—the important thing is to do your best, and if anything, attempt to channel the confidence of a mediocre white man. If he can apply to this job/charge hella money for Not Much, then so can you! 

Check out this Art Director tumblr for more advice!

Danichuatico’s Literary Agent guide

Kikidoodle’s Shop Shipping Tutorial

Best of luck!

–

Once again disclaimer this post is just the ramblings of a man procrastinating on other things that need to be done. I’ve Long Posted my own post so that it turns into mush in my brain if I try to read it, but I wrote this so I should know this content. If you got down here, congrats. Here’s a shrimp drawing.

Yee Ha. 

My reference post tag My tip jar

[mosylufanfic]

Her Boy Friday

Yet another @dailyau prompt. I have a lot of these saved, okay!!!

Her Boy Friday

"You're late," Caitlin Snow called out as she heard the door to the outer office open.

"I'm exactly on time," her assistant replied. "Eight am on the dot." His computer beeped as he started it up.

She narrowed her eyes at her computer clock and returned to her spreadsheet. "You should be here before me. You're my assistant."

"You basically live here. You expect me to get here at five?"

"If I'm here at five-thirty, yes."

Cisco Ramon appeared in the doorway, sipping a latte. “No," he said. "My schedule is eight am to five pm. You get me from eight to five, minus time off for lunch. Before and after that is the time I live my life. You know what I mean by a life? The thing most people have between birth and death?"

"You're my assistant," she said. "I need you here when I'm here. I can't work without an assistant."

 "Hmm," he said thoughtfully. "That is a good point."

"Yes," she said. "It is."

He shrugged. "So I guess you can't start work until eight-thirty, then."

"Cisco!"

"Yeah?"

She sighed. "Make me a coffee."

Instead of springing into action, he raised a brow. "How many cups have you had already?"

"One," she lied.

"Then what are these?" He held out three empty coffee pods.

She blinked.

“Aha! J’accuse!”

She glared at him. "Clearly those are from yesterday."

"How dare you impugn the good name of our cleaning staff," he said. "Anyway, they're still wet. Liar, liar, pants on fire." He disappeared from the doorway, and his voice floated back. "No more coffee for you. You get tea."

She gritted her teeth. "Can it at least be caffeinated?" she shouted.

After a moment, he came in with a mug, a small white flag fluttering from it like her surrender. "Ginger lemon," he said. "Herbal. You need the vitamin C and the ginger will help settle your stomach. If you ask nicely, you can have honey."

Because her stomach was twisting and twinging, she scowled at it. "You know, being my nanny isn't in your job description."

"Yeah, well, neither is finding you one morning, passed out facedown on the floor, but here we both are."

She scowled harder and reached out for the mug. It burned her tongue and tasted like hot water, and she said so.

"You have to let it steep," he said. "Cultivate patience. Tea requires patience." He looked thoughtful. "I wonder if we know anyone who can come in and teach you a Japanese tea ceremony."

"No," she said. "And you're making too much fuss over one little ulcer. Lots of people have ulcers."

"Sure, all the cool kids in C-Suite have 'em. You're such an overachiever, I'm trying to keep you from getting another one."

"They're really not caused by stress. That's a myth. It's a simple bacterial infection."

"A bacterial infection that ate into your stomach wall and put you in the hospital for nearly a week. And stress may not be the cause, but it sure didn't help."

"Which one of us went to medical school?"

"You, which is why it's shocking how badly you take care of yourself."

"Don't tell me you were concerned."

"Sure I was. The benefits package in this job is amazing. You want honey or what?"

"Fine," she grumbled.

"Uh, no, try again."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Please?"

"See, now how hard was that?" He handed her a packet of honey. "You know, most people in your position would just be coasting on your family name being on the building."

"It's my mother's name, not mine." And that was why she worked as hard as she did, proving that she deserved to be where she was.

"So? I'm just saying, you could probably cut yourself a little bit of slack." He pinched thumb and forefinger together. “Like. This much.”

She shook her head. "Get to work." She went back to the email she'd been composing.

Her email program blinked as he logged into her inbox from his desk. The giant list of unread emails began to shrink as he sorted through them, putting some in folders for certain projects, forwarding some to himself to answer, flagging one or two for her to look at ASAP, and outright deleting the rest. 

She hid send on the email, rubbed her eyes for a moment, then shook out her shoulders and opened up a spreadsheet.  For about an hour, she lost herself in numbers, absently drinking the tea, which had cooled and steeped. She also ate the instant oatmeal Cisco set down next to it without noticing what she did, although she did notice that her stomach felt better. 

When she finally took a break to glance at her email, she noticed a meeting request pop up and then just as swiftly disappear. "Cisco?" she called into the next room.

"Yeah-huh."

"Who was that meeting from?"

"Julian Albert. I told him to fuck off into the sun."

"Cisco!"

"Kidding. I told him tomorrow was the best you could do."

 She checked her calendar. "I have a free hour at one."

"No, you don't, you're booked." 

"Who am I meeting with?"

"Nobody. You're gonna find someplace with food you like, and you're going to eat it." The words LEAVE THE GODDAMN BUILDING AND GET SOME FUCKING LUNCH appeared in the open spot.

"I'm too busy for all that."

He appeared in the door, arms crossed. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that how you ended up in the hospital, because you were skipping lunch and eating antacids for dinner?"

She scowled. "Please change it to something work appropriate. My calendar is public."

He made a face at her, but went back to his desk. A moment later, the appointment disappeared, replaced with LUNCH OFFSITE. "You have a meeting upstairs in ten," he said.

"I know." She slid her feet into her shoes and picked up the folder he'd left on the corner of her desk. She paused on her way through the outer office. "Listen, could you pull the raw numbers for the Zoom product launch?"

"Can do. Anything you want in particular?"

"Not sure." She fiddled with her necklace. "I just have a bad feeling about the preliminary report Jay sent around."

"You have a bad feeling because Jay is a weasel who would sell his own mother for a knockoff Rolex. Want me to look at them, too? Just to see if anything jumps out and bites me?"

"If you have the time."

"I'll make the time. It'll be on your desk when you get back."

"Thanks." She set off, thinking hopefully of getting some coffee in her mother's office.

"Oh, and I've already texted your mom's assistant that you're not allowed to have coffee. Before you get any bright ideas."

She glared. "I should fire you."

He glanced up with a quick grin. "Yeah, probably. But you won't."

FINIS

[troglobite]

the irony of being the only person in the group with fewer than 10 hrs/week on the schedule, and yet the only person to have put in the most work on our project together

like i’m the one who went through all 31 (33, technically) appts, collected and organized all of the information, and then started combing through the written responses to group everything by theme

and then my supervisor put the wrong versions of all of those documents into a shared google drive for us but i wasn’t on the schedule to fix anything until today

so then i finally did that (but i can’t fix the spreadsheet unless i do it manually which like no fuck that) and then i also finished combing through the first set of written responses and grouping by major theme

and then i wrote a rough draft of the results section of the “paper” we’re writing together

meanwhile they’ve all had time on the schedule to contribute to the paper and update the versions of the docs in the drive

but no one has

one group member starting working on the methods section (which i literally told my supervisor i would do, but he hasn’t responded to my emails or answered my questions--he’s not avoiding me, he’s just disorganized rn) and it’s just like ??? copied and pasted stuff from the forms we had tutors fill out for their appts, and like two sentences she wrote.

and i’m just like

//stares

i have the fewest hours on the schedule, and i’m the one who’s done basically everything for the final stages of this project. like okay. lol

i’m not even the one worried about getting this published! that’s the one who barely started working on the methods section. and then she’s not on the schedule at all this week so i should probably just take that section over for her i think? idk what’s going on there.

anyway i’m just saying it’s ironic.

oh i forgot the other ironic thing is

i’m the only one who won’t be able to continue working on this over the summer

and also i will be out of a job here by the end of the month

not that my boss has told me any of these things. lol i’m just supposed to mosey along like nothing’s wrong, assuming that i can keep working through september, and then suddenly find out that i can’t even finish out this month. lol i hate my boss and i hope she rots in hell.

anyway so i’m doing all this work on this project bc i’m bored and invested and getting paid anyway but i won’t get to help do anything with this information at all. lol 

[myveryownfanfiction]

“Dunder Mifflin, this is Erin.” The normal drone of the office played in the background and I fixed the spreadsheet that Dwight had sent over. 

“Honestly Dwight. How did you mess up my client list so bad?” I looked over the top of my computer to see the man in question shrug. “Everyone is thrown all over the place.” My gaze fell back on the sheet. “For crying out loud!” I gently kicked Dwight’s desk while he looked at me with an innocent expression. 

“What’s wrong now (Y/N)?” his voice gave away that he knew exactly what was wrong. 

“I think you know exactly what is wrong Schrute.” I narrowed my eyes at him. Dwight just shrugged his shoulders and clearly bit back a laugh. “Why did you have to….” We were cut off by my phone ringing. “Hold up.”

“Hello! This is (Y/N). How can I help you with all your paper needs today?” I put on a fake voice while I narrowed my eyes at Dwight again as he got up and leaned over my desk. He swatted my hand as I tried to stop him from accessing my computer. 

“I’m emailing it to myself so I can fix it.” Dwight whispered as he did what he said. “It was a prank. Jim thought it up.” I shooed him away as the voice on the other end of the phone finally responded. 

“(Y/N)! It’s Jo.” The CEO of Sabre rarely called Scranton but if she did, it was important. 

“Oh! Hi Jo! Good to hear from you!” I dropped the customer service voice I was using. “What can I help you with?” Dwight and Jim gave me a look. I responded with a confused look of my own. 

“I just wanted to let you know that the new manager is coming in today. He’s going to need an assistant regional manager. After going over the possible candidates, I thought you would be perfect.” Jo explained. 

“Thank you very much.” I said, my eyes widening at the news. “What do I need to do?” 

“Basically what I want you to do for Robert California is what Dwight did for Michael.” Jo said. I chuckled and opened my mouth to respond but she cut me to it. “But better. Without all the problems and issues that occurred while Michael was there.” I nodded even though she couldn’t see me. 

“Sounds good.” I noticed the pair of pranksters watching me so I asked for their benefit. “So it sounds like you went with Robert California after all.” Jim’s eyes went wide and Dwight looked between the two of us. 

“Yeah. After all those other so called candidates he was the best candidate. Albeit a little overqualified.” Jo clarified. I nodded and watched as Jim let his head fall on his desk. 

“When should he be here and is there anything I should do before he gets here?” I was rapidly scribbling on a notepad trying to get a bunch of questions for Dwight down before Jo told me it was a lost cause. We jumped as the door opened with a bang. “Nevermind Jo. He’s here. I’ll keep you updated. Bye.” I slowly hung up the phone before moving to stand up. “Mr. California! Welcome….” My hand hung in the air where I had held it out for him to shake. Robert California had turned around and walked out of the office after taking one look around the room. I ran to the conference room where I saw his car peeling out of the lot. I turned around and looked into the camera that had followed me and shook my head. I couldn’t form any words as I rushed back to my desk and dialed Jo’s number. “Jo?” I breathed when the phone was picked up. 

“What’s wrong dear?” From her tone, I could tell that either she was concerned by the way I sounded or someone had already called to let her know that Robert California had left as soon as he arrived. “(Y/N)?” I snapped out of my thoughts as her voice carried through again. 

“He left.” I choked out. “Robert California left. He walked in, saw Phyllis cough, and walked out. He just drove off. He left.” I was close to hyperventilating and I could see Pam trying to get the cameras away from me as I leaned over my desk, trying to catch my breath and keep my cool as I waited for Jo to respond. “Jo I don’t know what to do. He’s gone. I don’t know if he quit or is coming back or what. But he’s gone Jo.” 

“(Y/N). Sweetheart. You need to calm down.” Jo’s calming voice came over the phone. “Where are you? In the office?”

“Yeah. My desk.” I breathed out. Dwight was already unlocking the door to Michael’s office. Somehow I knew that is always what it would be to me, no matter who occupied that space. 

“Go to Michael’s old office. Lock the door. Call me back. You don’t need the whole office watching you right now.” Jo hung up and I quickly made my way through the door that Dwight was holding open. I nodded in thanks and quickly sat down to call her back. The call didn’t last that long and by the end of it, I had ushered Jim and Dwight into the office with me. 

“It looks like one of us will have to take over until Jo can get out here and pick the new manager.” I said. “Well, not you Dwight. Sorry.” Jim shook his head as soon as I started talking. 

“You’ll have to do it. I won’t. And Dwight can’t.” Jim held his hands up in defeat while Dwight nodded in agreement. “Don’t worry (Y/N). You can do this.” Jim put his hand on my shoulder. I watched in shock as they filed out of the office. Taking a deep breath, I stood up and walked into the main room. 

“Can I have everyone’s attention?” I called out timidly. Everyone turned towards me and Pam gave me a thumbs up. “Since Robert California left and Jo needs time to get up here to figure out the new manager, she appointed me acting manager. Jim is the assistant manager.” I shot him a look that clearly said I was getting back at him. “Jo should be here by next week so you won’t have to put up with me for too long.” 

“Does she have anyone in the running?” Andy spoke up. I turned towards him and shook my head. 

“If she does, she didn’t tell me.” I told him. I turned back into Michael’s office, just catching Erin’s thumb’s up to Andy. I smiled as I sat at the desk and started to catch up on the work that was piling up without a manager. It was going on the third day when Jo called back. “Hi Jo! What’s up?” 

“(Y/N), have Andy move into Michael’s office. He’s going to be taking over as manager.” Jo said. I could tell by her tone that there was more she wasn’t telling me. 

“What is it Jo? There’s something you aren’t telling me.” I worried my bottom lip as I motioned for Dwight to get Andy. 

“You know me too well darling.” Jo sighed. I held up a finger for Andy and furrowed my eyebrows. “It’s going to come out sooner or later so you might as well hear it from me.” 

“Jo what happened?” I was becoming worried at this point. 

“Robert California is now the CEO of Sabre.” Jo finally told me. My jaw dropped. 

“He’s what?!” I exclaimed. “How did he convince YOU to give him your job?!” 

“He’s very persuasive.” Jo muttered. 

“How persuasive does someone have to be to give them your own job?” I was frantically trying to get the attention of Jim, Pam, and Dwight. Andy finally took pity on me and waved them in. 

“Honey, I think you know.” Jo said nonchalantly. I ran my hand down my face while nodding. 

“Yeah. I think I do know.” I muttered. I decided I was going to keep that little piece of information to myself. “So what happens now?” 

“Andy takes over. Everything will run as usual.” Jo calmly explained. “Robert California will be there either later today or tomorrow. I’m not really sure when. He will become your go-between with the board. Anything you would normally go to me for, go to him.” I sighed and acknowledged the decision. “Don’t worry sweetie. I will be there if you ever need me. You have my number. Everything will work out.” 

“I hope so Jo.” I shook my head. “I really hope so.” 

“Good luck. Give the office my love.” Jo hung up and I let my head fall onto the desk. Finally composing myself, I stood up and offered the seat to Andy. 

“You’re manager now Andy.” I applauded him as he took his seat. “Remember with great power comes great responsibility. Use it carefully.” 

“So does that mean Jo made a decision?” Andy looked up at me. I bit my lip.

“Yes and no.” I tilted my head back and forth. I was trying to keep the information to myself but I knew I couldn’t. Everyone was looking at me expectedly. “Jo made a decision. But it wasn’t about the manager.” 

“Then what decision did she make?” Pam asked. I sighed and hung my head.

“She decided that Robert California is going to be the new CEO and he will be operating out of Scranton.” I finally told them. “Jo thinks he should be here either today or tomorrow. And I’m guessing I’m still the assistant manager.” We stood in the office for a little while longer before we all went out to do our own work. True to Jo’s word, Robert California showed up about an hour before the day ended. 

“Andy. (Y/N). Would you please join me in the conference room?” Andy and I shared a look as we sat down at the conference table. Robert took a seat across from me while Andy sat next to me. “Since this is a new experience for everyone, I thought it would be a good idea to get to know each other. Starting today, I will be alternating between having meetings with the two of you. I’ll start with (Y/N) and I’ll see you tomorrow morning Andy.” Robert stopped talking and waited for Andy to leave the room. It took him a while to get the hint but when he did, Andy gave me a sympathetic look before going out to join the rest of the office. 

“So what are these meetings going to be about Mr. California?” I asked. I thought that if I kept it professional, I would get in his good graces quicker. 

“Robert is fine.” He said as he stood to close the door that Andy had left open. I nodded as he took his seat again. My eyes flicked to the door before focusing on him again. “The first couple will just be getting to know each other. After that, it will most likely be about the effectiveness of the office and what can be done to improve sales, morale, and so on.” Robert pulled out a notebook, opened to a blank page and wrote my name across the top. I swallowed as I watched my name appear letter by letter. 

“Sounds good.” I choked out. Robert threw me a smile before focusing on the paper again. 

“So how long have you been working here at Dunder Mifflin?” The pen was poised above the page in an almost taunting gesture. 

“I think it’s been about,” I paused in thought. “3 years now.” Robert wrote it down before looking up at me. 

“That’s been a long time. Was this meant to be a permanent thing or just temporary?” He looked slightly amused by the thought. 

“At first I thought it would be temporary as they weren’t really looking for someone to stick around but then they saw my sales reports and figured it would be a good idea to keep me around permanently.” I explained. “Which honestly is rather amusing if you think about it. Especially considering that there were people from Stanford that were supposed to stay here but ended up leaving.” Realization slowly dawned on me. “Which might explain why they kept me around.” Robert chuckled and I smiled as he jotted that down. 

“Is this a place that you would like to continue to work?” Robert looked up at me. My mouth moved but no words were coming out. Robert sensed my shock and quickly held up a hand. “Oh! No. No. No. I’m not asking that to fire you later! I’m just curious. You said you worked here for three years. That’s a long time at one company. I’m just curious if this is something you would like to continue to do in your life or if you think there is something else out there for you.” I sighed as his words relaxed me. 

“I’m sorry.” I apologized as I shook my head. “After all the calls with Jo and having to take on the role of manager for a while before finally becoming the assistant manager, I might be a touch…” I sing-songed my head, looking for the right word. 

“Concerned?” Robert suggested. “Or would anxious be a better word?” I smiled softly at him.

“Anxious would be the perfect word thank you.” I cocked my head as Robert reached across the table to gently touch my hand. 

“You have no reason to be anxious. Especially around me (Y/N).” Robert soothed. “I have all the faith in the world that you are going to be an amazing assistant manager. Especially since I am very certain Andy is not going to be much better than your previous manager.” 

“You got to meet Michael Scott?” I questioned. Robert chuckled. 

“No. Unfortunately I didn’t.” Robert patted my hand. “As much as I would have liked to have a conversation with him, I got all my information from Jo.” I nodded and started to reach towards my pocket. 

“That actually makes sense.” I said as I pulled out my phone. “Okay. So there are actually two reasons for this.” I held up the phone. 

“First. I have videos of the various things that Michael did here. Pretty much all of them are funny. A couple are sad. And the last one is actually his engagement because no one else thought that it would be a good idea to get it other than on the documentary.” I unlocked the phone and pulled up the videos. “Second. I have his phone number. If you ever want to talk to him, I can introduce the two of you.” Robert smiled as he took my phone. 

“Oh dear.” He chuckled as he saw the thumbnail for the first video I queued up. “I take it, it is going to be very interesting.” I nodded as he motioned for me to take the seat next to him. Once seated, I pressed play on the phone. The remainder of our meeting was filled with the two of us watching videos of the office’s many shenanigans. When we exited the conference room, we were a little surprised to find everyone left. “We were in there for a while.” Robert muttered as he looked around the empty office. 

“We should have kept a better track of the time.” I chuckled. Robert nodded as he went back into the conference room to gather his few belongings. I went to my desk and gathered up my stuff. I waited for him by reception. He joined me a couple of minutes later. We headed downstairs together in a comfortable silence. 

“Do you need a ride?” Robert asked as we walked outside. I shook my head. 

“Nah. I’m good.” I pointed at the Ford that was left in the lot. Robert nodded and started to head towards his car. “Nice car.” I smirked as I followed him. He looked at me astonished. 

“You know cars?” he asked. I nodded. 

“I know older ones better.” I shrugged. Robert chuckled and shook his head. “I still know this one is a great one though.” 

“I’ll have to take you for a spin in it at some point.” We shared a smile as Robert got into his car. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow (Y/N).” He waved as he drove off. I waved back and headed to my own car. Getting in, I sat there for a couple minutes before a smile made its way onto my face. Shaking my head, I pulled out of the lot and headed home. 

“Maybe he won’t be that bad.” I said to myself. Giggling, I couldn’t deny the next thought that popped into my head. “Maybe I’ll take that chance if it arises.” When I got home, I went to bed happy and thinking of the man that had already wormed his way into my heart.

[editorialsonlife]

Well

Welp, feeling like doing an update because there's been a lot going on to be honest. its one of those weird dichotomies where every day feels like an eternity and there's so much going on and then you look back and you're like oh, ok its just my brain making it difficult and making things take forever but anyway.

LOCKDOOOOOOOWWWWWWNNNNNNN

Lockdown life was good, apart from being thrust into it so suddenly dave left a banana on his desk. Wasn't great to come back to after 5 weeks out of the office - mummified mouldy banana!! Classic. We luckily got our first jab before lockdown started so that was good, and we were reasonably well stocked up on food and were generally a lot healthier this lockdown that last. honestly, there's a level of chill and serenity in lockdown that i just love. the ability to set my own schedule and only work the hours I actually work to get the job done? Amazing. getting 8.5 hours of sleep each night without having to wake to an alarm blaring? AMAZING. getting to go for walks every afternoon? SO FLIPPING GOOD. I love it so much, I really really do. I need this to be my life permanently.

WORK

Work is just ongoing and draining and honestly, coming back to the office was so fucking stressful and it was only one day. Being at home is just the fucking bomb. Pending home decisions, I wanna go contracting I think, but also ideally two part time contracts to have more flexibility? I dunno. You'd think a big 4 would provide variety but it really doesn't and honestly, with Richie leaving, wellington is just a sinking ship. Sean's off on parental leave, Kirstyn is down to four days a week, ben will be gone if he doesn't get promoted (and I don't think he will be tbh). Jack is just muddling along, Nigel wants to swap to consulting as well, Matt's going to be a shit leader in terms of bringing in work so it's just not going to work. and in our wider group it's going to get even more messy with heaps of the analysts leaving and a couple of senior hires too. so I think it's probably time to jump ship in general, pending the home stuff below. Also, coming back after a break again, I'm like, I don't actually like a lot of you? All the people I enjoy here are in other teams and groups, and I'll be sad to leave you all, but like, not enough to stay anyway lol.

Pending the home below, two options are to just going and get a job with a $30k payrise to make up for the maternity leave benefits I'm gunna leave behind when I leave this role - 18 weeks full pay, $100 a week for the first year back and a full year of maternity leave. It's basically 30k post tax which is a bit nuts to walk away from to be honest.

Otherwise the other option is to go contracting. Less security overall but holy shit so much money. If I went in as a project coordinator at the lowest rate to build up a bit of a portfolio I'd need to work 40 weeks of 40 hr weeks and Id basically match my current salary plus the lost family leave benefits and still qualify for govt maternity leave payments. Realistically I could go in as a project manager for $140 an hour ($60 more an hour than the above math) and absolutely smash it at that level as well so ya know, there's a bunch of other info. I like the idea of the flexibility of it and only having 6 months even if its a shitshow and beign able to walk away at the end of it. I really don't want to get a govt job and this is a v govt town which is fine but also, if I can avoid it that would be great. I just know I'm not gunna thrive in that environment.

Need to talk to Dave to get him across the line on the security issue part of that though. I've mostly come a long way in terms of my financial management (thanks YNAB) so I think he'd be ok with it mostly.

So there's a lot to toss up there because......

HOME

We got the reno plans done during lockdown, finally. which was super good. but holy fkn jesus $$$$$$ ++++++++++. The guy is coming around for the final quote on Thursday. We indicatively said $100k total because we're doing kitchen laundry bathroom and toilet. so only the most expensive rooms and when I was talking to him last week he said 'that might cover it' and they're seeing cost escalations of 7-10% a week which is just insane. we're not doing anything structural apart from putting in a cavity slider in the bathroom, and the quote they'll give us won't include flooring since they won't do it.

Meanwhile, the prefab homes I were looking at for our site were $425k fully done. Like, I'm not going to spend $130K on doing up my 1940s ex state house ya know? That's not good cost benefit ratio.

So depending on what that comes out at on thursday we'll be able to make some plans.

We also want to start trying for kids next year and need these renos done first - I am not having kids and no dishwasher lol.

Also we need bank financing so good to be in a permanent stable job for that application. the good thing is we have so much equity we know we can borrow whatever we need, I just don't want to spend that much money on it because it's fkn ridiculous. and if I'm going on maternity leave we need to be able to cover it all on dave's salary and whatever benefits I have as well so there;s a lot of financial planning and spreadsheeting going on at the moment lol. it's fab.

either way. we've got plenty of options up our sleeve. we've got friends who's brother owns a building company so we can talk to them, we've got the garage so we can get things prefabricated even if they're not installed til next year, Dave can get shit at cost through his work for whiteware, there;s plenty of things to like cost control we can do, we just need to know where we're starting from basically. thats the challenging part. but we'll figure it out, its just taking longer than I want it to basically.

We also planted up the vege garden for the spring/summer which was lovely, super jazzed about that. we've finally got the garden to a reasonably low maintenance level where everything is mostly under control and it's such a relief, honestly.

PERSONAL

Man what a shift to lockdown last year honestly. I think the last 8 weeks in particular has just been like, a massive reality check of how absolutely shit the last year was and how fucking glad I am to be rid of it. I spent a week absolutely spiralling 2 weeks ago now and honestly, I don't know how I lived in the state for more than a year. I actually don't know how I did it. and I could not be more glad that I'm finally on the other side of it, for the most part. There's still a bunch of other stuff to work through (hahahahahaha when is there not like damn) but fucking hell its nice to just not be anxious and nauseous and wound up constantly. life is actually accessible. miracle.

My workmate had his bebe - I went round and got newborn cuddles and was like, oh, is this what it is to be clucky? this is odd. so there's that as well. I think we'll probably start trying next year pending renos and jobs etc. If the renos can be done in jan I'll prob just stick it at the job to get the benefits but I dunno. it's a tough call to make really. we shall see. This all assumes we get knocked up without any issues which is questionable these days. I really want to feel healthier before getting pregnant as well, and part of that is losing weight. however, given discussing that is what triggered the spiral we're working on that one slowly.

Also, lets have a moment for counselling, because fkn bless anne and all her hard work honestly. I actually ended up emailing her being like, I;m losing my shit on the monday and then talked to her on thursday. And its so funny because it's such a counselling thing but I didn't realise until afterwards what she'd done but she was like you're clearly not doing well and then the night before dave got a fkn miserable migraine and he was up for like, 2 hrs powerchucking except he didn't make it to the bathroom in time so guess who was cleaning up vomit at 130am trying not to chuck herself but I digress. anyway, not doing well, couldn't even explain why, didn't even have words and super tired and she's like, what lynaire up to this week how's she going with izzy and chat about that and then be like how are you feeling about your body and then 5 more mins of chat about the cat and the chickens and then like bam hard question and then hows it going with x and y and z and its like, it wasn't til I was on my walk afterwards when I FINALLY started feeling marginally better I was like damn woman work your magic for figuring it out for me and helping me reregulate. all over the phone as well since we were still in lockdown. GREAT WORK FRIEND.

and then last week was like totally fucked theoretical discussion about religion and the role it's played in my life and fate vs free will and all this nutty shit but genuinely just a great discussion. She's the best and I love her. thank good for good counsellors. thank god I can afford to pay for it honestly.

Dave and I are just chugging along, god bless that man. I love him. its amazing. I miss having friends close by but understand why they had to move (boooooo f u house prices). Family is pretty chill, still not really talking to dave's parents which is nightmarish but we'll deal with that when we need to. gunna have to go and visit them at some point coz dave misses them and I feel for him, I really do. It's the whole boundaries renegotiation I went through with my family last year post wedding blow up and its just not a fun place to be. oh well. can't fix it for him but also I'm not putting up with that level of BS from either of our families once we have children. not gunna happen.

Either way, life is busy and full and fun and I'm enjoying it. Daylight savings starts this weekend too, its october next week WTF and I'm just waiting for 4pm to find out what's gunna happen to our girls trip. Clearly we cancelled our sept trip to christchurch and akaroa and hanmer springs so my covid travel curse continues. fkn ridic. Still dunno what we're gunna do with $2500 of flight credits coz if we get knocked up theres def no international trips happening any time soon.

thus concludes the almost 2000 word write up of life. hope you've enjoyed it. I'll throw up some pics in a separate post if people care about reno plans. such a good time!

[artificialqueens]

Different People (Different Arguments), 1/14 (Branjie/Jankie) - Ortega

a/n: once upon a time there was an author named Ortega who wrote war and fucking peace of a the thick of it au called Just the Game We’re In. she finished it and was proud of it and everything was fine. then suddenly, it turned out one of the main characters was…well, we’ll park that. so Ortega then decided to rewrite it with different girls, a few different details, and a different title. and it’s called Different People (Different Arguments)! and chapter one is here now for u all to enjoy (i hope).

(ps. no i’ve not forgotten about strictly au)

fic summary: Brooke Lynn is a political advisor for a government department where she has to contend with an incompetent Minister, maintaining her stone-cold bitch image, working alongside a press team of slackers, and the Prime Minister’s ever-so-slightly terrifying enforcer breathing down her neck 24/7. So when a familiar face from her past arrives as her new boss, she’s not exactly thrilled to add another problem to her ever-growing pile.

And then she admits she’s got a crush on her coworker.

In this chapter: A standard working day is turned on its head when Brooke has to play a role in engineering Cabinet Minister Darienne Lake’s resignation.

***

High heels. The definitive sound of Brooke’s job. Day in, day out the click-clack, click-clack sound would echo through the offices, closely followed by the constantly ringing phones and the tap-tap-tap of keyboards. Often there was also shouting, the volume of which was never helped by the design of the building which allowed every whisper to be amplified by around a million decibels and broadcast into the lobby.

Brooke hated the new building. She’d hated the idea of moving into it, insisting it would reflect badly on their party and cost them in the polls.

“What kind of message is it going to send out?” she’d rolled her eyes, tearing her hands through her hair. “If we’re trying to tell the public we’re still in touch with them and understand their fears of another recession it doesn’t exactly help moving into what looks like Aquaman’s secret fucking lair.”

She had been ignored, of course, as the decision had already been made. Brooke often wondered what the point of being a political advisor was if nobody ever actually listened to your advice, especially since the person you were supposed to be giving advice to seemed to be blundering about the world of politics like a headless chicken. Darienne Lake had been head of the Department for Social Affairs and Citizenship (Dosac for short) for quite some time now. Too long, Brooke thought. It was harrowing working for a woman who was clearly in the wrong profession, watching her get slammed by the media almost daily as a result of the latest crackpot policy she’d dreamed up. Brooke could’ve left the department a long time ago, should’ve left a long time ago. But she didn’t.

Politics was all about climbing the ladder and making connections. It was a game of chess, and over the years Brooke had seen many people make the wrong move both in and out of the public eye and subsequently watched them get disposed of. She’d seen people cross to the other side, watched both her own party and the opposition divide and conquer. It was all extremely black and white. The party line was a tightrope you had to walk. If you stepped out of line, you fell off the tightrope. If you weren’t up to date on what the line was, the tightrope got cut.  

Brooke could appreciate it wouldn’t sound hugely appealing to someone who didn’t live, breathe, eat, sleep and shit politics. However, this was her world. It had been her world since she’d started watching the news when she was six years old and heard her family talk about the politicians on the screen, and her need to be within the political realm only intensified when she left school and went to uni to study politics and economics, her drive and determination ensuring she graduated with a first class degree. Something that never got old to Brooke were people’s reactions when they discovered she wasn’t some dyed blonde lobotomy job who’d slept her way up the ladder. She wanted to keep giving people that shock day after day, and if that meant staying and advising an under-qualified, over-privileged cabinet Minister, then she could grit her teeth and bear it.

The echoey click-clack of Brooke’s heels provided a soundtrack as she briskly made her way across the black tiles of the department building’s lobby and pressed one red acrylic nail to the button of the lift, the doors sliding open almost instantly. As she stepped inside, quickly checking her reflection in the mirror, there was the frenzied sound of heels on tiles and a panicked yelling.

“Hold the lift!”

Smiling to herself, Brooke held the doors open as a small, pint-sized blonde ball of energy hurtled through them. Catching her breath and smoothing down her white shift dress, she shot her friend a quick smile.

“Morning, girl!”

“Hey, Jan. Great timing,” Brooke smirked as her friend fixed her windswept hair in the mirror.

If you’d ever asked Brooke if she could’ve seen herself becoming best friends with a previous member of the opposition she would have laughed in your face, but Jan was an exception. She had crossed the floor three months ago, finding a job as one of Darienne’s junior policy advisors after she became disillusioned with the ruthless ideals of the opposition. From what Brooke had heard, the offices of Nicky Doll’s party had been a little cliquey and Jan had wanted to spread her wings. Understandably, Brooke had been suspicious of her at first but Jan had been persistently kind and sweet to her to the point where Brooke basically blinked and they were friends as well as colleagues.

“What’s on the Minister’s agenda today then?” Brooke laughed humourlessly, leaning against the lift’s cool metal wall. “Are we demanding the extension of all buses by 30 centimetres? Bringing back the ha’penny? Outlawing kids?”

Jan threw her head back and laughed. “No, although all very possible Darienne ideas. We’ve to sort the public transport data before 5pm. That’s the only real pressing thing we have to do today.”

Brooke felt uneasy. The prospect of 24 hours that didn’t seem like being strapped to a bullet train speeding through fire seemed too good to be true. Something was always going wrong at Dosac and the fact that the only important thing they had to do with their day was to type some figures into an excel spreadsheet was suspicious.

“How was your weekend anyway?” Jan asked, smiling kindly.

Brooke thought back to the previous two days which were spent holed up in her studio flat eating instant noodles and working her way through expenses forms which the Minister should have been doing herself.

“Oh, you know…just a quiet one,” she gave Jan a small smile, which she returned.

The elevator doors opened and Brooke and Jan made their way to their desks. They were stopped in their tracks by a tiny, olive-skinned woman with flowing dark locks of hair babbling away at them at about a mile a minute. Smirking, Brooke shared an affectionate glance with Jan.

“And good morning to you too, human megaphone,” Brooke smiled, lazily throwing her jacket over her desk as the girl rolled her eyes.

“Brooke Lynn! This is serious shit. It would help if you made it into fuckin’ work on time,” she snapped back, pacing back and forth in her heels with worry.

“Relax, Vanessa. We were only a minute off, Darienne’s not going to be in for another fifteen,” Jan smiled lazily, kicking her heels off as she lounged in the wheely chair behind her desk. “Anyway, what’s the panic? It’s a chill day.”

There was one second of almost-silence as the clicks of computer mouses and the whirr of monitors were the only sounds in the room. Then, Vanessa’s eyes widened in horror. Brooke’s stomach dropped as she met Jan’s eyes- she’d known the prospect of a quiet day had been a veritable pipe dream.

“A chill…shit, you guys didn’t get the briefing that Nina sent out? Oh Christ, what am I doin’ even asking that.”

“Are my ears burning?” came a sleepy voice from down the hall. A figure emerged bundled up in countless scarves and woollen cardigans, her blonde frizzy curls only just visible through the layers of clothing. Her manicured fingernails were curled around a Starbucks cup, which she was clinging to for dear life.

“Morning, Nina! Great timing!” Vanessa greeted her sarcastically.

“Ignore her, girl. She hasn’t had her morning shot of Sambuca yet,” Jan drawled, smiling at the human game of pass the parcel who was currently detangling herself from her mummification of knitted clothing. Nina was Dosac’s press secretary who was kind and easy-going but also did the bare minimum, as her determination started and ended at getting home to her wife Monét and the latest episode of EastEnders every day. The girls all both loved her and were vexed by her in equal measures as it was often near to impossible to get any information from her or through her. But Brooke had to admit she did make a good cup of tea.

“Nina. Is there a reason why these bitches haven’t been briefed on Darienne’s interview with Raja Gemini today?” asked Vanessa.

Brooke threw her head back and groaned. Oh, fuck. This was bad news. Raja was one of the fiercest bitches in the media, a BBC journalist who was almost impossible to influence with spin. Fixing Nina with a stony glare, she was irritated even more when she simply shrugged.

“Vanessa, that email was sent to me at four minutes past five yesterday evening and you know fine well that the moment it hits five o’clock my out of office is on and my work phone is off,” Nina raised her eyebrows, curling her Bluetooth headset round her ear as she logged into her computer.

“Christ. So the Minister has a Gemini interview and we’ve got no idea what it’s meant to be covering,” Brooke massaged her temples slowly.

“Well, I’ll tell you what it’s about. She’s runnin’ with the mobile phone policy,” Vanessa sighed, nodding fiercely as both Brooke and Jan cried out in disbelief.

“Absolutely not. I thought we’d convinced her that it was a non-starter?!” Jan exclaimed, her tone nothing short of outraged.

“Apparently she’s feelin’ the pressure of the opposition as a result of Nicky pushing to cut down on Co2 emissions, so she wants to bring out a policy that goes hand in hand with that so the government can look good.”

“That doesn’t even make any fucking sense! God, Nicky could sneeze and she’d be ‘feeling the pressure’. Sometimes it’s like this department’s being run by a startled cat,” Jan sighed, pushing her blow-dried waves of hair away from her face with her hand.

“Yeah, I always think watching her decision-making process is like watching an enormous baby trying to do calculus,” Brooke piped up, humour masking the genuine, real fear that this disastrous policy was about to go live. Its basic premise was to fine people who used their phones while they walked, to avoid collisions between pedestrians on the streets and therefore reduce waiting times at Accident and Emergency as there were less injuries. It was absolutely insane, but then this was a typical Darienne Lake policy. Vanessa had once told Brooke that she often genuinely wondered if someone was sneaking cocaine into Darienne’s pasta salads.

Obviously suffering from a rare pang of guilt, Vanessa sighed as she leant against Jan’s desk. “I don’t know. I think sometimes this party’s way too harsh on her. And the press.”

“Can you blame them?!” Brooke snorted derisively. “It sucks, but if you’re a woman in politics and you go out in dresses that look like someone put stick-on diamantes onto a burlap sack mid-seizure, of course Hello magazine are going to have a field day.”

“Come on, Brooke Lynn, you gotta admit that she’s a very nice woman,” Vanessa shook her head, laughing only slightly.

“Being a very nice woman doesn’t make you a good politician, though,” Jan chipped in with a grimace.

“So you’re going to follow her when she eventually goes then, Vanessa?” Nina piped up from behind her monitor, her eyebrows raised high into her blonde curls. Vanessa bit her lip.

“…well. I still want some form of career, let’s not take it too far.”

The three girls laughed as Vanessa blushed pink. Vanessa’s loyalty to Darienne didn’t stretch all that far. When Darienne had entered the job last year it had also meant she had arrived as Darienne’s senior advisor. It had quickly become clear to Brooke that Vanessa had got to where she was by telling people what they wanted to hear, smiling and nodding at every turn as Darienne drove the department into one dead end after another. Brooke admired Vanessa’s craftiness; her method of going along with whatever Darienne wanted meant that whenever the time came to blame someone Darienne never looked her way. Of course, Vanessa secretly hated basically every idea that Darienne had and quickly grew to trust Brooke (and eventually Jan when she joined the party) as somebody she could share her true feelings with. Over her time as part of Dosac the three girls had become great friends, forming a sort of secret alliance of common sense against Darienne’s crazy politics. She didn’t look in any way like a traditional government advisor, but Brooke still thought she was amazing.

At her job, that is.

“Face it, V,” Jan smiled sleepily, giving a stretch as Brooke shook herself out of her daydream. “Everyone’s running from Darienne like…ugh, I’m crap at one-liners at this time of the morning. Brooke, help me out?”

“Like she runs from Weight Watchers? Like obesity runs in her family? Like McDonald’s employees run whenever she steps foot in the building? Come on, Jan, that one was easy.”

“Guys, c’mon! That’s both way harsh an’ fatphobic as shit. Check yourself,” Vanessa chastised her friends, shaking her head. Jan pulled a guilty face and made a helpless gesture.

“All I’m saying is that Darienne Lake is sinking like the Titanic, if the Titanic was on fire and made entirely of burning shit, and we’re going to be playing the violins if we don’t start distancing ourselves from her as soon as we can,” she yawned.

“Does shit float or sink?” pondered Brooke as she chewed a pen.

“That’s not really the point here,” Jan rolled her eyes.

“Look, I don’ give a shit about burlap sacks, or burnin’ shit, or spitroasting or whatever the fuck you guys are talking ‘bout, I just think she’s gonna notice if we start lookin’ like we’re about to jump ship!” Vanessa cried, flustered.

Jan and Brooke shared a concerned look.

“I didn’t say anything about spitroasting. Do you even know what spitroasting is?” Brooke laughed uproariously. Jan and Nina giggled as Vanessa shot Brooke a displeased glare.

“No. It don’t sound very classy,” she sniffed, scrolling through her phone nonchalantly. As the laughter died down, Nina sighed from her desk.

“Even if she does notice, it won’t be an issue. I heard Bianca’s sorting her departure.”

The three girls gave Nina equally shocked glances, their jaws slack at this bomb of information coming from someone who was usually so little help.

“You…heard something? You have working ears? You have a working set of five senses?” Brooke teased her, gobsmacked but also a little excited at the prospect of getting someone competent in to run the department.

“Hey, I am actually of some use sometimes! Akeria over at Richmond Terrace told me at our last meeting.”

All at once, Brooke deflated in her seat. “Right, so what you really mean is…a senior press officer for the opposition told you that Bianca was planning to get rid of Darienne, knowing she’d eventually find out and making sure she’d become rattled so that Nicky would be able to capitalize on the fact that she’d be acting more like a bat on Ritalin than normal.”

Seeing Nina’s peeved expression, Jan piped up. “I’m sure there’s some element of truth in it, Brooke. I mean, Akeria’s not exactly party loyal, she’s just a civil servant.”

Brooke gave a little exhale. Jan was kind to the point of frustrating sometimes. “Well, if what Nina is saying is a fact-”

“Excuse me, I’m not Beedle the fucking Bard!” Nina cut in, resembling a meerkat as her head popped over the top of her monitor.

“- then maybe we should start distancing ourselves,” Brooke finished, shooting Nina an irked look, annoyed at having been interrupted. She noticed that Vanessa was giving her a confused sort of glance.

“How? How do we create distance when we’re advising the bitch?” she stammered, clearly becoming nervous at the prospect of a minor coup. Brooke laughed. These were the situations where Vanessa’s inexperience showed and, although it was sometimes tedious having to hold her hand through such conditions, it was also ever so slightly endearing.

“Don’t panic, ‘Ness, it’ll be fine. Bianca will have it taken care of,” she smiled, trying her best to reassure her friend.

Casting her eye to the clock, Jan narrowed her eyes. “V, you should probably head downstairs and meet the Minister. Her car’s going to be pulling up in, like, a minute.”

Cursing, Vanessa trotted towards the lifts as fast as her high heels could carry her. Brooke watched as she left, then exhaled loudly as she switched her computer on. Trying her best to relax, she cast her eye over the office. Apart from one glass-fronted room at the far end which belonged to Darienne, the majority of it was open plan. It was mostly filled with identical IKEA desks which were all the same shade of creamy grey and topped with piles and piles of work. Vanessa’s desk was messy with post-it notes plastered all round the screen of her monitor, encroaching on top of the piles of folders and ringbinders like some kind of horrific, neon disease. Brooke’s own was a sort of middle ground- most things were ordered but the nature of the job meant that sometimes a chaos of papers, files and briefing notes would sometimes hurricane itself across her desk. A stark contrast to the other two, Jan’s desk was like a beacon of order and tidiness in the hectic office. Everything had its place, her folders were all stored neatly and were colour-coded, and a packet of disinfectant wipes sat just beside the screen of her monitor. Their desks represented the three of them quite well.

Over to her left beside the lifts sat the cluster of desks which housed the communications team. Nina sat at its helm, situated near the desks of the advisors. To the right of Nina’s desk sat the two senior press officers, Scarlet and Yvie, and to Nina’s left were the two junior press officers, Jaida (who Brooke often thought to be far more competent than Nina and often prayed the two would somehow find themselves in some form of Freaky Friday body swap) and Adore, whose chair was empty. Brooke rolled her eyes hard- Adore had started as a civil service intern and Darienne had ended up keeping her on permanently. It had been another one of her diabolical decisions as Adore was ever so slightly scatterbrained, preferred scrolling her socials to tackling any of the pile of incomplete work the size of Kilimanjaro on her desk, and devoted around 90% of her day to making cups of tea. As a person she was great fun and brought a certain element of life to the office when everyone was down, but as someone Brooke had to work with she was a challenge. There had been many times where Brooke had fleetingly thought of pushing over the pile of folders on her desk one day and killing her, doing the department a great service.  

Before Brooke could even open her emails, Darienne was marching through the department with Vanessa following behind her holding two large, red briefcases.

“Morning, morning!” she sing-songed as she made her way into her office. “Meeting in ten, yes ladies?”

Brooke shrugged half-heartedly in response, scrolling through her emails with disinterest. As she watched Darienne swing her office door shut she let out a huge, bored sigh.

There was suddenly a flurry of activity as the sound of approaching footsteps thundered along the corridor. Soon enough, a small girl with wide eyes, cheeks flushed pink and blonde hair with black roots appeared and flung herself down into the empty desk beside Jaida. Getting herself comfy, she kicked her heeled boots off and fired up her computer. Adore had arrived.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, ain’t anyone able to get to work on time?!” Vanessa hissed, exasperated and trying desperately to mask the fact that Adore had only just arrived at the office. Sipping on the coffee that was no doubt in her porcelain keep cup, Adore shot her a slack-jawed smile as the other press officers looked up from their work.

“Hey, I was working, thank you very much! I was doing important party business before I got here.”

“What kind of important party business?” asked Yvie, her interest piqued at the thought of Adore voluntarily doing any work.

“Laila McQueen,” Adore beamed, taking another big, loud sip. Jan laughed as Brooke rolled her eyes so hard they threatened to fall out her sockets. “Hey, it just means we have The Independent on our side for the next couple of days!”

“Good work, girl. You’re like a broadsheet Julia Roberts. I didn’t know Bianca had started pimping people out,” Scarlet shot Adore a sarcastic grin and received a tight-lipped smile and one middle finger in response which made her snort a laugh.

“Yeah, yeah, very good, Adore, real impressive. That’s your one minute of glory up. You think you could go and get us some tea? And maybe some pastries, Darienne’ll probably be hungry,” Vanessa ordered, Adore pouting and lazily rising from her desk.

“Probably? It’s not like there’s an element of doubt to it,” Brooke snorted a laugh. “Get her a cinnamon roll the size of a fucking Swiss cheese, that should do her fine.”

Five minutes later, Brooke found herself sipping a subpar cup of tea in Darienne’s office, craving the sweet embrace of death as she listened to her witter on about how Raja Gemini wasn’t that intimidating, and that contrary to popular belief she was able to hold her own against the big journalists. Jan was attempting to talk her down from the ledge of misplaced confidence she had seemed to have clambered up to, Vanessa was doing her best impersonation of a nodding dog, and Nina was sleepily casting her eyes between Darienne and Jan as they spoke, her notebook blank.

“Do you have a strong opening line?” Jan asked the Minister nervously, prodding at her lip with nerves. Darienne smiled smugly, leaning back and relaxing in her chair.

“Once we implement these fines, the waiting times at A&E will be shorter than the waiting times at McDonalds. Ambulances will practically start operating drive thrus!” she reeled off, grinning proudly at the line she’d clearly spent hours thinking up. Stifling laughter, Brooke watched the reactions of the other girls. Nina’s pen hovered above her notebook hesitantly as if she couldn’t quite believe she had to write the drivel down, and Vanessa and Jan were staring at each other, wide-eyed with incredulity.

“Jesus. I’ve seen stronger newborn children,” Brooke sighed as she leant forward and sat her cup of tea on Darienne’s desk, too disgusted to attempt to drink any more.  “That cup of tea was stronger than that opening line.”

“Hey! I spent all night thinking that up,” Darienne cried, offended. Jan furrowed her brow.

“Honestly Darienne, it does kind of sound like you pulled it out of your ass.”

“Speaking of assholes, Bianca’s in the building,” Nina spoke up, checking her phone. The mood in the room suddenly plummeted.

Everyone was afraid of Bianca. The only separating factor was just how afraid they were of Bianca. She was the prime Minister’s enforcer and spin doctor, the lady who made it clear to everyone in government that they had to know the line and toe the line, often spinning the party out of crises like a terrifying dreidel. She had no time for time wasters, bluffers, blue-sky thinkers, or people who weren’t one hundred percent capable of doing their job, and often unleashed hell on those that weren’t. Brooke was a big girl, she could handle herself, but there was still something about the authority that Bianca radiated and how intimidating she was that made her just that little bit nervous. She knew she had an easy-going side, but Brooke hadn’t seen it often.

“She looking for us?” Vanessa asked nervously.

“No, I’m sure she’s walking around the department trying to get her steps in for the day. What do you think?!” Nina hissed back, glaring momentarily at Vanessa then back to her phone. “Any second now…”

“Good morning, Bianca,” Jan greeted as a woman strode confidently into the office on six-inch Louboutins. Despite the fact her caramel waves of hair had a slight haze of frizz from the drizzle outside she was otherwise perfectly put-together, wearing a matching black suit jacket and pencil skirt combo. Her makeup was bright like the patterns on a poisonous frog and her lips were painted with bright red lipstick. Or perhaps that was just the blood of another poor cabinet Minister.

“Yes, good morning, and I’m hoping it’s going to be a good fucking morning, because this one-” she trained a single black fake nail on Darienne’s face “-is fully prepped for her Gemini interview at 12, correct?”

“Don’t worry Bianca. I was up all night,” Darienne gave her a saccharine sweet smile, which Bianca turned her nose up at.

“So you’re fully aware she thinks it’s an utterly fucking horrible idea?” Bianca tilted her head very slightly.

“She’s not the only one,” Jan muttered, just loud enough for Brooke to hear.

Darienne looked somewhat put out, her face falling. Sighing, Brooke looked to the ceiling. Vanessa was right- the Minister was a nice lady, but how in the hell could she think that policy was anything less than an utter car crash?! Brooke began to allow herself to daydream, which admittedly was always a risk in Bianca’s presence, but already this day was like a huge, massive wave towering over them all before a tsunami and she needed to disconnect. She was aware of Bianca’s voice tearing into Darienne in the background.

“What if she asks you how many police hours this will take up? What are you going to say then?”

“I would simply point her to the amount of money that this policy would generate, which would well make up for the drain on resources-”

“Jesus H Fuck, who did your media training? Myra Hindley? Don’t use the word ‘drain’! Don’t use any words with any negative connotations whatsoever! I don’t want a single word out of place in this interview; otherwise Gemini is going to start analysing it like Gillian McKeith analyses people’s shit.”

Darienne appeared to think things over for a moment. “So can I…I mean…can I use the word no?”

Brooke only just stopped herself from physically slapping her hand to her forehead. Bianca looked incredulously at the faces of the four other girls, each as long-suffering as the last.

“Have I suddenly imagined a storybook character into life? Did a child make a wish on a shooting star last night, is that why fucking Moon-Face is sitting at a desk in front of me? Are the other Faraway Tree friends about to walk in through the door and start running the country?”

Darienne cast her eyes to the floor, the message well and truly received.

“You mentioned the amount of money that this would generate. Is this going to be the saving grace of this policy? Is this going to be the diamond ring within the shit of the dog who accidentally ate it?”

“You’re very faecally focussed today, Bianca,” Jan piped up with a frown as Brooke stifled a laugh.

“Yeah, well. It’s hard not to be when you’re within a 5 mile radius of this department,” she scoffed.

“Well within the first month, we’re looking to generate around…um, Vanessa?” Darienne cast her eyes to the senior advisor, whose gaze shifted to Bianca nervously.  

“Unbelievable. She can’t even retain her own fucking figures. Come on then, Britain’s number fifteen Rihanna impersonator, give me some good fucking news.”

“Uh, we think…well, Darienne thinks…that within the first month of enforcement we could generate around £25,000 in £50 fines.”

Bianca’s face grew very gradually cold, Vanessa freezing to the spot as if she’d just been stared at by Medusa. Even Brooke shivered.

“You mean to tell me,” she began, her voice extremely measured and shaking only slightly. “That out of a population of 64 million people, who normally stumble around the streets with their heads in their phone screens like puppets with their strings cut, we’d be able to fine…500 a month?”

“Well, we deliberately predicted under target so that the actual figure would come as a pleasant surprise!” Darienne smiled back, completely nonplussed at Bianca’s rage.

“If I could interject, I don’t seem to remember there being any ‘we’ about it,” Nina spoke up dryly, before lowering her head back down into her notebook.

“I really love the logic of this department. Maybe you should all become teachers! 50 add 50 equals 25, and when you find out that the real answer is actually 100, well that’s just a fucking pleasant surprise, isn’t it?! The crime stats from the last quarter revealed that there had been 73 murders committed, except- what a nice surprise! There were actually 78, because we forgot to count your five fucking bodies after I ripped them to fucking shreds!”

Brooke had no idea why Darienne was so calm. It was like her brain had been replaced by a huge goldfish bowl. Vanessa, however, looked a little shell-shocked, and Brooke couldn’t help the pang her heart gave as her protective instincts took over.

Only for a moment, though.

“We’ve got time to accumulate some more accurate figures. They wouldn’t be bang on, but definitely a lot more impressive than £25,000, and they’d probably placate Gemini,” Brooke shrugged, sitting up a little straighter in her seat as she addressed Bianca. Casting her frown Brooke’s way, Bianca seemed to calm down very slightly.

“Finally someone in this room that isn’t a massive, walking, talking sac of amniotic fluid. Get it done, okay? I’ll see you all after the interview.”

As Bianca left the room, the other girls all visibly relaxed. Vanessa began rubbing at her shoulder, clearly tense after being momentarily in the firing line. Flustered, Darienne finally spoke.

“Right well, Brooke, if you could sort that out within the hour,” she smiled, as if she was in control in any way. “Jan and Nina, if you could stay with me so that we can smooth out the finer details of this interview, and Vanessa if you could get started on the transport data please.”

“Uh, that ain’t gonna be possible, Minister, ‘cause I got a lot of stuff left over from yesterday an’ I still need to send that email over to Nick at the treasury, an’ uh…” Vanessa suddenly blurted out, clearly still slightly rattled from Bianca’s visit. Brooke screwed her face up. What the fuck was she doing? Darienne looked equally perplexed as Vanessa stammered a correction. “I mean…no, yeah, of course. I’ll get it done as soon as I can.”

As Darienne dismissed them and Brooke and Vanessa marched out of the office, Brooke immediately grabbed her by the arm and wrenched her into the toilets.

“Brooke Lynn! What the hell?!” Vanessa protested, her eyes fiery.

“What the hell was that in the office there?!”

Vanessa knit her brows together. “You told us to start distancing ourselves from her! I was tryin’ my fuckin’ best!”

“Yeah, distancing yourself, not starting a revolution! Am I talking to someone who works in politics or a seventeen year old who just got a D in their Modern Studies A-level?!” Brooke sighed, exasperated. She regretted it immediately when she saw Vanessa’s shoulders slump forward as she did her best impression of a kicked puppy.

“I’m sorry,” Vanessa muttered, shaking her head slightly. “I just…Bianca kinda panicked me.”

Without thinking, Brooke rested her hand on Vanessa’s arm in an attempt to comfort her. “Look…I know it’s hard for you. I get that you entered politics  as Darienne’s aide and that if she goes, the road ahead is going to be kind of…non-existent. Well, not non-existent, just extremely winding and bumpy and parts of it might not have been built yet. But you’re party loyal, right?”

Vanessa nodded silently. “I’m not a fuckin’ hack. I came into this job so I could help change things for people, except sometimes I just feel like we’re not doing much good.”

“Yeah, well. That’s because the PM is too balls-deep in his secretary to run the country for more than five minutes, but anyway. The point is that you’ll be okay, we’ll all be okay! You, me, Jan. The dream team,” Brooke beamed at her, her heart soaring as Vanessa’s face lit up. “Just keep following whatever Darienne does, but keep your ears open. Any sign of a possible new option, glue yourself to them. Do your best leech impression.”

Vanessa’s face contorted as she took Brooke’s last comment literally, and both of them shared a laugh.

“But don’t panic. Like Jan said, Bianca’s going to sort it. You saw her in there, she’s at the end of her tether with that giant egg we’ve got running the department. We’ll be fine.”

As Vanessa giggled, Brooke found herself blushing very slightly. Stepping forward that little bit more, she wrapped her arms around Vanessa in a gentle hug. She smelt of a very sweet, sugary perfume, and momentarily Brooke found it hard to let go, her heart thudding in her ribcage.

“Thanks, Brooke. You’re a sweetheart,” Vanessa smiled bashfully as she pulled away, sweeping her hair behind her ears. Brooke cast her eyes to the floor, embarrassed by the compliment.

“Come on. We’ve got work to do. You should start doctoring those transport stats for fun.”

Pushing open the door, Vanessa laughed and raised her eyebrows. “I got a C in my Modern Studies A-level anyway, so I don’t appreciate the accusation, ma’am.”

As the two girls made their way back to their desks, Brooke tried to clear her head. The conversation had dredged up a lot of feelings she’d been trying to repress. She didn’t have a crush on Vanessa. She wasn’t attracted to her like that at all. She was just protective of her, and she couldn’t help it if she was cute when she was flustered, or nervous, or happy, or irritated, or doing anything. That was just a fact. It didn’t mean she liked her as anything more than a friend.

Besides, the position of token workplace lesbian couple had already been filled by Scarlet and Yvie.

***

Brooke sighed, her disapproval hidden in the darkness of the news studio along with cameras, a teleprompter, and Vanessa. Why in the name of God was this interview live? It was barbaric to screen a brutal murder on lunchtime TV. Christ, there could be kids watching. Casting her eyes to the ceiling, she knew that Nina could have helped the situation. She could’ve pushed for it to be pre-recorded. But in her head she was already hearing the excuse about Raven at the BBC being “such a nice girl”, and that “she complimented my outfit once at Alyssa’s book launch”, so perhaps there was never any chance of it being anything but live.

As the Minister stammered and stuttered her way through her lines, Brooke wondered how Raja was able to keep such a stony, cold expression. She was essentially watching the complete breakdown of Darienne’s political credibility in front of her, that was surely worth some pity. Contemplating the situation, Brooke supposed that having pity wasn’t really going to do a journalist any favours. Raja had been out at Gaza, for fuck’s sake. She was hardly going to be sympathetic to this human pannacotta sat in front of her, Darienne’s voice wobbling and wavering over every line she spoke as Raja’s eyes bore into her.

Brooke looked briefly to Vanessa, who was just looking at Darienne sadly. Brooke had to feel sorry for her. Vanessa had placed her trust in the Minister to introduce her to the world of politics, a world she clearly wanted to be a part of for all the right reasons, and yet this was the thanks she got. Sitting having to watch her boss pedal horrific policy after horrific policy and watching as her and her colleagues got constantly ignored.

She deserved better.

Momentarily Brooke thought about making a joke, but reasoned that it would probably go down as well as a lead balloon. Instead, she texted Jan, safe from the debris of Darienne’s collapsing career at the office where she, Bianca and the communications team were all watching.    

B: Jesus. I’ve seen ISIS condemned for less than this.

There was a pause as Jan texted back. Brooke tuned back into the interview.

“…shorter than the, um, waiting times at McDonalds. Ambulances will practically start operating drive thrus!”

Brooke audibly groaned. Darienne had obviously inflated her life belt, pulling out her precious line as a last-ditch attempt to save the interview. Raja was less impressed.

“That sounds like an extremely serious comparison, Minister, you’re saying that this policy will simply rush patients through A&E as if they were…a burger? How thorough will doctors and nurses be?”

And there Darienne was again, back to flailing around the interview as if she was drowning.

J: I’ve never seen a human being reduced to actual liquid before. Hope you have a tub to transport her back to the office.

B: How’s Bianca holding up?

A pause.

J: I’ve seen mothers look less disgusted at their own afterbirth.

B: I really hope you haven’t.

***

The first thing Brooke, Darienne and Vanessa were greeted with on their arrival back at the office was Nina, a frown on her face.

“Well I’m glad that interview went so well. We’ve been fending off calls from several papers asking if this policy is, quote, the government’s dying whalesong, and The Sun are planning to run with the headline ‘Would you like dies with that’, in reference to the suggestion that the NHS is about to go down the drain.”

Brooke shook her head in contempt. “Imagine going to university for three years, getting a first in journalism, and then being paid to come up with that crap.”

“Absolutely. I think we should run with the line that these accusations are nonsensical,” Darienne bristled, annoyed that her pride and joy of a policy wasn’t making the impact it was supposed to. Brooke snapped her head round to face the Minister.

“I mean, I don’t think we can cover our backs that easily. You did that interview sounding as if you’d just survived a house fire, I mean why did you include that drive-thru line?!”

“It was an emergency! It was a last ditch attempt, I had to do something!” Darienne barked back, her face set in a frown.

Vanessa butted in. “An emergency line? A line to be used in an emergency? What the hell were the instructions? In case of emergency, break glass by throwin’ yourself through the top floor window of Broadcasting House?!”

The shouting match was stopped abruptly as Jan’s calm drawl trailed through the office. “Brooke, I just got a text from Bianca. She said she wants to see you in her office in five minutes, and if you’re late she’s going to make you stand in the Dosac lobby on a hot day and watch your face fry off.”

A horrified pause. “Her words, not mine.”

Exhaling noisily, Brooke grabbed her bag from where she’d just thrown it down on her desk. She tried to ignore Darienne’s smug smile as she made her way to the lift and a meeting with the most feared woman in politics.

***

Being able to see the inner workings of 10 Downing Street was like the part in The Wizard Of Oz when the curtain gets pulled back to reveal the Wizard as a sham. On the outside, it was the most perfect professional façade, a backdrop for thousands of press announcements, resignations and appointments. On the inside it resembled a prison riot at best, a hive of people running around trying to fix something, or spin something, or frantically complete some piece of unfinished work. It was slightly quieter today, Brooke had noticed, as she sat on a hard, wooden chair outside Bianca’s office.

She’d been there dead on time but Bianca was running ten minutes late so far. Lesser, more idiotic humans would call her out on it, but Brooke had a functioning brain and a desire to stay alive until at least the end of the day. She blew a strand of hair out of her face and curled her lip. She hadn’t a clue why Bianca had called her for a meeting and chose to pass up on the opportunity to berate Darienne about that car crash of an interview. If Bianca was looking for someone to blame, it couldn’t be Brooke. She had been under the impression that Bianca found her tolerable, but you could never really tell what her opinions on anything were. The woman’s poker face was so good she could’ve gone professional in Vegas.

The varnished, wooden door of Bianca’s office suddenly swung open, Bianca standing poised in front of Brooke like a bird of prey.

“You’re late,” she sniffed, as she held the door open for Brooke to come in. Mumbling an apology, Brooke slumped down into the leather-bound chair opposite Bianca’s desk and simply waited for whatever was about to come, looking casually around the room. It was a setting she knew all too well- the marble, white fireplace, the eerie green lamp giving off an abnormal white light on her desk. The nondescript paintings of some long-dead war heroes, the bookcases filled with files and files and files. The entire room screamed power and intimidation.

“Do you want a coffee, Brooke?” Bianca began casually as she sat down opposite her. Perplexed, Brooke shook her head.

“I’m okay…I’d kind of just like to find out why I’m here. I mean, aren’t you supposed to be after Darienne?”

Snorting a laugh, Bianca rose from her chair and moved to perch on the edge of her desk. She was slightly above Brooke’s level, but her tone and general aura were quite relaxed, bordering on informal.

“You were friends with Jaqueline Cox at university, correct?”

Ouch. The memories ripped through Brooke’s mind like a migraine. Jackie Cox, the know-it-all in every seminar. Jackie Cox, the try-hard in every presentation. Jackie Cox, with the smug smile and the glossy dark hair and the perfect matching stationary. She knew Jackie, and Brooke knew enough to know she wasn’t a fan.

“Friends is pushing it. She was on the same course as me and was about as irritating as thrush, and that’s all I really had to do with her,” she sniffed in her own non-committal way. Bianca flared her nostrils and made a face, indicating to Brooke that she’d given a wrong answer.

“Okay, maybe my phrasing was a little off. In case you haven’t noticed, you haven’t stumbled into some friendship bracelet craft class, this is Downing Street. So I’ll rephrase the question. Is she any good?”

Brooke felt momentarily like she was trapped in a lion enclosure. “Is she any good at…?”

“At juggling silicone breast implants and walking a tightrope over a lake of tepid piss. Is she any good at politics?!”

“God, I mean…I guess she’d be a good politician,” Brooke admitted begrudgingly. “She’s principled, she’s got strong morals and a backbone. She’s eloquent enough and nowhere near as big a car crash as that sheep’s placenta we’ve got as a Minister.”

Bianca smiled fleetingly, then stood and walked back to her chair, appeased.

“Perfect,” she said, her eyes boring into Brooke’s as she sat down. Looking momentarily behind her, Brooke shifted in her seat.

“So…why are you asking about Jackie?” she asked slowly, drawing each word out just that little bit too long to be necessary in her hesitation. Bianca smiled slowly in return.

“It came to my attention this afternoon that maybe there needs to be some…changes made around here. My party is being made to look like a laughing stock, and I don’t like it,” she growled, her eyes growing dark. “Darienne’s been palming off her expenses forms onto you, correct?”

Brooke nodded silently.

“Maybe it would be in your best interests…and the party’s best interests…to doctor them slightly. Then if they end up in the hands of the media…so be it. She’s left with no credibility, there’s no coming back from that. She’ll have to resign. Then really all that’s left to do is get a replacement in. Smooth as a bottle of Moët,” Bianca shrugged, leaning back in her chair calmly. Blinking twice, Brooke suddenly became apprehensive.

“Bianca, I can’t…I can’t just fake her expenses claims.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you have a note from your Mum? Have you got a cold and you can’t take part in this part of your actual job? You’re surprising me, Brooke,” Bianca sighed, clearly disappointed. “I honestly thought you had something different in you. A spine, a brain. Some form of drive, determination to succeed. You love this party, yes? You came into politics to make a difference, right?”

Brooke flinched slightly. Bianca was hitting her where it hurt, and she knew it was going to get a rise out of her. “Of course. I want us to succeed. I want us to change things.”

Bianca smiled, glad to have received a sufficient reaction.

“Then sometimes things have to be done by any means necessary,” she said gravely, running her tongue along her teeth. “If Jackie accepts the offer, she’ll be the new head of Dosac by tomorrow afternoon.”

Something about the whole appointment of Jackie Cox didn’t sit right with Brooke. She was just an annoying, opinionated, mouthy university girl, and there were ten a penny of those in London. Why her? Why not someone slightly more tolerable?

“Why does it have to be Jackie, why can’t it be someone else?” she voiced what she was thinking, annoyed. Bianca laughed, clearly amused.

“Okay, Miss Political Advisor. Advise me, since I’ve clearly not weighed up all the options.”

Stuck for a moment, Brooke’s brain began racing round at a hundred miles an hour. “Kelly Mantle. The back bencher from Education, she’s good.”

“No. She looks too much like a resident of Whoville to be put in the spotlight. Can you imagine when she inevitably fucks up, what the headlines will be? Who dunnit? Whose fault is it this time? Who, who, who, all over the front pages like owls with tourettes.”

Brooke sighed, then perked up with another idea. “What about Bianca Castro from Health?”

“Who, Jiggly?” Bianca asked, nonplussed.

“…Bianca Castro. She has a good track record, the public would love her-”

“Yeah, Jiggly.”

“Bianca, her name isn’t Jiggly.”

“The media damn well think it is after they got hold of those photos of her at the all-you-can-eat world buffet. Not exactly astounding publicity for a junior health Minister. She’s going nowhere.”

Brooke barely held in a grunt of frustration. “Ongina, that MP for-”

“Her name literally sounds like vagina. PR disaster. Next.”

“Jade Jolie.”

“She couldn’t run a bath, never mind a department.”

“Lashawn, then?!”

Bianca threw her head back and hooted a laugh. “You’re joking, right? Can you imagine her even trying to pronounce some of the names on the immigration database? She stays firmly on the back bench.”

Brooke pouted a little, frustration seeping out of every pore. Seeing her obvious displeasure, Bianca’s tone became placating, the woman’s softer side making a rare appearance.

“Look. Right now, we need strong leaders in this party. Jackie is about as strong as we’re going to get from what I’ve heard, and we need her to steer us out of this ditch that Darienne’s gradually lowered us into. You don’t need to worry about a thing, apart from those expenses forms. I’ll take care of it,” she smiled, reassuring Brooke as she stood and made to leave. Before she reached the door, a thought suddenly struck her like iced lightning, freezing her to the spot.

“Bianca…” Brooke began hesitantly. “Do you think Jackie will come with her own people? I mean, I’m not hugely up to date with her movements, so I don’t know how prepared she’ll be, and I’m fine, I can look after myself, you know? But like, Vanessa…and Jan, of course. Will she…will they get to keep their jobs?”

Bianca’s eyes were instantly on her, searching and wondering about the hidden agenda behind Brooke’s question. “I’ve worked with you for a while, Brooke Lynn. I must say, I’ve never seen you get attached to anyone in this game.”

“Well, you know,” Brooke shrugged, maintaining a cool exterior. “We work well together. We’re a good team. And she’s a valuable member of the department, that’s all.”

“Vanessa or Jan?” Bianca questioned.

“They both are! I just…I just want to make sure they’ll both be fine.”

Bianca moved to the doorway, gently showing her out. “Just doctor those expenses. Try not to pop a blood vein while doing so.”

Sighing, Brooke shook Bianca’s hand and click-clacked her way down the marble hallway towards the famous black door. Not too far along the corridor, she heard Bianca call after her.

“Brooke Lynn!”

She turned around sharply.

“Loyalty gets remembered in this party. Especially by me.”

***

Brooke hit send on her email to Bianca at 5.30pm on the dot. Darienne had claimed for Ubers from here to Downing Street, business lunches at nearby curry houses, and, just for laughs, a helicopter. Brooke had felt a little guilty fabricating it all, but it was impossible not to. If she had a complete lack of morals she’d be working for Nicky’s party, not Darienne’s. However, as Bianca had said, it was for the good of the party that she had to go.

She was still unsure about Jackie though. If everything went smoothly, by this time tomorrow she’d be sitting in Darienne’s office barking orders at her. It would be like every university group project all over again. Brooke had never actively disliked Jackie, she’d just found her grating. She was slightly unique, though. True, there were many girls of her type on her course, argumentative and challenging, but there were few that held their composure so well throughout a debate, maintaining class and superiority the entire time. Maybe that’s why she’d rubbed Brooke the wrong way so violently. Anyway, there had been a good eight years separating her time at uni and her time within the realm of politics. Perhaps Jackie was different now.  

Shutting down her computer, she swivelled her chair round to face the other girls. She’d communicated to everyone through hushed whispers that Bianca’s plan was being put into effect immediately, creating an excited buzz around the office for the last few hours of the day. Regrettably she’d noticed that Vanessa had become more subdued because of it, the girl clearly wondering where this left her career. Brooke wanted nothing more than to see her happy again. She just hadn’t had time to attempt to cheer her up in between the expenses and finishing the transport data.

It looked as if Adore had already left, her chair empty and her bag gone with her half-empty coffee cup on her desk. Nina had long since vanished, her desk clear and any evidence of her ever having been there completely gone. Jaida was clearly in for the long shift, still working steadily through her excel spreadsheet with an energy drink by her keyboard. Jan was pulling on her coat, fixing her hair rapidly, and Scarlet and Yvie looked ready to leave too. Vanessa suddenly appeared in front of her.

“Hey,” she smiled gently. “We’re goin’ for a drink, think we could all do with one after today. You coming?”

Brooke fleetingly thought of a night with the girls, of just having a laugh and being slightly less stressed than normal. The thought of a glass of wine was tempting, but then the immediate thought of work the next day and how chaotic it would be made her decision for her.

“Sorry, ‘Ness. I’m going to head back. Next time though, yeah?” Brooke gave a tight smile, sighing a little when Vanessa’s face grew slightly more disappointed than before. As she nodded understandingly and turned to leave, Brooke suddenly grabbed her hand without really knowing why. Checking the office to see if anyone was looking at them, Vanessa then gazed at Brooke, confused.

“Talk to me. You’re still worried about tomorrow, aren’t you?” Brooke murmured quietly, trying not to draw attention to them. Jan was chatting happily with Scarlet and Yvie was hugging Jaida goodbye, so they were safe for now.

Vanessa’s face was worried. “I just don’t like the uncertainty. I wouldn’t be as worried if it didn’t mean I could get split up from you and Jan. We’re so good together. I don’t wanna lose that.”

Brooke’s heart swelled a little in her chest. “Listen. Don’t make it common knowledge, but I might have had a hand in Bianca’s plan. She kind of hinted that I’d be repaid in some way. We’ll all stay, don’t worry. I trust her.”

Brooke almost breathed a sigh of relief as Vanessa’s shocked face grew into a bright, happy smile. “Fuck, Brooke Lynn, you serious?!”

“Yeah. I got one wish. I sold my soul to the devil. Sue me,” Brooke snorted sarcastically, making Vanessa laugh.

“Wait, what’d you have to do for her?” Vanessa whispered, her eyes excited.

“I had to sleep with her. It was horrendous. She eats pussy like I eat noodles. Slurp slurp slurp.”

Vanessa’s nose wrinkled up as she laughed uproariously, drawing the attention of the other girls to them to Brooke’s dismay. Vanessa looked beautiful when she laughed. Then again, she looked beautiful all the time. That was just a fact, of course.

“Hey, Brooke! You coming out with us or what? Silk and Akeria are joining, ” Yvie yelled over, smiling as she wrapped her arm around Scarlet’s slim waist. Brooke tried her best not to screw her face up- she had a hard time being polite to anyone from the opposition, even if they were only civil service comms officers.

“Nah, she’s being boring,” Vanessa teased, sticking her tongue out.

“Aw, come on, Brooke! You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, ‘specially tequila ones,” Scarlet piped up, giggling and throwing her other arm around Yvie. Brooke smiled at the affectionate couple.

“Yeah, well, like Vanessa said, I’m being boring tonight. You and Yvie take care of those two liver transplants waiting to happen, okay? I can’t quite believe I’m saying it but you need to be the responsible ones.”  

As Scarlet laughed, Yvie and Jan said their goodbyes to Brooke. Vanessa was still hovering at her desk, a small smile on her face as she bent down and hugged Brooke without warning.

“You’re the best member of this whole department, an’ the best damn work friend I could want,” she whispered, her words lighting up Brooke’s heart. Pulling back, she gave a quick glance to the girls who were waiting on the lift to arrive. “I owe you one, bitch. Have a good night. Eat dinner and sleep well, ‘kay?”

Brooke gazed fondly at Vanessa, her tiny frame retreating into the lift. Vanessa cared about her. She cared about everyone. It was part of the reasons why Brooke liked her so much.

In the most platonic way possible, obviously.

***    

Arriving at work the next day, it was clear that Bianca’s plan had worked. Thanks to a few emails to the big papers, Darienne’s false expenses claims were plastered over all the front pages, giving a pretty damning verdict.

“She’s good at leaking, isn’t she? Bianca, I mean,” Nina pondered casually from her desk, causing Brooke to look up from The Times.

“She’s brilliant. She’s like an 85 year old woman that never did pelvic floor exercises,” Scarlet muttered, ignoring the ringing phone.

“Nothing in The Independent about it though, I’ll give you that, Adore. Laila McQueen must’ve been one satisfied customer,” Jan laughed, holding up the front page which was jarringly dissonant with the other headlines, instead focussing on something to do with the polar icecaps melting.

“I’m good! I keep telling you all and you never listen,” Adore winked cheekily, as the phone continued to ring.

“Ain’t someone gonna answer that?!” Vanessa snapped, frustrated. Jaida reached for the receiver hesitantly, looking at Nina to gauge her reaction. Fixing her eagle eyes on her in disapproval, Jaida drew her hand back as if the phone was a hot stove.

“I’ve told them all we’re in a no comment situation,” Nina turned to Vanessa, shrugging. “There’s nothing else we need to say. If those bastards don’t get the meaning of that then quite frankly they shouldn’t be in journalism.”

Brooke stayed quiet throughout the whole exchange. She was worried, fretting about what Darienne would say when she arrived. She knew full well she was going to get the blame, hell, she was to blame. As much as Brooke could pretend to be completely ruthless, the guilt was beginning to seep in. At this point everyone in the department knew it was Brooke who had a hand in fixing the expenses forms and although everyone was being perfectly normal and friendly towards her, she was concerned about what they really thought and what they’d say when she left the room.

She hadn’t even seen Jan come and stand next to her.

“You’re awful quiet today, sweetie,” she drawled, leaning against a set of shelves that contained about twenty thousand government files. “Everything alright?”

Brooke nodded silently, brushing her fringe out of her face. That didn’t appear to satisfy Jan.

“Look, nobody thinks any less of you for what you did. It’s politics, it’s not kid’s TV. Sacrifices have to be made, people have to be disposed of. You did the department a favour, to be honest,” she continued, as if she could read Brooke’s mind. Brooke couldn’t help but smile. Jan had a certain telepathic quality, and often she could begin cheering you up before you even knew what reasons you had to be sad. She was a total ray of sunshine, and her happy-go-lucky personality was welcome in the department today.

“Thanks, girl,” Brooke sighed, stretching out in her chair and giving Jan a tight smile. “That means a lot. You’re a blessing to this department. I mean, God knows the mood in here today’s about as flat as…well. Maybe it’s my turn to not be good at one-liners today.”

Jan laughed softly, leaning back a little more against the files. “I try my best. But hey, I should thank you! Once Darienne goes, I might see about standing as an MP in the next by-election.”

Brooke raised her eyebrows a little. She had no idea that Jan had even had ambitions outside of performing at every available karaoke bar London had to offer. “Really?!”

“Yeah, I’ve kind of been thinking about it for a while.”

Brooke was secretly excited about the prospect of working with just Vanessa. Purely because things would be easier to organise between just two people, and things would just run more smoothly. It wasn’t because she had a crush on her or anything, that would be a ridiculous accusation. Brooke was a professional. There was no scope for things like that in this game.

“Well, I’m sure you’d be amazing. The public would love you,” she smiled at her friend sincerely. Flattered, Jan relaxed completely against the shelves, a giant file careering from the top shelf onto the ground.

“I’ll get it,” Brooke reassured Jan, whose face was apologetic.

“Right, I’m goin’ to fetch Darienne,” Vanessa announced, making her way to the lifts a little nervously. “Smiles an’ happiness when she arrives please, people, try not to make the office feel too much like a wake.”

Yvie tipped her head back over the back of her chair, looking at Vanessa upside-down. “Are we not supposed to be mourning the bitch’s career?”

With a long-suffering shake of her head, Vanessa disappeared into the lift.

Five minutes later, Brooke was picking up the dropped file from behind the shelf when two sets of footsteps thundered through the office and a voice cut through the click-clack, tapping keyboards and ringing phones.

“MEETING ROOM, NOW!”

Slowly, Brooke crept towards Darienne’s office, following a running Nina and Jan. Darienne was standing behind the desk, her face a thunderstorm. As soon as Brooke skulked in she narrowed her eyes.

“Can someone, maybe Brooke Lynn, tell me why my face is all over the papers like a disgraced fucking gym teacher?!” she barked, her voice reverberating off the glass door of her office.

“Okay, there must have been some form of mix-up with the forms because yours was completely clean when I submitted it,” Brooke immediately fired back. She’d had a bit of time to come up with her defence and, even though it was completely feeble, it was better than silence.

“That’s got to be the most shit excuse I’ve ever heard. How does something like that happen?!” Darienne yelled back. Suddenly, everyone’s eyes shifted to the doorframe of the office, where Bianca had arrived.

“Hey, big spender,” she greeted the Minister, the joke sitting out of place with the purpose of her arrival.

“Bianca, I didn’t claim for those things. I don’t know what’s going on, I gave my forms to Brooke to do, we need to tell the press that these claims are fake!” Darienne gibbered, panicking like Bianca was holding her hostage.

“Yeah, what are we running with, Bianca? We’ve been in a no comment situation all morning,” Jan asked.

“The phone’s been ringing off the hook. I’ve been ignoring it but we’ve got to give them something soon enough,” Nina shrugged, nodding in agreement. Bianca let out a harsh exhale, rubbing her neck tersely.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, could you all just get off my back for a hot second?! You’re like a pack of fucking fleas. Are you not supposed to be a team of advisors? Are you not supposed to be head of communications?!” Bianca cried, shooting Nina an icy glare. Completely unfazed, Nina clicked her pen.

“Yes, but I’m completely unable to do anything if I don’t know what we’re communicating!”

Bianca rolled her huge eyes up to the heavens, seemingly trying to cool her boiling blood. As Brooke scanned her eyes over the rest of the room, she caught Vanessa looking straight at her, her eyes a little fearful. Brooke shot her the most reassuring smile she could manage and almost gave an audible sigh of relief when Vanessa seemed to relax.

“So, you want to go out to the media and tell them that, hey! It’s not so bad, because the truth is that I’m too lazy to fill out my own fucking expenses forms, so I just gave them to one of my aides to fill out! I’m not actually keeping that close an eye on how much I’m claiming back! Do you realise how that’s going to look?” Bianca scowled, Darienne sighing and slumping into her chair.

“So what do we do?!” she asked, her voice somewhere between a whine and a plea. Brooke began to feel a bit less guilty as she rolled her eyes. She wished Darienne had a bit more backbone, a bit more of a spine. It would endear her to her a lot more. That sort of big-eyed deer act was only cute when Vanessa did it.

There was a momentary silence in which Nina clicked her pen repeatedly, looking from Darienne to Bianca, then back to Darienne.

“You have two options,” Bianca finally said, her voice much quieter than before. Turning to the other girls, she addressed them gravely. “Could you ladies give us a moment.”

Not a question, a demand. One by one, Brooke, Vanessa, Jan and Nina all filed out and wordlessly closed the door. After a heartbeat of silence, Nina sprinted over to the comms team.

“Is it happening?!” Scarlet asked, wide-eyes and open mouthed, like a child at Christmas.

“It’s happening now! It’s happening now. Two bullets in the back of the head, bang, bang!” Nina replied excitedly, her voice ringing through the offices as she mimed a brutal murder.

“Nina!” Vanessa hissed, motioning to the glass-fronted office where Bianca and Darienne were standing motionless, looking at Nina impassively. Horrified, she abruptly sat down in her seat.

“I can’t believe it’s actually going on right now. Fuck. She’s gonna hate me, ain’t she?” Vanessa worried, biting her nails. Jan slapped her hand away from her mouth.

“Stop that!” she reprimanded, Vanessa looking to the floor sheepishly. “She won’t hate you, and if she does, well, that’s politics. She’s a grown adult, she can handle it. She knew the profession she was entering into was ruthless.”

“Nobody could hate you,” Brooke added, brushing Vanessa’s cheek with her finger very slightly. “You’re like a fucking carebear. It’s impossible.”  

A pink blush crept over Vanessa’s face. “You two are too sweet to me, get outta here. Hey, have we heard about a replacement?”

Brooke sighed. “I don’t know if she’s accepted it or not yet, but Bianca told me Jackie Cox is in the running.”

Jan and Vanessa’s faces both screwed up. “Who the hell is that?”

“I went to Uni with her. I didn’t even know she was in the game until Bianca told me she’d scouted her out. I still think Jiggly would be better.”

“You mean Bianca Castro?” Jan raised one eyebrow.

“Fuck, yes. Now she’s got me doing it,” Brooke sighed, further confusing the two girls.

Suddenly, there was a creak from the office door. Darienne emerged, her posture perfect and her head held high as she walked towards the three girls. Her eyes were cold, so much so that Brooke found herself shivering a little.

“Right, well. Thank you, ladies, for your unwavering support. I wish you all very long and successful careers,” she said cooly, then her face darkened. “And I hope you all get heart failure.”

“Aw Darienne, c’mon!” Vanessa pleaded as the ex-Minister marched towards the lift, a storm cloud of rage. As Darienne stepped into the lift, Yvie began whistling Another One Bites The Dust under her breath and Scarlet started laughing so hard Brooke momentarily thought she was suffocating.

Brooke started laughing too. She had to, she couldn’t help it. This pathetic, et tu, Brute? act was wearing. Jan was right, these were the rules of the damn game. People in the department had come and gone as if Dosac was a massive revolving door and Darienne had never shed a tear for them. Brooke hated the hypocrisy that was so freely batted about in politics. Mourning a departure with a simple “it’s a shame, but they had to go” and then acting like the damn Godfather when your own time came. There was no dignity in it, no class.

“Ding dong, the useless fucking bitch is dead,” Bianca deadpanned, Vanessa relaxing and giggling a little at the slightly less high-intensity Bianca.

“What happens now, then?” Brooke asked her. “Did Jackie take the job?”

“Like a trout on a hook. Barely even had to sell it to the kid. Right, here’s the line!” Bianca suddenly yelled, loud enough that Darienne could probably hear it from the ground floor. “Darienne will be giving a statement outside Number 10 in fifteen minutes. After that, all I want to hear is praise. Praise, praise, praise, Psalm one hundred and fucking one. At 12pm, you guys will have a new Minister. Nina, it’s your job to break her in. Break her fucking spine if necessary.”

Nina nodded apprehensively, unsure of how serious Bianca was.

“I’ll see you all again at half 12. Oh, and Destiny’s Child?” Bianca said, turning suddenly to address Brooke, Vanessa and Jan as she hit the button of the lift. “It won’t be necessary to clear your desks if you don’t plan on leaving.”

As Bianca left Vanessa turned excitedly to Brooke and Jan, grinning madly as she gave them a huge hug, happy at being allowed to stay.

Brooke decided she’d probably have quite literally stabbed Darienne in the back in order to have that smile flashed at her again.

***

“Ladies, I’d like to introduce your new Minister for the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship…Jackie Cox!”

Everyone started clapping, but in equal measures scrutinising the tall girl in front of them, standing beside Nina nervously and waving hello. She hadn’t changed all that much since Brooke had last seen her. Her hair was still long, swept back into a neat pearl headband so that her dark waves fell down her back instead of over her shoulders. Her makeup was simple as it always had been: a few swipes of mascara, a dark brown eye pencil to bring out her equally dark eyes, a dusky rose shade on her lips. She was in a matching red suit jacket and tailored skirt, and had red heels on to match. Brooke’s feet were beginning to get sore in her own heels, tired from standing in line with Vanessa and Jan waiting to welcome Jackie. She didn’t have to wait much longer though as Jackie was already shaking Vanessa’s hand, smiling and gushing about how she was so honoured to take up the position and how she was so looking forward to working with her. Brooke stared at her, a little irritated with the dramatics. Jackie then moved on to Jan who was standing in the middle of the line. Brooke watched as they both looked at each other, Jan sort of open-mouthed and Jackie seemingly finding it hard to formulate words.

“You must be Janette. It’s so good to meet you,” she finally said as she shyly held out her hand. Jan took it, shaking it gently.

“It’s good to meet you too. And, uh, Jan’s fine. My friends call me Jan. Not that you’re my friend, of course, you’re my boss. But uh. You can still call me that,” Jan mumbled, her voice quiet and a little nervous and her eyes not once tearing away from Jackie’s.

“Right! Sure. I, um. I hope you’re staying on?” Jackie asked, her voice a little hopeful as she gave Jan a smile, her teeth white and dazzling.

“Absolutely. I can’t wait to start working with you! It’ll be, uh. Jan-tastic!” Jan raised her eyebrows a little as she made her joke, Jackie giving a polite laugh of her own. Brooke’s brow furrowed in confusion, the corners of her mouth turning down slightly. What the fuck was this?

“Well, I’m really excited to get started. It was so good meeting you, Jan,” Jackie smiled, giving Jan one last look as she finally tore her eyes away and faced Brooke. Her face immediately changed, taking on an awkward sort of expression as it was clear she had no idea what to say to Brooke. “Brooke Lynn! Hi! What a nice surprise! Gosh, it’s been a while!”

“Yeah, like, eight years. You look good,” Brooke replied curtly, not really instantly warming to Jackie despite her efforts.

“It’ll be nice working together. Just like at uni! I didn’t really believe it when Bianca said you were here!”

“Yeah, well. I’m just climbing the ladder. Where have you been these past few years, anyway?”    

“Just the stock exchange. It was always the economic side of our degree I was more interested in, but when Bianca phoned me I thought this was a pretty unmissable opportunity!” Jackie beamed at an unimpressed Brooke. Receiving no reply, she stepped back a little awkwardly. “Anyway, it’s nice that you’re here. I’d better start my briefing, so I’ll speak with you later?”

Brooke nodded wordlessly as Jackie click-clacked away. Say ‘nice’ again, bitch, I dare you.

Vanessa tilted her head as she watched Jackie retreat, her glossy hair swaying.

“Well, I like her. I think she’s gonna be good,” she concluded, clasping her hands together. Brooke narrowed her eyes at Jan, whose gaze was still fixed on Jackie.

“Jan-tastic? What the hell was that?”

Jan gave her a funny look. “What?! You know I love a pun.”

“Not just that. What about your MP thing? You’re seriously going to pass that opportunity up?”

Jan leant back against the glass door of Darienne’s old office, gazing dreamily at nothing in particular. “Um…yeah. Yeah, I think I’ll stay on. I’m still young, I’ve got time for the whole MP endeavour in a few years’ time. No, I think I’ll stick around here for a bit longer. Things might get interesting.”

Still confused at Jan’s sudden change of heart, Brooke shook her head and shrugged. In her opinion Jan was out of her mind, but if that was her decision then that was that. As Vanessa and Jan chatted excitedly Brooke made her way back to her desk, her head kind of in a daze. A lot was happening and she didn’t really know what the next few months were going to be like. An economist in a political position wasn’t new, but she was still reserved about welcoming Jackie with open arms. Still, whatever would happen she was glad that she had Vanessa and Jan to stumble through it all with.

God, she was glad Vanessa was staying.

Looking over to the Comms team she saw that Yvie’s computer was displaying the BBC website, where a live stream of Darienne’s resignation speech was playing. Yvie was sat in her chair, Jaida crouching at her right and Scarlet at her left, Adore peering over Scarlet’s shoulder as Darienne set down her sheets of paper and walked away from the lectern set up outside Downing Street. Yvie threw her hands in the air as if she was praising God.

“The old Minister is dead,” she cried dramatically. “Long live the Minister!”

[chierei]

Job Hunting for Dummies

I am in a school program where I spent 80% of my time learning how to get a job. While this might not work for non-specialized jobs, but if you are looking at a more targeted field, this will get you a job much easier than dropping a ton of application. Again, this works best if you are looking for a targeted job and even better, if you are a student. This entire process is detailed in Steve Dalton’s The 2-Hour Job Search but I’m basically going to give you what you need to do to get a job you will like (or at least not hate).

First, make a LAMP list. LAMP stands for List, Advocacy, Motivation, and Postings. Open an Excel Spreadsheet and just list those four things as columns. Or use this template that I am giving you. (Please save a copy for yourself)

1. List: Make a list of every company you can think off in your industry. If you are looking for only in an area, search only in that area. Use things like LinkedIn, Crunchbase, or plain-old Google. Just, make a list. Get at least 40 companies. Do NOT research the companies. Just write down the names in an excel spreadsheet.

2. Advocacy: Now, you are going to look to find companies where you can find an Advocate. This might be friends or family, friends of a friends, friends of family. This might be someone who went to your college--whether undergraduate or masters. The easiest way to do this is LinkedIn. Use the search function for LinkedIn and then filter for your school/organization and then search, company by company, to see if you have any alumni at all at those companies. Fill out the spreadsheet on a simply Yes/No Basis. Don’t research more. Just is there someone there vaguely connected to me in some way? Yes or no.

3. Postings: Now, look at each of these companies and then on a scale of 1-3, give them each a score. 3 means that they have a current posting up for a job you that want. 2 means they have jobs posted but not for what you want. And 1 means no postings at all.

4. Motivation: On a scale of 0-3, rate each company on how much you want a job with them. If you know nothing about a company, rate it as 0.

Now look at your list. You have 40 companies, at least, where you might find a job. Remember that. There are options.

Now, in Excel, you are going to use multi-level sorting in this order:

Motivation: Highest to lowest Postings: Highest to lowest Advocacy: Z to A

Now, focus on your Top 10 only for now. Maybe, as your search goes on, look at your top 15, but from experience, you should be able to get something in your top 10.

Next, the entire idea behind this exercise to to find companies to reach out to. Yes. This means networking, and yes, it sucks. I hate networking. HATE. But, sadly, this is the fastest way to get a job. They say that 70-85% of jobs are found through networking. You are better off spending your time networking than spamming out applications. 

Now, starting at the top, you are going to go company by company. Find one person at each company that is somehow connected to you--whether it’s a friend of the family or an alumni from your school. Try to find someone likely younger and in the position you are interested in. If you don’t have anyone connected at that company, you can take two routes: pick someone who has the job you want and cold email or you can take a longer route by trying to wrangle an introduction from outside that organization. I personally do the former.

These are your potential advocates. Now, this is how you can be creepy, but you are going to *find* their emails. Use Hunter.io and it’ll help you find work emails based on name and company. If they aren’t there, you can blindly guess as most company follow this pattern: firstname.lastname@companyname.com

Now, you are going to write each of these people an email. I suggest one person per company at the moment so you don’t get cluttered.

Next, draft an email to each of these people. These are what we call a 6-point email, because they are very short and consist of six points. They all follow this format:

Subject: Your experience at (company name)

Dear (name of person),

My name is (your name) and I am a (student/friend/etc) of (university name/friend name). I am interested in the work you have been doing at (company name), especially in (something specific that they have been working on). Are you able to have a short call with me to chat about your work and career in the next week?

Regards, (your name)

And that’s it. Three sentences and two of them will be identical for every single email you send.

And the reason we call this the 2-Hour Job Search is because from start (making your list) to sending the last email, it shouldn’t take more than 2-hours.

Now, two things can happen.

One: The person responds and says they’d love to have a chat. If you can do this in person, even better, but by phone or video-chat is perfectly fine. Set up a 30-minutes slot to chat with them. Reach their LinkedIn before that chat and come prepared with questions.

Now, this chat is what we call an informational interview. Do not ask for a job. DO NOT ASK FOR A JOB. We call this an informational because the goal is to gain information from this person. People love to talk about themselves, so give them this chance. You can learn more about information interviews here, but I usually do 2-4 minutes of small-talk, ask them about their journey to how they got their current job, and then start doing a deeper dive. End the conversations with “Are there any resources or advice you’d give me as I try to get into this industry?” or something similar.

What is the goal of this entire thing? It’s that you want a referral from them to someone else. Do not ask for a referral on the phone, but if they bring it up, say thank you. After the call ends, within 24 hours, send a thank you email, and this is when you can ask for a referral. The thank you email should be short, like this:

Dear (name),

Thank you for taking the time to talk with me yesterday. I really enjoyed our conversation about (something specific you talked about). I am very interested in (some function/role/area of study), and I would like to learn more. Is there anyone in your company that would be willing to talk with me?

Thanks, (Your name)

It is better if they introduce you through email directly (which most will do) but others may just give you an email. If they give just an email, in your introduction, make sure to say who referred you to them.

So, if all goes well, they introduce you to someone and you start this entire thing over, slowly making your way through the company. The hope is that when a position opens up or after you’ve applied, your contacts in the company will come to you about the job. Or, when you apply, you can name a list of employees you’ve talked to and how they’ve made you want this job. Or maybe, your interviewer will be one of these people you’ve already spoken to.

Optional: If you had a great conversation that you actually liked, you can follow-up with this person maybe 2-4 weeks later and ask for another chat.

The other thing that can happen is that they don’t respond. Don’t worry. People are busy, and emails get lost. You are to follow up twice. Once after three (3) business days and again after five (5) business days. Reply to your original email and just say:

Dear (name),

I wanted to follow up with the below. Are you available this week for a talk? I am free at (offer 2-3 times you are available.)

Thanks, (Your name)

If they don’t respond after your second follow-up, don’t email again. That lead is dead. Find another contact and try this all over again. (If you are super organized, you can start working on another contact at day 3.) Sometimes dead-ends do bear fruit though! I’ve had emails sent back to me months later with them apologizing for the delay or lost email and would love to chat still.

And that’s it. Repeat until you find something. You should not be spending more than 30 minutes a day on job hunting. If you are doing one informational interview a week, that’s enough. It’s easy to get burnt out, so spread them out and talk to people that you actually want to talk to because they are doing cool shit.

Results: I have received two job offers using this method. I thought it was dumb, but I chugged along. I have found two job offers during COVID-19 where companies are mostly under a hiring freeze. I had one company lift their hiring freeze for me and create a position just for me. It took me three months, which is about double the time it should take, but we are under special circumstances. I have had several other companies say that they would have offered me something if they were hiring. I have had companies email me afterwards to see if I am still available, because they have posted a job I could be interested in. I have friends who have found jobs in under a month using this method during peak recruiting.

Final tips:

Set a reminder in your calendar for your 3-day and 5-day (called 3D5D) reminders. They can start getting confusing when you have a few things going on.

Focus on what you like. Reach out to people who sound interesting. It’ll help the conversation feel more natural. It became a lot more natural when I reframed the conversation as “What can I learn from them?” as opposed to “What can they do for me?”

You won’t vibe with everyone and that’s okay.

Be prepared to answer this: “Tell me about yourself.” Spend less than 2 minutes on this intro--just give your background, what you do, what you love, or what you are interested in. If you need more help creating your pitch, here is a great video.

This is the quick-and-dirty version of this, but it’s all in the book The 2-Hour Job Search. Steve Dalton is a cool dude who wrote this book because he’s an awkward bean and making this step-by-step guide helped him. I hope this was helpful to you, and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask me!

Lastly, assume positive intent! <3

Networking sucks. But it does work. I have severe anxiety over meeting strangers and phone calls, but this is formulaic which helps.

And it feels contrived, because it is. But try to focus on the idea that you want to learn from these strangers and not get a job, and that helps the interactions be more normal.

And happy job hunting!

[thesewomenrulemyworld]

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But putting these accounting shenanigans aside, let�s see what the more conservative calculation of a 16. 4% return means. If I had invested my $186,000 into the S&P500 last July, I would have gained 5% ($9,300) as that�s the amount the index was up over that period. Just a month earlier, that number would have been in negative territory as the index was lower. In contrast, I locked in my revenue after each options trade was closed. I love that my profit is a real number added to the cash portion in my brokerage account rather than an abstraction based on the market trending higher. Another point to note regarding the capital at risk is that it doesn�t need to be sitting in your account in the form of cash. It will absolutely provide peace of mind if that�s the case, but you can invest it as you like to boost your returns. When I started this a year ago, my broker was paying me 1. 9% for idle USD in the account, so I was quite happy leaving it. However, that�s obviously not the case anymore, with interest rates at zero. But I could allocate that money into some safe dividend stocks and boost my returns that way. Which is somewhat the approach I�m taking. My Path ForwardTrading options may sound sexy, but it�s pretty tedious. I�ve entered over a thousand executions into my spreadsheet this past year, which is something I LOVE doing. I used to have to make manual trade confirmations at work. Now I do it to record my profits!I feel like a kid counting pennies added to his piggy bank. Except this one pays to feed my family!That said, the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know. And that�s how I feel right now. Rather than patting myself on the back for profiting this past year, I feel hesitant to be proud. I realize how little I know and that I�m merely scratching the surface of the knowledge I need to feel fully confident in trading options for a living.

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Not surprisingly, I GOT SICK of pushing the damn buttons. And I fantasized about making money from home instead. I read success stories of people starting a side hustle that allowed them to quit their job. I even knew a couple. But I couldn�t figure out what my side hustle superpower could be until I stumbled upon options trading. Trading options was something I considered for people with insane levels of intelligence. And unfortunately, that isn�t me. When I took the GMAT exams to apply for grad school, I scored in the top ten percentile for verbal (Yaaaay English Lit Class!) but the bottom ten for math. People were shocked when they found I worked in finance. Not surprisingly, I didn�t end up applying for grad school�But I said f*ck it. I�m gonna see if I can learn this options trading thing. And a year after trying it out, I�ve made $29,753. Here�s how it all went down. Discovering Stock OptionsI love reflecting on significant life changes you can pinpoint to a single event � that so-called fork in the road. In this story, it was a chance meeting with my first boss in the financial industry. The guy that mentored and taught me how to trade stocks in the first place. For the purpose of this post, I�m going to refer to him as Suzy. While at work one day, Suzy reached out, saying he was in Hong Kong with his family (where I was working at the time) and wanted to catch up for a beer. I had completely lost touch with him ever since he left the industry a few years prior to this meeting. I was both excited and curious to see what he was up to. After the usual formalities and a beer in, I asked him. He responded by saying, �I trade options for a living. �I was confused. My face resembled a deer in headlights doing a Derek Zoolander impression. He tried to explain the gist of it, but it was way over my head. All I could think of were the words �I trade options for a living� as I furrowed my eyebrows for the rest of the night. And then I went back to my button-pushing existence the next day. But this thing about options trading kept tugging at me in the back of my mind. I spent a few months reading up on it to understand some basic concepts. Once I felt I knew just enough to ask some not completely retarded questions, I emailed Suzy. For the next two years, I read through some pretty heavy and dry material while taking extensive notes.

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The risk of long calls and long puts is that the price fails to move far enough in the right direction, and the options expire worthless or fail to cover the full cost of the premiums, resulting in a trading loss on the position. Bull Call SpreadA bull call spread involves the purchase of call options at one strike price and the writing of the same number of call options with the same expiration date but a moderately higher strike price. The profit from a bull call spread is maximized when the price of the security reaches slightly under the strike price of the written options, so that the written options expire worthless while the purchased options can be exercised for the maximum value within the window of the written options expiring worthless. The downside in a bull call spread is protected when both options expire worthless, but the premium gained from the written options helps to reduce the loss from the premium paid for the purchased options. Bull call spreads are used when a trader has confidence in the direction of an upcoming price change, but not in its intensity. If a trader foresees only a small increase in the price of a security, then they can capitalize on that small increase by purchasing call options while also limiting any potential downside and reducing the cost of the premiums paid by writing options at a higher strike price that is unlikely to be reached. The downside to the bull call spread is, of course, that any potential upside beyond the projected price increase is limited due to the corresponding increase in the cost to cover the written call options. Bear Put SpreadA bear put spread is the exact opposite of a bull call spread, where the trader purchases put options and also sells the same number of put options with the same expiry date but a moderately lower strike price. The profit from a bear put spread is maximized when the price of the underlying security reaches slightly above the strike price of the written put options, which means that the written options expire worthless while the value of the purchased options is maximized within the window of the written options expiring without value. The downside to a bear put spread is limited to the premium paid for the purchased options less the premium gained from the written options, which occurs when both of the options expire worthless. Traders use the bear put spread when they want to bet on a moderate decline in the price of a security. The premiums gained from the written options help to offset any potential losses if the security fails to fall in price significantly, and they are added to the profits if the price falls within the window of the written options expiring without value. However, the upside to a bear put spread is limited by the cost of the written options increasing as the security continues to fall in value past the written put options� strike price. Option Strategies StraddleA straddle option strategies involves the purchase of call options and put options at the same strike price, usually the current price of the security, and the same expiration date. Long StraddleA straddle option trade will profit when the price of the security changes enough in either direction to compensate for the cost of both the call options� and put options� premiums. Option traders use the straddle options strategy when they are unsure about the direction of an upcoming price change, but are confident in the intensity of the price change. While this kind of situation can arise for a variety of reasons, straddles are most often used when there is a significant event that is set to occur on or around a specific date. Press conferences and news releases are common events where traders expect significant price changes, but are not confident about the direction of the price change. Straddles can offer relatively low cost access to substantial profits with little downside risk, which is merely that the price change is not significant enough to cover the cost of both premiums. StrangleA strangle options strategy is similar to a straddle, but it uses the simultaneous purchase of call options and put options at different strike prices. This spread in the strike prices means that the underlying security needs to move more substantially for one of the options to be in the money, but the premium cost for purchasing the options is lower in the case of a strangle because the options are purchased out of the money. An option trader will use the strangle options strategy when they believe that the upcoming price change will be significant, but they are unsure of the direction. This situation occurs in the same sort of events as are popular for the straddle strategy, but the trader is more confident that the change in price will be extreme. The strangle can expire worthless, unlike a straddle, but the lower initial outlay on premiums means that a strangle may actually cost loss in the event of a loss than a straddle will with only a small change in price. The strangle also has a much stronger upside potential due to the lower initial premium cost and the greater potential value increase for options that were purchased out of the money. ButterflyThe butterfly options strategy involves the sale of call or put options at a given strike price, usually at the current price, matched by an equal number of purchased call or put options equidistant from the strike price. For example, if a trader sold 2 call options at $40, they would buy one call option at $45 and another at $35 to match the 2 written options sold. In this example, the loss from the trade would be maximized at either $35 or $45, while the trade would be profitable somewhere between the $35 to $45 range. The profit from the butterfly position would be maximized at $40. Options traders use the butterfly option strategy when they wish to bet on little or no upcoming price change. The purchased options act as a form of insurance against major price changes, putting a ceiling on the potential losses from the trade.

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It Surfaces on the First Freeze of Winter (Pt 3)

"Yes, I can get the results to you, just give me a moment." Logan sandwiched his phone between his ear and shoulder and reached for his laptop. He opened a new email and attached the Excel spreadsheet full of tediously recorded lab results. He typed up a subject and a brief body and sent it. "I apologize for the wait, this disorganization won't become a habit of mine... yes, I'm suprised as well... no I don't need a sick day." Logan quickly covered the receiver before he sneezed. "Yes... yes I fell into ice water... well thank you for your concern, but it was nobody's mistake but mine... yes ma'am. Thank you ma'am. See you tommorrow, yes. Goodbye." Logan allowed his boss to hang up first. He was relieved that his reputation as a near perfect lab assistant was paying off. He basically had a steel cable safety net with how perfect his record was at that point. He prided himself on his workplace perfection; he and his boss were even working to get him a promotion of some kind. That made it all the more odd that he had forgotten to turn in his data the previous night. Whatever had happened had taken a far greater toll on him then he thought it did, his mind often drifting back to the night's events without his concious effort, making it difficult to focus. He had an urge to go back, to find his attacker and inspect every inch of it, regardless of his schedule or his job or his financial stability. The beast seemed so much more important, no matter what he told himself to the contrary. It felt big, revolutionary, life-changing. He finally gave up. He shut his laptop and grabbed a notebook and writing utensils. He slig them into his work bag and slung it over his shoulder. "Roman! I'm going to work!" Roman's head peeked out through the kitchen doorway. "I thought you didn't have work today? That was the whole reason we went out last night." "I forgot to write it on my schedule I guess." Roman gasped dramatically. "YOU? Forgot to schedule something?! The end must be coming for us all!" Logan rolled his eyes. "Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, simple statistics." "Alright. But take care of yourself, stay hydrated. I'm not gonna let you get sicker after I went through all that trouble pampering you last night." Logan could still almost taste the hot cocoa and chicken chicken noodle soup and feel the blankets wrapped around him from the previous night. "I'll be okay. If it's any consolation, you're in my will. Bedside drawer, you can't miss it." "Shut up!" Logan smiled slightly and pulled on his coat. He grabbed his galoshes and ducked out the door. The drive seemed much longer without Roman, even though they hadn't talked much anyway. Logan gripped the wheel in anticipation. And maybe a hint of guilt for lying to Roman, but he reminded himself of his reasoning. He was a little apprehensive, considering that he was reentering dangerous territory without Roman's extra protection, though he might have been even more scared of the alternative. He tried not to consider that he may have come out for nothing, that he may have to live never finding out what the thing really was. He thought back to Roman's legend, the note that the creature only emerged on the first freeze of winter during a half moon. Logan hoped, considering that that part was a little more ghost-story like, that it was merely dramatization. After all, species weren't nearly that specific. He pulled once again into the empty gravel lot. He checked the temperature. Not freezing, but not warm either. Thirty-eight. He took a breath and gripped the swiss army knife in his coat pocket before stepping out into the chill. The woods looked much different in the day; much less intimidating. Logan plunged into the swamp with little hesitation. It was a bit difficult to locate the scene of his fall considering how dissimilar everything seemed in the light, but after a relatively short amount of time, Logan found it. He dipped his hand into the water and grabbed a piece of hard plastic. He shook out the poor, waterlogged flashlight and tucked it into his pocket. It was of no use to him, but he wasn't one to litter. He looked out intently across the still surface of the water for any disturbance. A few minutes went by. His eyes flicked toward some fresh ripples. Just a twig fallen from a tree overhead. He sighed as he finally began to reflect on what he was doing, how dumb it was, how much time he was wasting. The longer he stood the more stupid he felt. Until he felt something glide across the toes of his boot. He jerked his foot back and reached out for a nearbye tree. He gripped it for stability and retrieved his knife from his pocket. He brandished it down toward the water. Against his better judgement, he forced himself to remain still. Once again, he felt something slide over his foot. It wasn't a tentacle, it was larger, heavier. The body. Logan waited a second longer to be sure. The creature rested its weight against his leg. Logan sucked in a breath. Just as he felt tentacles begin to wrap his foot, he kicked. His leg strained under the weight and his foot was enveloped by boneless flesh, but he managed to throw it off. The beast breached the surface of the water, just long enough for Logan to see a dark green mass of writhing tentacles, before crashing back into the swamp, sending waves tall enough to soak Logan's socks. Logan gripped his blade and plunged his arms in where the creature had fallen. They were met with what he imagined a human corpse would feel like after a month soaked in vinegar. He resisted the urge to let go and wrestled the cephalopod from the water. Before it could slip out of his arms, he strained his back muscles and swung his upper body, effectively granny-tossing the beast into the risen root system of a fallen tree. A chorus of wet flopping sounds accompanied the creature's struggle, similar to one repeatedly lifting spaghetti and dropping it back into a pool of sauce. It soon realized it's helplessness, now tangled uselessly in roots and it's own tentacles, and ceased to thrash. Logan blinked, still reeling from the adrenaline. The cryptid of the Florida swamps. He had it. He hesitantly stepped forward to get a closer look. The creature let out a pitiful noise, a bubbling, growl-type whimper. Logan reached out, and rather than recoiling, the thing reached out as well, matching his approach. Logan retracted his hand, prompting another whine. He inspected the creature: it was primarily a dark grey-green, though it had scalloped patterns of black which grew and shrank, seemingly dependent on it's level of distress. It's eyes were surprisingly human in external shape, though they were a fluorescent green and it's pupils were shaped similar to those of a cuttlefish, in misshapen Ws. Most suprising, though, was that it was vaguely human-shaped, with a similarly proportioned torso and head, though its limbs split off into tentacles. It's beak, which Logan could only assume it had, was hidden under a Cthulu-style beard of tentacles. Overall the creature was abhorrent, in a beautiful sort of way. It was much less terrifying out if water, limp and surprisingly small. While attacking him in the water it had seemed easily larger than Logan, but in reality it was about five feet long at most. It suddenly began to emit some uncomfortable bubbling noises, and before Logan could interfere, it had thrown up a full fish skeleton and a half-digested snake, along with a foamy froth of salt water. "Oh!" Logan once again reached out but stopped himself. He had no plan after this point, a very rare sensation for him. The creature was clearly terrified and couldn't survive long out of water, but if it was returned it could become aggressive. It whined once again, another bit of foam spilling into the water, sending light ripples that lapped at Logan's shins. Logan wracked his brain for anything potentially helpful. He cupped his hands and dipped them into the water, then threw the handful of water at the creature. It hissed at the spray, followed by a long, drawn out rumble in it's throat. It must not have been water it needed. Once again, the creature extended a tentacle toward Logan. It didn't seem aggresive, rather, it was more needy, like a child making grabby hands to be held. A very stupid thought crossed Logan's mind, one that in any other circumstance he would have rejected immediately. But he had nothing better. He bundled the end of his coat sleeve in his fist, allowing no opening. He pocketed his knife and readied his other hand on his zipper. If the creature got ahold of his coat, he could throw it off and escape. He readied himself, and reached his protected hand toward the beast. The cephalopod trilled in what appeared to be joy, and immediately took hold of Logan's arm. Before Logan had the chance to unzip, it had freed itself from the roots and made it's way up his arm, around his shoulders, and squeezed down the back of his coat. Logan froze in shock at the sudden cold sogginess embracing his entire torso. He grabbed a tree with one hand to manage the sudden weight, and with the other, he produced his knife from his pocket. Before he could reach back to defend himself, though, he felt the beast's head nuzzle into his back. It seemed oddly content. Logan blinked and cautiously lowered his knife. If he didn't need to damage the specimen, he supposed he shouldn't. "I won't hurt you if you don't hurt me." Logan found he'd begun speaking to the creature despite himself. It let out a peep, then a series of rumblings. It's tone began to shift, slowly evolving from bubbling to grumbling to vocal outbursts that sounded strangely similar to a human voice. Then something that was hardly expected; "I won't hurt you- -don't hurt me." It wasn't fully human, it was pitched oddly, and sounded vaguely similar to Logan. Like a parrot. Logan's eyes widened and his mind raced. This thing was intelligent. This thing was important. This thing was absolutely incredible. "You talk?! Can you understand?" "-understand?" Logan's astonished breaths billowed out in frozen steam. "Why did you attack me last night? Why aren't you attacking now?" "-aren't- -attacking- -last night?" "You weren't attacking last night? You nearly drowned me. Why?" "Why?" The creature pushed on his back with it's head as if to nudge him on. "You want me to guess? So you can say it?" "-guess?" Logan thought over what had happened. If it wasn't attacking, why would it grab him? Why did it want him now? He shivered. He pulled his coat tighter to block out the cold. The cold... "You're cold blooded, aren't you? You're cold! You need external sources of warmth!" "-warmth!" Logan smiled. Incredible. "If I give you my coat, can I take you off of me?" "-give -coat, can- -take- off-" the creature loosened it's grip. Logan unzipped his coat and pulled it off, making sure it was accessible while not dropping it. The specimen climbed around to the front of his torso and oozed into the garment in his arms. Logan held the thing to his chest. "Do you need water? Most octopuses can survive out of water in moist environments for thirty to sixty minutes but it's rather dry out right now..." "-moist-" "You need water?" "-moist-" "What do you need?" "-moist-" Logan squinted. "Do you just like saying 'moist'?" "-'moist'? -'moist'? -'moist'?" The creature trilled in amusement. It had a sense of humor. Not a very good one at that, but it was another sign of an incredibly advanced organism. Logan waded over to the fallen tree and carefully set the beast down to free his arms. It's posterior tentacles wrapped the trunk for stability while it's anterior tentacles clustered into the coat sleeves. It bundled itself up and nuzzled into the fabric. Logan pulled his notebook from his drybag, sat on a nearbye tree, and began to sketch. He wasn't quite as good as Roman, but he could do structure. He held his pencil up to judge proportion and translated it to the grids of graph paper. His elation grew as he managed a scientific sketch. After ten minutes or so, the creature once again began to whine. Logan looked up from his work and tucked his notebook back into the drybag. He stood and made his way to his specimen. Upon touching his coat, he found that his prior body heat had left it and it had become fully damp and cold with salt water and mucus. The beast whined again. Logan checked his watch. He'd been gone nearly three hours, and it was another hour drive back. He'd need to leave soon for lunch. He was once again met with a dilemma. If he left the creature in the swamp, it would suffer in the cold. But he couldn't really bring it with him, and the swamp was it's habitat. It had presumably survived for twenty plus years having surfaced every freeze. "I'm going to leave. Can I have my coat?" The creature whimpered loudly, echoing out into the forest. "-my coat?" "No, it's my coat. I'll be back, and I'll bring you something warm that you can have, okay? Yes or no." The beast huffed. "-no." Logan sighed. "I promise I'll be back. I know you must be extremely cold... fine. You can keep the coat for tonight, but I'm taking it back tommorrow and giving you something you can keep." The specimen squeaked with joy and bundled itself tighter in the coat. "Try to keep it as dry as you can, or it won't be warm, okay?" "Yes- -keep." Logan reached out and layed his hand on the creature's head. It pushed up into his palm in response, relishing the warmth. Logan stepped back, allowing it to slip out of the coat and back into the water. It swam a few laps around him and once between his legs before poking it's bright green eyes out of the water. Logan made sure he had everything, patting his pockets. "Well. I'll be back... probably tommorrow morning. I have work at night." Logan doubted the beast knew what work was, but he found himself telling it anyway. "Do you... want me to call you something in particular?" "-call- -me-" the creature finished it's sentence with a loud trill, followed by a low growl and ending in a hiss. "Ree...mmm...sss." Logan felt ridiculous trying to name the beast based on it's inhuman noises, but he found himself playing along anyway. "Remus. Like twin. You seem to be a mimic octopus of sorts, with your color changes and vocal abilities. It's perfect. It can be your species name too. I don't quite know your genus, or even your phylum really with any certainty... but I can name your species, I can't imagine anyone has yet. Does that sound like a good name?" Remus darted around Logan's legs for a few more laps and surfaced once again, eyes bright. "Remus. -perfect. -good name?" Logan smiled. "Glad to hear it. I should tell you my name then, shouldn't I? Logan. I'm Logan." "Logan. -good name?" Remus twirled in the water. "Logan." "I'm glad you think so." Logan stared at the creature a few moment's longer before turning and heading back to his car. "Oh no you don't!" Logan turned to see Roman pointing accusingly. "Don't be a shut in! I gathered some ridiculous movies and you're going to watch one with me." Logan looked down at his sandwich and back up the stairs. He usually ate in his room, though he knew Roman disliked it for some reason. He sighed. "Okay." He turned back and gently set his plate on the coffee table. Before he could sit out of his own volition, Roman wrapped his arms around his waist and pulled him down onto the couch. "ROMAN!" "Hm? There a problem?" Roman released his hold and blinked at Logan with innocent puppy dog eyes. Logan shoved him, breaking his facade into a quick bout of laughter. "You're an absolute menace." Logan fixed his hair and brushed himself off. "So what movies are you suggesting?" "Well, I wanted to be topical even if last night didn't go as well as we hoped." Roman flicked through his Netflix queue. "Our first option; The Creature from the Black Lagoon!" He imitated an old horror announcer, wiggling his fingers as if there were blood dripping down an imaginary title card in front of him. "Sound's patently ridiculous." "Exactly! Who doesn't like to riff on old horror flicks?" "I'm not generally one to 'riff'." Roman sighed. "I suppose not... then I guess that rules out 'Swamp Thing' too. Well if we want to take a bit of a departure we've got 'The Shape of Water'." Roman wiggled his eyebrows seductively. Logan winced. That was not something he necessarily enjoyed thinking about considering his morning. "Alright. We can watch Swamp Thing." "YES! You can be the Tom Servo to my Jonah!" "I will not be doing any riffing." Roman sighed. "Well then I'll do enough for the both of us." The show was as ridiculous as Logan had expected, and Roman's commentary, although silly, was quite entertaining. He found he had been subconsciously moving closer on the couch, not noticing until his shoulder touched Roman's. Roman looked over, but turned away quickly, almost as if he hadn't noticed at all. Within the minute though, he made another jab at the movie, using his resulting bout of laughter to slip an arm over Logan's shoulders. Not the most subtle or original of come-ons, but Logan's face flushed nonetheless. He returned the gesture by leaning into Roman's hold. The relative chaos of the last couple days was nearly forgotten in the moment. Logan spent the rest of the day brainstorming. He didn't want to reveal his secret to Roman quite yet, so he needed excuses to get out of the house. Of course work would be one, but that only made him think about how he'd manage his work as well as his escapades. The most clear but also most insane idea would be to bring Remus closer to him, but that was out of the question. He had nowhere to put it, Roman would most certainly find out, and their landlord hardly allowed guinea pigs let alone swamp monsters. Then that brought up another problem, being the creature's misery in the cold. Logan was certain it had lived through intense cold fronts before, but that didn't mean its suffering was to be brushed off. Logan chose to focus on the heat issue first and foremost. He considered ways to allow Remus relative warmth without removing it from its habitat. Anything electric would be unwise considering the water and distinct lack of electrical outlets in the middle of the forest. Coats were barely helpful either; the creature was cold blooded, so as soon as the coat lost warmth it would have no way to regain it. It would simply function as a windbreaker of sorts. Logan thought a moment. He pulled out his laptop and did a quick search. The idea was expensive, but doable. It would definitely be a good way to get the beast on his side. Logan found where to buy such a gift and closed his computer. He trotted down the stairs, grabbing a jacket on the way to the door. "Going for groceries!" "Don't strain yourself specs!" Logan ducked out the door and once again into his car. He started it, though before he pulled out he noticed the fuel gauge, indicating he was near empty. He sighed. This project was going to cost him an awful lot of gas.

[nickhembery]

trigger warning: shit gets dark

I've been thinking about writing this for a while. It's going to be a long one, because it's going to tell a story of a long period in my life. It's going to get into a lot of banality of office work, and its going to go to some dark places, because it's also the story of depression. My depression. My sink into some pretty dark thoughts and the path out of them.

The story starts in 2007. I was a year out of university with a degree barely worth the paper it's printed on, so was struggling to find a job. A task made a lot harder because I still didn't have any idea what I wanted to do for a career. So I was going from short temp job to short temp job, feeling kind of down. When one day I get a text from an agency that had given me a few jobs. "Want to be working Monday?" I think it said. I replied in the affirmative. I was given an address and told to be there at 8.30am on Monday. I said I would be there.

The company I had just agreed to work at was at the time a freshly independent arm of Zurich bank. It operated in a very niche area of financial services. When you want to get a mortgage, insurance, or some other financial thing, you can go to a bank. Or you could pay someone else to go to the banks and find the best deal for you. These people are called financial advisers, they go and talk to random people and convince them to act as intermediaries to the bank, and doing this they earn commission. This commission can vary, unless they are part of a large group, not quite a union, of similar advisers that can collectively bargain better commission rates for the advisers. That's what this company was, an intermediary for an intermediary, a company that only dealt with other companies and to the public at large is invisible.

My job at the company was quite simple. When the financial advisers sell things, they earn commission, that commission comes from the bank, goes through the company, and on to the adviser, except when the computer system failed to process it. My task was to look at these system failures, figure out why they failed, get them working again and the money passed on to the adviser. It sounds quite slick when you say it like that, except it was monotonous, easy and boring. There were only actually about six reasons that a payment failed to process automatically, and quite quickly you got good at spotting what the cause was with just a glance at the data. From there, it was simply a case of following the steps and pushing buttons in the right order to get things moving again. After that, you moved onto the next payment in your list of payments to deal with. Because there was always more.

That, in a nutshell, was my job. The digital equivalent of the old-timey footage of the factory worker doing the same thing over and over. I was there to correct a failure in an automatic process, and at any time could be made redundant when they figure out how to stop it happening. But this is where things take a dark turn. I was never made redundant. In all the time I was at the company, no one ever changed the system in an effort to effect the automatic processing. It was easier for the company to employ me, and a lot of other people, to push the buttons in the correct order, than it was to get someone to actually fix the system. That's a heavy thing to carry with you. You're not worth enough to be a saving if you're made redundant. So you sit there, working your tools on the conveyor line.

Let's talk about the tools for a minute. Those didn't change much in my tenure either. The thing the advisers used to send us information about the things they sold changed twice. It started they were using paper. Then a digital system was built over a few years by many, many contractors. But it basically didn't work, so was scrapped and replaced in about two years after launch. There was one particular time when £10,000 had been spent on a button that would stop some errors happening. It didn't work, so we saw no difference. The thing that all our records of payments were stored on was excel spreadsheets. Thousands upon thousands of records per sheet, switched out monthly. We were using it like a database table. Information was constantly being entered and changed, by multiple people at once. So it broke a lot. You'd try to save changes and you'd get an error message. The source file was corrupted, or deleted. When that happened there was a twenty-minute procedure to fix things and get back on track. It happened at least once a month. IT apparently spent a long time trying to solve it. One time they announced they had solved the problem, and while they had, they also caused an even worse problem, so I demanded we be rolled back immediately. We were rolled back after the second instance. The last tool we had was the main database and payments system. Every record on the spreadsheet already existed on the payments system, but there was no way to retrieve records in the filtered form we needed on the fly. So we went between the spreadsheet and the payments system, sorting things out and amending data. The payments system in a word, sucked. It crashed four times a day and you had to reset it on your computer. Once a month it went down for the whole company for about an hour. Imagine you're typing an email, you hit send and you get an error message. You restart your email client and it doesn't want to open. You ask the person next to you to check their email, theirs is broke too. You ask around, no email for anyone. Then someone has to call IT and report that email is down. Then you wait, and no one can do anything without email. Every month, the tools we relied one would break down and we had to wait for them to be fixed. And neither of those was changed.

One more thing to talk about in the structure of the job. Crunch time. You ever have a big deadline, where a lot of work needs to be done in a short space of time so everyone has to put in extra hours? And it's really important so everyone is expected to come in and help out, because you have to hit that target? How often does that happen for you? In this job, there was one every single month. I mentioned the spreadsheets were swapped out monthly. That's because our cycle of work was on a monthly pay run cycle. Everything that came in during the month was processed in the same month. Well, mostly. 99% was the average. And you'd think okay, so you see what you get at the start, figure out how many then work to the speed so you're done at the end, right? Wrong. Stuff keeps coming in throughout the month, and all of it has to be done. This includes the mammoth file that comes in three to five days before the deadline, and is equivalent in size to half of all of what you've done in the month to that point. Three days to process thousands more payments. And this was routine. Every month, the file lands and everyone gets to work on it. The spreadsheet and system crashes frequently happened during these periods. One time the bosses did trial offsetting the mammoth file to the following month so there wouldn't be crunch for us. But the bosses upstairs didn't like it, so it was put back. A crunch period. Every single month. It's worth pointing out that this was my first proper job, so I didn't actually know this was abnormal. So I just got on with it.

So this is all pretty sad. The work is easy to the point of mind-numbing boredom. The tools break frequently. Nothing is being done to make things better. Periods of high stress all the time. What do you do? You try to leave. Except. I was hired as a temp in July 2007. Made permanent in late 2008. Then the financial crises happened. No one was getting out. Every job advertised was crap or worse. It was a while before it was worth job hunting seriously again. And that didn't go well. At one point I talked to a career's adviser because as I put it "the phone doesn't ring", no one was interested in me. I was overqualified for the crap and underqualified for everything else. Trapped. Doing the same crap, over and over, in a monthly cycle, over and over. I had already identified and openly talked about how I disliked the job. I described myself as a professional button pusher. Or, bored office worker by day, insane video gamer by night. Or, everything positive in my life is outside of work.

The positive things. They were there. I had met a group of friends that are still with me today. My family were and still are incredibly supportive of me. I travelled, going to various events and seeing strange sights. And I found the thing I wanted to really do for a career. In 2011 I was a founding member of a writing group in which we all read and critiqued each other's work. And while I could be cutting in my comments, I was honest and very good at it. And I enjoyed it. Pursuing that, I looked into how to do it for a job. It's very tough when you're not ten years younger than I was, doing or done an English degree at a better university than I went to, or just had decent connections in the industry (that I didn't have). So, freelance work. What a mess that is. Various websites offer connecting freelancers to customers, but those are fiercely competitive, to the point that it's a race to the bottom, working virtually for free, if you find work at all. The freelance market is a full-time job to find part-time work. Not fun. Something I started doing was seeking out courses on proofreading in order to boost my profile. And this is when things get very, very dark.

In 2014 I received the results of my third (I think, it might have been second) attempt at one of these courses, and I didn't make the cut. Feeling sad and not having anything else to do that day, I went out to the gym. Driving along a dual carriageway, I noticed that there wasn't a barrier in the grass verge between the opposing lanes. I thought about veering across and causing a head-on collision. What stopped me was the thought "no, that's really rude to the other driver". The thing about low-burning anxiety is that you're constantly afraid of strangers. What if they attack me? What if he tries to mug me? What if that bus jumps the curb and hits me? All of these things are imagined external threats. This thought of veering my car was the first time it would be me causing the damage, so it flagged immediately as something that shouldn't be there. In a bit of a daze I continued to the gym, worked out for a bit then went home. When I arrived I switched my computer on and googled "depression test". I found seven online tests on various sites, and did all of them. The results across the board, were that I was seriously depressed. I sat back, and thought about this for a moment. Then I thought that the suicidal thought incident probably triggers a thing in them for maximum safety. Anyone that thinks of killing themselves is automatically told to seek help. So I did all the tests again, and this time I left out the suicidal thought bit and lied a little for good measure, saying I wasn't as bad as I really felt. The results were the same. Heavy depression. Get help.

I quickly arranged an appointment with a doctor, got a prescription for anti-depressants and various reading material. At the time I was struggling to read for long periods, my attention wasn't holding, so I got a couple of audiobooks on depression and low self-esteem. I figured there was a lot of overlap. I also met with a therapist, and attended a seminar series to talk about my issues. The cause of this sadness was immediately obvious. The job. But, I couldn't quit. When I had met with the career's adviser a few years previous, the same one that I had told "the phone doesn't ring", I had asked about quitting so that I could become 'immediately available' as some ads requested. He advised me against it, stating that those currently in work were 40% more likely to find new work. The logic is there, you're proving that someone wants to hire you, so the new people should too. Though I sometimes wonder on the accuracy of the figure. But what to do when the job gives you depression and you can't quit? I decided to give myself six months to learn about my condition and let the medication kick in, then start job searching with a seriousness hitherto unseen. I have no idea if I just used 'hitherto' correctly. Anyway, learning.

How does depression work, and how do you cope with it? In reading (listening) and talking, I learned about various coping mechanisms, and that somehow I'd done everything right. It was part of how the job was so identifiable as the cause. I didn't do anything other than the job that didn't give me happiness, reward or satisfaction. Like going to the gym. That started because I was feeling pains in my arms and shoulders from lack of exercise, so I joined up to make that go away. Exercising is highly recommended to depressives because of all the endorphins. Another was staying up late. Lying awake in bed is classic bad thoughts time, so I avoided it as much as possible. I would stay up on the computer until the early hours, then I would climb into bed and play a different game, keeping going with that until I was almost passed out from exhaustion. Only then would I switch everything off and go to sleep. It wasn't healthy, but it kept the bad thoughts at bay. Living with other people also helped greatly. They could keep an eye on you, make meals so that you actually ate, and be someone to pretend to be normal for. One time I was alone in the house for a while, and it took me three hours to get out of bed, wash and dress. Wouldn't have got away with that if anyone else had been home and needed to use the toilet. But the most important mechanism by far, was the first one.

Most people when they work listen to music. A radio is the classic. These days it’s youtube or spotify. But I didn't listen to music, because it wasn't enough of a distraction. I could do my job, listen to music and daydream at the same time. And they weren't good daydreams. So I listened to podcasts and audiobooks. Thousands upon thousands of hours, I heard quiz shows, tech news, movie reviews, historic stories, short stories, random rants and books and books and books. I didn't talk to my colleagues much. I would arrive, switch on my PC, plug in my headphones, and be silent for most of the day. I didn't like saying good morning to people, I can't recall why, and I thought it would be horrible if all I said to people was goodbye, so I didn't engage them unless absolutely necessary. Sometime people ask how I could work and listen to spoken word at the same time. I always equated it to driving and listening to the radio. I was looking at shapes (numbers) and hearing words. I kept the two separate in my head and kept going. If I had to write an email I would pause the audio. Needless to say, with all the silence, I wasn't popular. I didn't care. I really didn't want to be there, so I did my best to pretend I wasn't.

Slight tangent, how often does the phone ring at your work? Once a day? Once a week? Several times a day? Well, when I started at the job the phone would ring a lot. Because as well as being the correction mechanism for the automatic system, we were also the second line support for the contact centre. A payment would go wrong, an adviser would call up, the person they reach wouldn't know anything about it, so they would call us. Again and again. And these were important calls, our customers the advisers couldn't just be ignored, no. So there always had to be someone to answer the phone, which meant everyone couldn't be on lunch at the same time, which in turn meant that everyone had a set period when they went to lunch. From twelve till one or one till two. The team was split down the middle. You left on the dot and you were back on the dot. Annoying, but also strangely fortuitous. Because it gave me a set period every day of non work. Where I could leave and partake of another activity. Some people went for walks, or read a book. Me, I wrote. Many thousands of words. Then I edited. Then other stuff, I'll get back to that later. The 'wrong' part about this rigidness was that unlike my job, things changed for the contact centre. What was once six people and no clue was grown to twenty who were well trained and knew their stuff. My phone stopped ringing. They didn't need us anymore, but the rigid lunch times stayed. I wonder why. Anyway, the writing I did in my lunch breaks was a great coping mechanism, gave me a massive sense of accomplishment. "What did you do at work today?" "I wrote 1000 words" In my lunch break.

That was all stuff I was doing by accident when I was diagnosed. After the six month to learn and let the meds kick in, I really got going. It was here that I started my annual goal setting, which has featured heavily in the blog before. "In the coming year I will X, Y and Z". I wrote many drafts of books. I learned to touch type. I learned how to animate. I tried several times to learn how to code. I tried and failed and tried some more. But the big thing was that I put on the list was to get a new job. And here is why it took so long to come off anti-depressants and declare myself well: job searching is hard. You write a CV, you search for jobs in your area, you put in applications for every one you think you could get, and you wait. Every day, searching, writing, applying. I also signed on with almost every job agency in the area. For the most part the experience was the same, you go in, fill out forms, sign up, lots of smiles and handshakes, you leave, you never hear from the agency again. Attempts to contact them are ignored or brushed off. There's a couple specific stories to tell here. One agency approached me and asked me to sign up, I happened to have a day when I could come in as I was also going to the dentist. I told them what time I would drop by and to let me know if that wasn't good. The day came, I drove over, got buzzed through the door, sat in the reception area, and waited. For an hour. I went back outside, got on the intercom again and was buzzed inside again. This time someone turned up and told me politely that she couldn't help me as she oversaw a different area, the person I was there to see was busy, and they also don't take walk ins, so please leave. I left. At half past four that afternoon I got an email from the contact saying sorry but they don't have time that day, is there another time I'm available. I did not reply. Another story. One time after applying I got a call, it was from the agency that listed the ad. They had me on file, I had signed on with them two years previous, but could I please come in and sign on again. I replied that none of my information had changed, and I had never actually left the agency's rolls, so why did I need to sign on again? She agreed and ended the call. I never heard from them again. To this day I am confused as to what people who work in job agencies actually do.

Back to my search. Every day I checked a few different websites and applied for whatever I had a shot at. When you do this everyday, you're effectively staying current in the market, seeing stuff the same day it's posted and you can skip the things you've seen before. The upside of this is that you're not wasting time on old listings that already have lots of applications. The downside is you see how few jobs are being posted day to day. But still, you apply, and you actually get results. People call you and invite you in to interview. Things get more frustrating than when dealing with agencies. You get a date, time and location. You make arrangements, put on your suit, show up. You smile, you shake hands, you answer their questions. They say thank you and goodbye. It's some time until you hear from them, or from a representative. The answer is always no. The reason for why it's no is rarely there. Occasionally you get told that one of the other candidates was better in some way, which is understandable. The rest of the time, nothing to tell you why. One time I got the call that I hadn't been selected, and when I asked why they said "client suitability". I asked what that meant, they replied that I didn't tick all the boxes that they wanted. I asked which boxes were lacking. We went round and round a little until I backed them into a corner, and they admitted that they didn't know why I wasn't chosen. I just about held back from asking why the fuck they bothered to call. Just.

After about two years of searching, applications, rare interviews, no feedback, I decided to do something about it. I got in touch with careers advisers again and they forwarded me to a local office where I could be given a mock interview. I wanted to know why I was being told no all the time, and I was determined to get an answer. The nice group sent me a list of questions ahead of time to make prepared answers for, which was good. On the day I suited up, went along and we sat down. The questions were all generic, as they couldn't do an interview for a specific job. It was all about my skills, what I could bring to the table, my goals. I answered everything as best I could. The mock interview ended and I asked what I'm doing wrong. I was told "that was great, I'd hire you on the spot". I think that's the worst bit of feedback I've ever received. No advice or ideas on why I wasn't being selected. The best they could offer me was to flat out ask how I did on the day to get immediate feedback.

We're into the final stretch now. The last year at the bad job. I didn't know it yet of course, I was still getting rejected all the time and had days when I felt I could lie down on the floor of the office and go to sleep in the middle of the day. It's worth noting this period because things got a little better, and they also got worse. What to go over first. How about promotions? The entire time I worked at the company, I was not promoted. I was the same grade the day I left as the day I was made permanent staff. The way to get promoted and the raise that goes with it was to make your boss like you. That's a bit difficult when you're unsociable, depressed, and your immediate superior is an idiot you refuse to talk to. Really, on paper she was my manager and was responsible for my annual assessments. In practice, her boss handled those for me and I refused to go back. So no promotion for me. It was promised by the CEO in that last year that the company would formalise the way to get promoted. You don't need to be liked if you're good at what you do, I think. That method was yet to be published when I left, likely because there was so many people that could rightly kick up a fuss at being passed over in the past. So there's that. Next, bonuses. The company, when it was formed, was an offshoot of Zurich as I said. Being a limited company, there were shares available that could only be held by certain people, including employees. These shares were allocated out to the staff as bonuses each year on the reason that one day the company would be sold and everyone would get a big payout. Well, in my last year with the company, it was announced that these shares actually had an expiry date. Ten years after allocation, if the company wasn't sold then the shares were void. All that promise of a payout evaporated. The company wasn't going to sell, the plan was to go public. But, bonuses for the staff. What to do instead? Well, they instituted a "long term incentive plan", where on four-year cycles staff would be given a moderate payout by the company. The first cycle would start the following year, and as a reward to all the staff that had been with company for a decade already, they would be getting *slightly* more than people who had joined yesterday. No one cheered. Related to bonuses, annual raises. Inflation is real, you need to keep pay going with it. But how much? That is what the annual appraisal determines. For a long time you were given a score out of 150. Most people got 85-95. Reasonable. It got you a modest bump in pay. In the last year, the system was changed to grading out out of five. Not five hundred, five. The lowest you could get was a one. Things got a bit more black and white. And, I was given a two. Not because I had actually done badly, but because I wasn't fulfilling my potential, apparently. No, I don't know what that could look like. So a few months later (after the boss' boss had changed) when everyone was getting letters about how much they were getting extra, I didn't get a letter. That two cost me all possibility of a raise. That grates. What grates more is that also in that last year a new guy was hired to the team who had no more responsibility than me, but was hired to a the upper grade (with the extra money). Similar to the money situation, was the wellbeing situation. Every year the company ran a survey to see how the staff felt things were going. Every year I filled it out and told them how miserable I was. In the last year, it turned out that everyone in my team had filled out the survey to similar effect. 40 people who all worked together weren't happy with their lot. So one day we were excused from normal duties (button pushing) and taken next door to a hotel to sit in a conference room and talk. We were shown graphics of our survey results and asked what could be done to improve those scores. What weren't we happy about? What could be changed? Being someone who had given this a lot of thought, I was able to answer. I spoke of all the problems, the unmoving, the boredom, the being ignored. And after that day, nothing changed. I sometimes wonder if anything ever did. By far, the strangest story of that last year is when I was asked to train a new hire. I didn't want to, but the bosses insisted. What's strange about this is that the person exposed a flaw in the hiring system. They were a simpleton. I taught them the basics of how spreadsheets worked, once answered a question with "you asked me that yesterday and wrote down what I told you", and I corrected their work again and again. It would be called amazing if it wasn't tragic. The job that was so easy and boring it gave me depression, was too hard for this person. Eventually, an excuse was found to fire them. And new hires after that described tests they took before being taken on.

The incredible thing about this entire journey, is that I don't remember the most important part. The day I applied for my current job. I can't remember seeing the ad, or filling out a form, or writing an email. That single, critical moment that would see my life change is missing from my memory. It was the job hunt of course. Searching every day, the phone ringing occasionally, always being told no, what's the point of remembering a single application? So I didn't. And it was a surprise when the phone rang to invite me for an interview. Naturally, I suited up and went along. I remember the clock on the wall over the interviewers' shoulders. I remember finding a fleck of white in the glass of water I had been given and looking up to see if the paint was peeling off the ceiling. I can't really remember the questions. I can remember when my car stopped on the drive home. The battery had died, I had to get a jump start to get home then order a replacement. Aside from the car trouble, it was just another interview. So it was a greater surprise when I got the call about the second interview. When I went along, one of the people I had met the first time remembered me and said hi. I was shocked, I also didn't remember them. I met the people that are now my bosses and spoke to them. I recall near the end I asked the 'how did I do?' question, and expected to get a non-answer. I was told that so long as I did well on the test then I had it in the bag. Okay then, more pressure please. They had told me about the test beforehand, and I brought along my own pens for it. One day, I hope to interview an assistant or replacement proofreader, and I'll ask to see what pens they brought. By far, the biggest shock was when I got that phone call, and was told I had the job. I can't recall exactly what I said, but I doubted that it was real, wanted to know if they were sure, something like that. After that call, I had to collect my thoughts and hold back from bursting into tears. I went back to my desk and immediately handed in my notice. It was within two days either way of eleven years after I had started at 8.30am on a Monday.

The month of my notice was an epilogue. Word spread that I was leaving. I smiled more than I ever had. People asked how I'd gotten the job, I told them about the journey. No one asked me if I was sure, I was the guy that said "I would love to be made redundant". But there was the meeting. In the larger team of 40, I was in a pod of eight. We all worked on the same stuff. This pod included the guy who was hired to be above me, and the idiot boss. A few days before the meeting, she asked me if there was anything I did that I thought other people would need to take care of when I wasn't there. I had a list. I wrote it down, and this list was put onto the agenda for the meeting. They were going to hear about all the busywork I did when there was nothing else to do that was actually really productive. On the day, we stood and left our desks to go to the meeting, the boss turns to me and asked me to take the minutes of the meeting. I told her that as I was doing the explaining and handover, I was going to be doing a lot of talking. She said, and I kid you not, "But last time you did the minutes it was really funny". I put my foot down and refused. In the meeting, no one quite believed what I was doing when they weren't watching me. The small things that kept everything moving. Keeping a spreadsheet updated. Pushing a button off and on each day. Checking for data entry errors. The majority of this work went to the grade-above guy. Finally, the day came. I left on a Friday. The following Monday I did my new commute to the new office, with new people and new work. I try not to look back, to get angry. But things keep bubbling up, so I thought I would write it all down here.

I have to recognise through all of this how lucky I was. Friends and family were there to support me. I had the resources to maintain my coping mechanisms. I caught the problem before it became an issue big enough to interfere with my work. I live in a time of the Internet that I could search for a phrase like "depression test" and find free resources. I live in a country with free healthcare, so saw doctors, pharmacists and therapists for no cost. That same country has subsidised medicine, so for the same cost (less then £9) as any other prescription, I got custom-made bottles with enough liquid to last a month. I was given a medication that gave me no ill effects on the first try. Said medication didn't become ineffective while I was taking it. I had the support and energy to keep working and job hunt at the same time. Four and a half years of living in a house of cards where anything could have brought it all crashing down. And then where would I be? Maybe back on the dual carriageway, looking at the gap in the barrier. But I was lucky, and now I'm here.

I stopped taking the antidepressants six months into the new job. Aside from a little lightheadedness of withdrawal, nothing happened. No exhaustion. No sadness. No lack of appetite or inability to sleep. It was over. I don't like saying 'cured', and I can't say 'free', because in a sense I'll never be free. This happened to me. All of it. And I can't just forget it, pretend it didn't happen. For starters it's eleven years of my life, I can't sweep that under the rug. I guess what I can do is learn from it, and keep it as a warning. Know the red flags in case it happens again.

If you've read all of the above, thanks I guess. It's definitely the longest blog I've written to date, and will likely be the longest I ever write. It took several days to pull it all together. While the events are true to the best of my recollection, it is possible that I'm misremembering them, putting things in the wrong time or attributing to the wrong person. If you or someone you know is experiencing depression, and don't have a good societal infrastructure to go to for help, I recommend talking to friends, family or colleagues. There's the cliche of the person that attempts suicide and survives, then the self harm being labelled 'a cry for help'. Don't let it get that far. Be open with your feelings, and encourage others to do likewise. In the end, it's okay to admit that you're not okay.

[uayv]

i just realized its been a little over a year since I graduated and had to pull my shit together to find a job. heres some tips if anyone feels a little lost and some examples from my own struggles.

start with your cv! whether you’re applying for a summer internship program or fresh outta uni trying to figure out how you’re supposed to navigate the job market, start with your cv. take every little thing you’ve ever done and construct something out of it! look at any extracurriculars youve done or any interests and skill you’ve picked up over the years and figure out. i literally got my foot in the door because i learned how to read html/css on tumblr so i kinda dropped it in my interests and mentioned it in my interview and im pretty sure it gave me a bit of an edge for getting the position. 

window shop a little! there are so many jobs and job expectations out there! take a look around and familiarize yourself. getting yourself acquainted with the market and the language that people use is super important and can help you go back and polish up your cv to fit it. I struggled with this a little bit myself. I went to uni in canada but came back to hk so the entry position names and the terms that they used for recruiting was pretty different (idk if its the same for other places but uhhh like in hk all the entry level/fresh grad positions are ‘executive’ positions lmao which i did not know). i would say definitely try to figure out key terms or skills that will make it easier to filter your search.

dont preemptively disqualify yourself! apply to jobs that you dont think you’re fully qualified for. literally. actually. apply. im not saying like shoot for the something unreasonable. but dont be turned off by postings that expect more years or more experience than you have. dont disqualify yourself before you even get the chance to try. the worst that could happen is you dont get a response. the best that could happen is you get called in for an interview. either or its still just another part of the process! everyones gotta start somewhere with experience so just give yourself the chance to get some.

alter your cv’s and cover letters! everyone says it. actually do it. have one basic cv that has everything on it. thats your building block and probably the cv you can use to send out to general jobs that youre kinda interested in but really just shooting your shot just to try. when you see a job you’re really interested in or really fits a certain skill or background that you have then create another cv that accentuates those skills! you gotta mold yourself a little to fit the image that the person whose hiring you is looking for. tailor your cover letters a little to the company and the job posting and align yourself for the position. its the same concept as buying the right shoes for the right sports. youre not gonna wear converse to a 100m sprint. and youre not gonna send him some generic cover letter to a job youre really aiming for.

make a spreadsheet! i literally applied to so many jobs that i couldnt keep track without the spreadsheet. it was helpful for if i got a call for an interview and had to go back to reference what the exact expectations for the post was. mine looked like this (company; position applied for; location; date applied; where i found it; a response column; and a details column that linked to the job posting’) but for sure tailor yours to your own job search. [yes i applied to like almost 150 jobs but yknow most were just shots in the dark for shits and giggles]

dont necessarily take the first job you hear back from! congrats maybe you got an interview and got an offer! don’t be scared to say no. unless its a job that you know you’re really gunning for and super interested in, i wouldnt advise to settle if you can afford not to. the tip i gave my friend was to think about whether or not you still wanted to look for other jobs when you receive the offer. i know this is a luxury not everyone can decide to take but if you can then do so. if you cant afford the extra search time, then take the job as a learning opportunity. like i said before everyone has to start somewhere if theyre gaining experience.

give yourself a break.. dudes its hard to transition out of a system thats been guiding you since you essentially knew how to write your name. if you get the chance give yourself a break and dont continually get stressed about this. take a breather, schedule some time outta your day. if youre trying then a job will come. the right one. 

edit: i wanted to also add some general places to look at for postings

linkedin / indeed.com - both let you create cv’s, job search, save jobs youre interested in, and quick apply. theyre good places to start just cause there’s so many postings. dont just look at the jobs, look at the companies and sister companies.

go directly to a company you’re interested in - if youve got an interest in working with a certain person or company, literally go to the website and see if theres a hiring/contact/linkedin for the company and directly apply there. send a email! there’s bound to be a way to contact them (lmao respectfully pls)

check out some university job boards - some are public, or if youve just graduated there might still be access for you. my uni also had a ‘jobs’ facebook page. dont forget about alumni groups if your school might have one. alumni groups are literally made for you to connect and try to open opportunities.

graduateland / angellist / jobsdb (if ur in asia) - check out the smaller more ‘boutique’ places that are more tailored to ur geo or interests. like for example angellist is mostly for startups and smaller companies.

[paytonsportfolio]

Reading Through the Screen

The excessive amount of technology that has been implemented into today's society has been an ongoing controversial topic. Whether it rots our brains or makes us ten times smarter, people across the globe deal with digital literacy every day. Technology has advanced greatly over the last few decades and has completely shaped how we live. Our daily routines revolve around technology. We look at our phones when we wake and when we go to bed. We can even track our calories burned every single day. The fact is, digital literacy dominates the people of our society’s everyday lives.  

In order to be successful in today’s mechanically driven world, you must be literate and have some experience with computers. Most of the time, whether you are working at your job or completing a project for school, you deal with digital literacy. It doesn’t matter how high or low of a paycheck you receive. You will deal with digital literacy; for example, employees at Taco Bell are required to read the upcoming order on a screen to ensure that they cook and prepare the correct order on time. On the other end of the spectrum, if you have a higher-ranking job than working at Taco Bell, like a CEO of a company, you are also required to digitally read and communicate.  

There’s also the other aspect of looking at a much younger population, children in school. The expectation of having computer and literacy skills have skyrocketed. Even at the age of eight, sometimes even younger, students are taught computer skills. When I was in grade school, it was required for me to take multiple years of typing classes. This class entails reading words and phrases off a computer screen and typing them in response. Sometimes the program will even give you paragraphs to read and type. It was very fast pace; therefore, my classmates and I had to retain the text quickly in order to do well in the class. For students that don’t have the opportunity to take this class, I think it is a setback in learning to have a relationship with the computer. After lots of repetition and practice, you get used to typing a particular way, but for the students that aren’t taking this class, it will be hard for them to type at a faster pace.  

Students most commonly use digital literacy when they are unsure of a question and search for the answer on a web browser. This can be very useful and is not only done by students. When attending a university, it is required to have a laptop or tablet to complete coursework and utilize it during class. Colleges like Cleveland State University operate their courses through computer programs. Cleveland State University uses a program called Blackboard. Blackboard uploads course materials that are a key role in a student’s success. Many grade schools and universities, mostly private institutions, supply students with iPads, encouraging them to read and do their homework outside of the classroom. Other students don’t bother with the readings and download games like “Subway Surfer” instead.  

Text messages are the most common types of digital literacy that are used daily. Nowadays, everyone has a cell phone. Texting can be used for a variety of things. It can be very beneficial. In some cases, getting a text could save a life; for example, if you have a home intruder, you must contact someone for help. Calling the police is your first option; however, you must stay quiet. Luckily, we have texting. In today’s modern world you can now text the police, specifically in situations like this. Although it is not often that you will come across one of these life-threatening situations, it goes to show you that texting isn’t all that bad. Of course, when you are texting your friends, it’s not the most formal form of communication, but you still need basic literacy skills. You can’t type a long rant without punctuation. It wouldn’t make any sense.  

Along with text messages, emails are also a source of communication that is used daily. Unlike text messages, emails are often used as a formal type of communication; for example, a student will email their professor a question about an assignment when they are not in class. You can’t email a professor like you would text a friend. It’s just unprofessional. In order for your email to look professional, you must know the format to set your email in. Normally, you start with a greeting, which addresses who you are speaking to. Following your greeting is your body, where you get your point across. Finally, you close your email with your name and a phrase like “thank you” or “sincerely.” If you don’t use these essential literacy skills, you will be unprofessional.  

Social media has a huge influence on the forever evolving English language. Slang is used and seen daily on social media, text messages, or conversations with friends. Considering how often humans use these phrases, they are essential in today's pop culture, but slang has been evolving for decades. One of the more recent phrases that was established from social media is “and I oop!” A viral video of a drag queen, Ms. Jasmine Masters, was in the middle of a rant and accidentally hit her genitalia on a chair. “And I oop” can be portrayed many ways and used in many different situations. It is most commonly used when someone sees or hears about something that catches them off guard; for example, you are walking around town and see your friend with their ex-boyfriend. For people like my friends and I, it is our first instinct to say, “and I oop!” This is just one of many examples of slang that have dramatically affected the new ways of language.  

If my generation lived twenty years ago when we didn’t have the current, advanced technology. We would be lost. How would we show our followers what we are eating for lunch every day? You can’t “D.M.” a guy that you think is cute. You would have to speak to him in person. Imagine if you had to read a physical newspaper to learn about the latest news like our grandparents did, and no, there is no such thing as facetime. You can’t video chat your friend and have them walk you through how to break up with your boyfriend over text. We take all of these things for granted because we use them daily.  

I can assume that most grandparents are like mine and always ask how to operate technology. Almost every time I visit my grandparents, I am asked a new question. “How do you make the words bigger?” “Can you download some music for me?” Of course, I always help, but what’s hard to admit is that I always tend to not understand why it’s so hard for my grandmother to operate an iPhone. Then again, could you imagine having to adapt to rotating landlines to portable telephones that can do almost everything that a computer can do? They went from having jobs that have little interaction with technology similar to what we have today to adapting to screens and operated machinery surrounding their workplace.  

Whether you believe the overpowering amount of technology that is available to people across the world is a threat to one’s brain, or if you believe being able to create an Excell spreadsheet makes you a genius, technology isn’t going anywhere. People are constantly reading and writing through a screen. Almost every aspect of life has been modified because of technology. There are new ways to communicate, learn, write, or generally do your job. It is expected to be digital literate today in order to be successful. Digital literacy is used every day in all different kinds of aspects.  

[crownedbyluke]

Suits and Leather Jackets (Ch. 1)

Premise: Bryn’s first week at Catch Fire Advertising had been pretty simple, but when the CEO of the company, Luke Hemmings, asks her to dinner, she’s put in a position she’s unsure she wants to be in. With rumors swirling around them and Bryn wanting nothing more than to just be another employee, how long will it take before their bursting into light by each other’s company?

Word Count: 4,300

{Chapter One} {Chapter Two} {Chapter Three} {Chapter Four} {Chapter Five} {Chapter Six} {Chapter Seven} {Chapter Eight} {Chapter Nine} {Chapter Ten} {Chapter Eleven} {Chapter Twelve} {Chapter Thirteen} {Chapter Fourteen} {Chapter Fifteen} {Chapter Sixteen finale}

“You’re Bryn right?” I heard a male voice ask. I looked up to find a man in a suit staring me down. He looked important and that’s when it clicked, my boss.

“Yes sir,” I said quickly, not wanting to make him wait any longer in case he was in a hurry.

“The new intern?” he asked tilting his head to the side in focus.

“Um, I’m the new supervisor actually,” I said. I hoped my voice didn’t sound snarky or like I was talking back.

“Right right. Hazel hired you on to take care of the interns,” he said like it was all coming back to him.

“Correct. Can I help you with anything sir?” I asked, doing my best to not look back at my computer screen, emails constantly popping up.

“Yeah actually you can. I’m Luke,” he said, his name rolling off his tongue like it was supposed to make me swoon at the sound of it.

“Okay. What can I help you with Luke?” I asked, reminding myself not to bite my lip out of nerves. What could he possibly want from me?

“I’m taking you out to dinner tonight at six,” he said confidently, making it a statement and not a question.

“Oh, I-”

“I’ll see you at six,” he said, dropping his left eye into a wink before walking away. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. My boss, the CEO, the head of the entire company, just hit on me and is now taking me to dinner. I looked down, the office attire not being something I would typically wear on a date, but the only option since I wouldn’t be finishing work until five-thirty.

“What was boss man wanting?” Hazel asked walking over to your cubicle.

“Um, he’s taking me to dinner,” I said quietly, not knowing if it was supposed to be a secret or not.

“Wait, the Luke Hemmings, CEO of Catch Fire Advertising, is taking you out to dinner on a date?” she asked, the excitement clear in her voice.

“He didn’t say it was a date,” I said trying to keep my expectations low. I didn’t want to build this up in my head as something so exciting just to have it be a business dinner.

“Honey, he doesn’t go out to dinner with women unless it’s a date,” she said casually. It made me wonder how much she knew about his love life.

“He doesn’t? Not even for like business stuff?” I asked. There had to be another reason for him to be taking me out. He didn’t know me and had only seen me once. It was my first week. I hadn’t seen him mulling about the office until today.

“No. All business stuff happens here. I’ve heard he’s really good in bed though,” she said. My eyes widened.

“Why do you know all this?” I asked, my thoughts starting to move towards him sleeping with any girl in the office.

“His ex spread it all over the place. Tabloids, social media, the office. She was sad about the breakup, but she couldn’t deny how good the sex was,” Hazel said and from her voice, it sounded like she wanted it to be her.

“Gotcha. I’ll make sure I keep things professional then,” I said turning back to my computer, thirteen emails waiting for my response.

“Why would you do that? He’s hot,” she said making me roll my eyes. Was she the ex?

“Because it’s my first week here. I’m not about to make things awkward or jeopardize my job because my boss wants to have dinner,” I said, typing a reply to the one intern asking about spreadsheet approval.

“But he’s hot,” she repeated the fact like it should make me understand.

“And? I’m not here to be eye candy for him. I’m here to do my job,” I said locking my computer and grabbing my phone.

“But-”

“I know he’s hot. Interns need me. See you later,” I said rushing off down the hall. I knew he was hot, that fact was obvious. I hadn’t seen a man look as good in a suit as he did. Not to mention, his golden curls were styled enough that it made them look like he didn’t even try. The confidence he had around him was something I wasn’t expecting, but should have from the CEO of a million dollar company. I was still surprised by his forwardness, but I had to keep in mind that I didn’t want to be one of those girls that was talked about. No matter how attractive he was, I had to keep my head clear of that.

I was just finishing up when I saw Luke walking towards me.

“Bryn, are you ready?” He asked, his eyes taking in my work clothes.

“Um, almost. I just have to email this intern back about some stuff so it’ll be like maybe five more minutes?” I said glancing over at him before looking back at my computer. I had caught the glimpse of what was a leather jacket, the material perfectly fit to his arms and showing off the muscles that had been hidden from me in the suit from earlier.

“Sure. The interns aren’t causing trouble are they?” he asked, a joking tone to his voice that I wasn’t expecting. I was starting to think that Luke would be surprising me in many ways.

“No. They just have a lot of questions that I don’t mind answering,” I said, my lip slipping between my teeth as I read over her email one more time.

“What questions?” he asked. I couldn’t tell if he was genuinely interested or if he wanted to know the thoughts of his employees.

“It’s usually what type of language should I be using in this proposal or does this spreadsheet look satisfactory. I get the basics too though. What projects have deadlines coming up and will you give approval before this gets sent out?” I said, my fingers flying over the keys while I thought of the best way to answer her.

“I’m so lucky I don’t have to do that then. I’d get annoyed,” he said and I could feel his presence in my space. I saw him from my peripheral sitting on the edge of my desk. It shouldn’t have been attractive, but here was Luke, making sitting on a desk hot.

“They’re not bad, just green,” I said sending the email off and shutting my computer down.

“See, I don’t think I could handle green ever again since I’ve been at this for so long,” he said, a slight arrogance to his voice that made me want to remind him that he was once green too. I refrained though and got up from my chair, grabbing my light jacket that I had brought this morning when it had been raining. I looked over at him, taking in the leather jacket in full this time, the slight red of his shirt peeking out from beneath it, his pants hugging his thighs and his black boots making me wonder how tall he was.

“Do you want to change?” he asked, his eyes now taking in my dress pants, button up and blazer.

“Nope. Why? Is the big boss man not pleased with my work attire?” I asked deciding to tease him for it. I never dressed for anyone but myself and I wouldn’t be starting because he was a bigshot.

“Was just wondering. Follow me,” he said standing up, the height difference minimal due to my heels, yet I knew it would be more without them. I followed behind him, not at all surprised when I saw a black SUV with a driver in it waiting for us outside. I stopped myself from rolling my eyes again. I wasn’t completely sure if he was trying to impress me by flaunting his wealth, but if he was, it wasn’t working. I didn’t care if he was rich. I cared more about his brain, the way he thinks, the reasons behind running his company the way he does. Money was the last thing I wanted to talk about tonight. We pulled up to a small restaurant with an outside seating area that seemed to be cozy. I took Luke’s hand when he helped me out of the car and let it go once I was on my feet. I caught the look of frustration from my actions flicker across his face and had to hold back a small smirk.

“Do you want to sit outside?” he asked, his eyes trained on me.

“Sure. It’s nice enough out tonight,” I said before following after him. He pulled my chair out for me and went to sit across from me.

“Mr. Hemmings. Lovely to see you again,” the waitress, her name tag showing off the word Georgia in scrawly handwriting, said giving Luke a big smile. I didn’t miss the way her eyes trailed over him.

“Good evening. What’s the special tonight?” he asked, not caring that she was looking at him in such a lust-filled way.

“The tenderloin steak with a choice of soup or salad,” she said proudly. I could tell that she had a thing for him and his lack of acknowledgement towards it was making me smile. I wondered if this was a typical thing for him, being checked out or hit on by women just to ignore their advances.

“Sounds fantastic. I’ll have a lemonade with that, steak done medium rare please and a salad with ranch. Bryn?” he asked looking up from his menu at me, expecting me to have an answer prepared. I flushed from being caught staring before looking down at my menu.

“I’ll have the chicken wrap with a side of carrots please and a mint water,” I said handing her my menu. I noticed how she grimaced when I spoke, but paid no mind to it. This wasn’t a date for me.

“Why did you want to work for my company?” Luke asked after there was a pause between the two of us. The question took me by surprise, not expecting him to have questions prepared.

“You’re one of the fastest growing companies in Chicago. You make headlines daily about your stock prices and equal pay. It was an easy job to apply for,” I said with a shrug. I had done some research before I had applied for the supervising position on him and the company. There was a smirk on his face at the mention of the headlines. One Google search of his name or the company name and there were millions of hits that popped up, most being news articles about how great the company was doing or how it was the first company in America to have a growing infrastructure that included equal pay for women in same positions as men.

“You knew about the equal pay?” he asked, seemingly surprised.

“Of course. It’s one of the main reasons I applied,” I said meaning it entirely.

“Wow. I hadn’t realized how many people knew about it,” he said, a glimmer evident in his eyes. I couldn’t tell what emotion it was, but I had a feeling it was pride.

“Why did you institute that policy? If you don’t mind my asking,” I asked. In the economy today, I was taken by complete surprise that a male run company would have such a thing.

“My mum used to struggle with it when I was growing up. Besides, most women do a better job than men anyways. I’d rather be running a company that rewarded such efforts than one that was sexist,” he said. A smile came over his face and I couldn’t help but smile back. He was incredibly intelligent, something I wasn’t expecting based off the articles that were written about just him. They never seemed to paint him as quite the visionary that he was on track to become.

“Why did you start your own company?” I asked wanting to turn the tables on him instead of keeping the focus on me. If Luke wanted me to like him, I needed to know more about him before I would be considering this a date of any kind.

“There needed to be someone out there doing business without anything being considered taboo. The market needed a company that would look out for the smaller businesses that were starting to pop up and represent them, their products, and their employees in a good light. It was time someone stepped up and it just happened to be me,” he said, the pride was evident in his tone. I started thinking about Luke in a different way that wasn’t just my boss or the bigshot CEO, but in the way that he was a person too.

“How’s your first week with us been?” he asked becoming the one to turn the tables. I had to admit though, it was only fair that I let him know a little about me after he was so forthcoming with answers to my questions.

“Good. I’m enjoying it. There hasn’t been a single day that felt like it was the same which is nice,” I said before taking a sip of my water.

“Why did you come to Chicago?” he continued. I laughed a little at the memory of moving to the city.

“I moved here with a guy originally. Yes, I know, pathetic, but I was just newly twenty and madly in love. Once we broke up, I moved into my own place, finished school, and just never left. There’s something about it, the vibe, the way that everyone moves here, I don’t know, just something, that I can’t get away from,” I said, the smile tugging at the corners of my mouth one I hadn’t felt come out in a long time.

“Must have been quite the man to get you to move with him,” Luke commented and I saw the jealousy in his eyes right away. It didn’t make sense for him to be jealous in my head though. We had just met today and I had no idea why he would feel that way about a guy I hadn’t thought about in years.

“He was. I had already been going to school here for two years when he asked,” I said deciding I could share this small part of my life with him. I was hoping it wouldn’t lead to something that meant I was another one of his girls.

“What happened between you two then?” he asked, his bottom lip going between his teeth. I had to admit that seeing him do it was a turn on. There wasn’t a man that made me think that before, but here was Luke proving just how hot it could be.

“He cheated on me. We were together for three years and then one day he decided that some sorority girl with fake boobs was more his speed than me,” I said bluntly. I wasn’t going to hide my past from him because there wasn’t a reason to. I was already a fairly open person and even though Luke was my boss, I didn’t feel the need to keep things from him.

“He was clearly stupid then,” he said before smirking at me. The smirk was growing on me and the more we talked, the more I realized just how much I was starting to like him.

Luke paid for our food despite my attempts to pay for myself. I noticed him staring at me as I felt the night coming to an end.

“What?” I asked tilting my head a bit to convey my confusion. A small smile started to come across his lips at my question before he bit his lip again, my eyes instantly being drawn to stare.

“Bryn, do you want to see what a penthouse apartment looks like?” he asked, my eyes still watching his mouth. I felt a shiver go down my spine when his lips formed my name. I tore my eyes away from his mouth to make eye contact with him. His blue eyes had a hint of mischief in them and his pupils were slightly dilated. I couldn’t deny that I did want to see that, but there was still hesitation on my part. I didn’t want to be another conquest, another notch in his belt and I worried that if I went home with him, I would be just that.

“Are you asking me to go home with you Luke?” I asked trying to remain calm, but my heart was racing. The idea of being at Luke’s apartment was very appealing to me and the other ideas swirling through my head were just as equally appealing.

“Just for a bit. I don’t want this night to be over just yet,” he said and there went his lip again. I held back the groan that I wanted to let out. I debated with myself for a moment before making a decision.

“Okay,” I said with the full confidence that I could keep myself under control if he were to pull anything.

“Let’s go then,” he said getting up and offering his arm. I looked over and saw the SUV at the curb like it had been outside the office. I took his arm, feeling the muscle underneath his jacket sleeve for a moment before focusing on walking again. When we entered the elevator of his apartment complex, I could feel the tension between us, both us wanting something from the other but unsure if it was the same thing. I kept glancing over at him while his eyes remained on the floor count going up and up. I took notice of the little scar on his lip, a remnant of something I didn’t know about yet. A piercing? Maybe a fight? I was intrigued all the same and became acutely aware of how attracted I had become to Luke over the course of the time we had spent together. There was something about him that was making me forget about how I was forcing myself to think this was just a business dinner, not a date. The thoughts running through my head all stopped when he looked over at me, his blue eyes meeting my green ones. It was like time had slowed down while we looked at each other. His tongue came out to wipe across his bottom lip and I knew my eyes watched as he did it. The need for having his lips pressed against mine became very evident to me as I watched his teeth take the same lip between them. I started thinking about what it would be like to have his lips on mine, his teeth biting at my own bottom lip, his hands holding me to him and then the elevator doors opened. I looked away from him, snapping out of my thoughts and being brought back into reality. I followed him into his apartment, immediately taking notice of the windows that overlooked the city. I could see Navy Pier’s ferris wheel from his windows, but there was a sneaking thought that was creeping into my brain about what it would feel like to have my skin pressed against the glass.

“Bryn?” I heard him call, taking my eyes away from the view. His leather jacket was gone now showcasing the red button down, half the buttons undone, he was wearing. My bottom lip found its way between my teeth as I stared at him. He was hot by all standards of the word. There was nothing about him that wasn’t attractive in this moment. His hair was falling in his face, rings glinting against the lights above him, chest showing off the small amount of chest hair he had, muscles practically straining against his shirt and his eyes seeing through me completely.

“Sorry, what?” I asked bringing my attention back to his face. The smirk that was on his face gave away that he had caught me checking him out.

“I asked what you were thinking about,” he said calmly. How was he so collected right now? Here I was wanting to pounce on him and he showed no signs of wanting to do the same.

“Oh, um, you have a great view,” I said nodding back towards his windows. He smiled and walked over to me, a hand brushing against my waist as he went to them.

“The ferris wheel is always the best part of the view. The water too,” he said looking back over to me. It was clear to me then just how badly I wanted him in whatever capacity he was willing to give me. Whether it was just sex or an actual relationship, I didn’t care at this point. I wanted, no needed to feel his lips against mine, his skin causing goosebumps against my own, leaving little marks wherever he wanted.

“Yeah, it’s really something,” I said noticing how my breathing had picked up. I needed to leave, to get out of his space before it was too late and I became just another girl on his list, but my feet were planted right where they were with no signs of moving towards the door in sight.

“There’s a better view in the bedroom,” he said, his eyebrows raising at his suggestion. He was causing a battle between my head and my body that I didn’t appreciate at this moment. There had never been a man that caused such torment to run through my head at once. Yet, here was Luke doing such things to me that I didn’t think were possible.

“Um, I, maybe, um,” I stuttered causing him to laugh at my lack of words. He didn’t say anything before he took my hand in his, leading me towards his room. My feet went with him, betraying me in the process and soon I was standing in a giant master bedroom with a view of Chicago that took my breath away. Again, I walked towards the windows, taking in every ounce of the view that I could see, the skyscrapers, the lights, the water, the greenery, all of it was beautiful in a way you couldn’t see from a third floor apartment in the city.

“Holy shit,” I breathed, not caring if Luke heard me swear anymore. I was in awe of the sight before me. I turned my head a little to find Luke watching me from beside his bed. His shirt was completely unbuttoned now, hanging loosely from his shoulders, his abs on full display for me. My breath hitched at the sight of him. He was something I had dreamed about once.

“Bryn, come here,” he said quietly, his voice soft but still commanding. My feet carried me until I was standing in front of him. His hands reached out so they were on my hips, his grip firm, but still giving me enough leeway to get out of it if I wanted to.

“Do you know how beautiful you are?” he asked, his thumbs rubbing against the fabric of my shirt. I blushed and looked away from him, unable to full comprehend that he was the one calling me beautiful.

“Now, now,” he said teasingly, his right hand coming up to tilt my chin back up so I was looking at him.

“I didn’t say you could look away yet,” his voice was full of something I wasn’t sure of. Lust? Intrigue? Desire? I couldn’t place it, but it still caused my body to start heating up.

“Luke, I-”

“Shh beautiful, we don’t need to talk about this just yet,” he whispered, his hand moving to cup my cheek. He was going to kiss me and I wanted him to. My brain came out of the haze it was in at the exact moment he was leaning in. I pulled away, taking a couple steps back. Luke’s eyes flew open in surprise at my actions.

“Was this not what you wanted?” he asked. He still had one hand on my waist, but his other hand that had been cupping my cheek was at his side.

“I won’t be another girl in your list of names,” I said finding my voice again. He blinked a couple times in recognition of what I was saying.

“What makes you think that I have a list?” he asked gently pulling me back into him. I moved away from him completely this time, his hand now back by his side.

“Because I’m sure you go around fucking all the girls you think are hot at the office. Hazel mentioned how good you are in bed. I won’t be one,” I said looking towards the door and making my way for it. I could hear him following after me against the hardwood flooring.

“Bryn, I can promise you that I haven’t done anything with Hazel,” he said watching as I grabbed my purse. I didn’t even remember setting it down. I hit the elevator button and it chimed like it was waiting for me to come back to my senses.

“That’s good to know. I’ll remember that the next time she mentions your sex life to me. Goodnight Luke,” I said, hitting the button for the elevator to close. I watched as he went to stop the doors, but it was too late. The elevator started its descent back down to the ground floor. I leaned against the cool wall, the temperature bringing me back to my full state of mind. I stepped out, finding my way to the train station easily. I couldn’t believe that I almost fell into him so easily, almost let myself feel things for him that I wasn’t supposed to be feeling. He was my boss after all and there was always a rule in my head, no work intermingling of any kind. Luke would just have to accept that fact and the small part of me that was falling into him would have to accept it too.

I got this idea at work the other day and after I told the Youngblood Defense Squad about it, they were all for it. So now, I present it to you. This was different for me seeing as I didn’t run it by my usual beta readers and didn’t even really tell anyone about it. I hope you all enjoy it and I can definitely say there’s more for Bryn and Luke ahead. Let me know if you want to be added to the tag list for more!

my tag babes: @thruheavenandhighwater @sweetcherrycal @bbycal @thebookamongmen @cartiercalum @lurhemmings @a-little-international @lu-fakebetch @tommossoccer @5second-slut @irwinsx