Chapter 2: Chapter 1 (Pilot)

Jane breathed a sigh of relief after sitting down beside Sylvia. It was mid-summer and the air-conditioner in the coffee shop was Jane's saving grace. 

This is Jane's third month working at Stage Fright as a junior recruiter but she still couldn't quite understand why Sylvia preferred meeting at a coffee shop instead of the office. Eh, couldn't care less honestly. Sylvia's the senior recruiter, and she's the junior here. Plus, Jane didn't like Sylvia  enough to even bother to ask. 

Okay, like, in what world would you take off your shoes and socks, and then play with the plants with your toes? Those are company plant, company plants! You know, something's wrong when the first thing Jane complained about Sylvia was not Sylvia dumping all her work onto Jane. 

Sigh... Pretty people really can do what they want without any repercussions, huh. Screw you, Sylvia. 

"Hey Sylvia, it's soooo nice seeing you!" Jane's smile was as bright as the sun outside. 

"Shhh..."

What kind of drugs was she on again?

"Do you feel it, Jane?"

"Uhm, sorry?" Jane let out an awkward chuckle, bracing herself of what was to come. 

"Shush! Close your eyes, Jane."

Jane sighed and did as she was told. 

"You feel it right?"

"Oh... Oh! Yeah! I'm starting to feel it! But I can't quite put my finger on what it is. Can you tell me what it is? Just the tip of my tongue!"

Jane decided to employ her third tactic of dealing with this woman: go along with her farce and pretend to know what she's talking about. 

"It's..." Sylvia took deep breath. "Mid-summer's calling."

Sylvia, you're sitting right below the air-con. With a hot americano. Seriously?

"So that's what I've been feeling all day! It's mid-summer's calling."

"Couldn't be more right."

"Wow, it's already mid-summer! So, Sylvia, should we start discussing this batch of potential candidates?"

Sylvia stared at Jane for a while. 

Did Jane cut her off at an inappropriate time? But can you really blame her for wanting to stop hearing Sylvia ramble for God-knows-how-long?

"Whatever." Sylvia brushed her curly hair, signaling she's about to enter her "Work Mode" as Jane coined it. 

Jane imagined Sylvia dressed up as a magical girl akin to the characters in Sailor Moon. "Transform! 'Work Mode', on!!" You're almost thirty, Sylvia, what are you doing!? Jane carefully contained her laughter. 

"Just then I felt like you're laughing at me."

"Laughing at you? What for? I'll never do that!"

"Whatever. We're trying to cut back on expenses to prepare for the upcoming project, so we're only hiring one person per location."

"But there are multiple job roles!"

"Nah, just one. Ditch the others."

Easy for you to say, but Jane's the one who had to write all those rejection emails! What if some candidates were persistent and asked for feedback? Who's the one writing all those huh? You nasty...

 "I'll do that then."

"Thanks. What have you in mind for the candidates?"

"For each role I picked two candidates I think are the best. For the security analyst position, I think the best ones are Adrian and..." Jane scrolled through her phone to get the list of candidates. "...Jackson."

"Adrian's academic transcripts are horrible. Jackson has only worked at large tech firms before. He won't be able to transition to a startup in a short enough time." Sylvia took a small sip from her cup of americano. "Next."

It was only when Sylvia was in her "work mode" (which was very rare by the way) did Jane think of her as a senior. And respected her a little bit. Just a little bit, okay?

"For project manager, I think..."

"Vic had someone for that position already."

Vic, Vine star turned entrepreneur, was the founder of Stage Fright. 

"Uh, okay. For junior legal intern..."

"We're not wasting money on legal interns."

"Designer intern?"

"Keep going."

"Hyun-Ae and Olga."

"I like Hyun-Ae quite a bit. But keep going."

"Arthur and Beaumont for web developer..."

"Arthur and Beaumont are good addition to the team but they are too qualified and we don't have the resources to keep them. At least not before the project. Keep in contact with them but don't make promises yet. If you can, try to softly negotiate their annual salary to under 40k Euros. Softly!"

"Will do. And lastly, for social media interns. Beatriz and... the Maths guy."

"You mean CK?"

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"Yeah, that's his initials. I have no idea how to pronounce his name though."

"Neither do I. I'm curious, why did you pick CK?"

"It really just comes down to process of elimination."

"What about Beatriz?"

"Beatriz has really good track record with startups. She's always involved in some big project, which most of them delivered quite well."

"You researched about the projects she's worked on before?"

Jane nodded. 

"Well done."

That praise came out of nowhere. Jane couldn't help but blush a little. 

"But let me tell you what's going to happen, Jane. She's going to work here for one month, two months max, get involved with our upcoming project, and then skidaddle out of here."

Skidaddle? Are you trying to be all hip with the young people? Madam you're almost thirty. 

"Beatriz is really smart. Don't you think it's too much of a coincidence that in all her previous internships she just so happened to be involved with a big project? And they're all ones you can easily look up online? She planned all that. She had to."

"Really?" Jane was stumped. There was no way Beatriz actually did all that? If Jane recalled correctly, Beatriz was only 24 or 25, and she graduated from university only a few years ago. 

"Whatever, who knows. Either way I'm not taking the risk. We want smart people, but not this kind of smart people."

"In that case, CK's no good too?"

"Nope. He's a different kind of smart. He's involved in seemingly mundane tasks in his previous internships but all of them serve as very good training. Things like financial modelling and database management are actually very useful skills."

"As a social media intern?" Jane sounded slightly skeptical. 

"Well, maybe not social media exactly, but more on the marketing and sales side, which is a part of the job."

"I see. But isn't he..." Jane struggled to find the word. 

"Weird?"

"For a lack of a better word, yes. I mean, we've both interviewed him, so you know..."

"Haha! That means he is a true mathematician! If you're not eccentric enough, you can't be a mathematician, a hacker, or physicist alike!"

"But I mean..."

"True, being eccentric isn't a convincing reason to hire someone. Of course, we can talk about his excellent academic performance in university, but that's also not the reason why he's a good candidate." Sylvia smiled. "Do you know why?"

Jane shook her head. The second tactic of dealing with this woman: shut up and let her do all the talking. 

"It's because he's earnest. Or maybe I should say naively earnest," Sylvia said, with a smirk on her face. "Unlike me, this kind of people put their 100% in work."

Wow, self-awareness.

"Actually, no. It's 120%. I predict, that if we end up hiring him, he'll do a lot more than his job responsibility. Voluntarily too."

This woman was crazier than Jane thought. To Jane, the idea that someone would voluntarily work more than what they needed to was foreign, much less in an internship. 

"You don't seem like you believe me."

"I just don't think I have enough experience as you to comment on it."

"Sly answer." Sylvia snickered. "And? Is that everyone?"

"Yes. That's the list of people I have in mind," Jane said. 

"So it comes down to Hyun-Ae or CK. I'll let you know my decision before I get off work today."

"In that case, I guess I'll head off then!"

"Bye."

"It's really nice seeing you here, Sylvia."

"Yeah."

"Catch you later!"

"Bye."

"Bye."

"Yeah."

Jane put on her sunglasses and escaped the awkward atmosphere. 

 

Didn't expect this to take an entire chapter but it's quite fun writing Jane and Sylvia's interaction. Also... please heart and comment if you like it! It keeps me going!

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