“Hi everyone. Thanks for all coming today on such short notice. So are you all ready to talk business?” I laughed at their solemn faces. It was a common practice for me to call meetings at all hours of the day and night but it didn’t seem to be to most people’s liking. Right now it was 9pm and most people either wanted to go out or go to sleep. For me, this was one of my best thinking times. My best times to strategize. I’d prefer it to be later even, perhaps when the rest of the world was asleep, but I knew they’d kill me for it. They would still show up, though, even if I did hold a meeting in the middle of the night – because at the end of the day I was still the one that paid them – but they’d do it begrudgingly. And I needed everyone quick on their toes. And I still wanted them to like me.

“Oh come on everyone. Don’t look so grumpy. I have pots of coffee and whisky and a hell of a lot of snacks.” I pointed to the array that I had put out. Well, that someone had put out for me. It looked amazing.

“Great, coffee to stop us from sleeping and snacks to make us put on weight. Just what I need right now.” Grumbled Abbie while rubbing her eyes. Abbie was one of the best assistants in the marketing department, and she always had a smile on her face. Unless we held our meetings at night. Then she complained. Sometimes I felt that I did this just so that I could see her grumble.

“Oh Abbie, you could afford to put on some weight anyway. You’re all skin and bones. I’m actually doing you a favour right now. You should be thanking me.” I said and then handed her my sweetest smile.

“Hmmph. Don’t try and use some flattery to change my mind. You know that things like that don’t work on me. I’m not one of your casino girls.” But I could see that she was already starting to smile. Girls were so easy.

“Okay, so thanks to everyone for coming in today. I promise that we’ll make this quick. We only have one agenda item for today so I don’t see why it has to go on for too long. Then you can all go party your asses off. Or fall into some well-needed sleep. Whatever it is you’re after. Let’s try get this done in an hour at the most. I’ll probably see some of you on the dance floor later which is why I am personally adding some of this whisky to my coffee. There’s some cute girl waiting for me.” I high fived a few of the guys and laughed at Abbie mumbling, “Isn’t there always?” under her breath. I absolutely loved grumpy Abbie.

“Anyway,” I continued, “Today I want to talk about the online contest for the social media campaign that we ran and to finally decide on the right candidate for the job. We’ve had a lot of entries so thank you to Abbie for going through all of them so carefully and for selecting the top ten. For those that don’t know I sat with Abbie yesterday and we whittled that down again until we were left with three. Three fantastic candidates who I really think could turn this place around. Just imagine what this place is going to be like with a bit of media buzz surrounding it. I’m not sure why it’s taken us so long to do this in fact. Okay, Abbie please tell everyone about the top three candidates. And please everyone, help yourself to something to eat and drink.”

Abbie cleared her throat and got out her papers. I noticed that she didn’t bother to stand up. She did, however, take a big gulp of coffee. That seemed to perk her up a bit. “Okay, well like Sebastian said…”

“SIR Sebastian.” I interrupted.

She glared at me and I grinned back at her. “Like Sebastian said we had some great entries for this competition. Of course also some not so great entries but those were discarded easily. I was shocked at how many people thought they would be great for the job and had absolutely no qualifications. Some guy actually wrote ‘because I like casinos and money’ in his application.”

“Ooh, I like the sound of him.” I interrupted again.

Again, she glared at me. “Well then you hire him.” Snappy Abbie. “So, like Sebastian was saying before he so rudely interrupted me… we have three candidates to choose from. The first is Jane Greiner, a 26 year old female who got her bachelor’s degree in Communication and MBA from the University of Arizona. She’s got a good solid background in social media and knows what people want to see and what they don’t want to see. She was the one that headed the Beanz campaign a few years ago that turned that company around in a matter of weeks. So she definitely knows what she is doing. Then we have Martin Trumpor, a 32 year old male, no postgraduate degree, went straight to work with some of the top companies and moved his way up until he was heading their social media and marketing team. He might be different in terms of what we’re used to, but he is a hard worker and doesn’t stop until he gets what he wants. He’s had quite a few jobs over the past years which can be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it but it seems that when he gets a job he certainly does it justice. Lastly we have Molly Earnest. Like Jane she also received a bachelor’s degree in Communication. She has lived in New York her whole life and has lead the marketing team in four of her company’s divisions. She is also a graphic designer and creates beautiful vision representations for her marketing campaigns. This is always a good thing to have – because a vision without an eye for design often doesn’t work. Having said that we already have some great graphic designers so we probably wouldn’t need much more than just her input. I have a copy of their CV’s to show each of you,” Abbie handed one out to everyone, “And then I’d like to take you through the ideas that each of them had for the company. You’ll be surprised at how different their visions are and hopefully after that you’ll be able to figure out who you like best. Sebastian, I think we take it to a vote at the end. I know who I want already.”

I nodded and signalled for her to continue. Abbie took the team through the slideshows and I was impressed at just how much time and effort these people had gone through to prove that they were the ones for the job. I liked people like this. All three were proving that they wanted this badly and it was hard for me to not just hire all three. There was merit in all of the ideas and I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t taken steps to do this before. But I was also quite proud that I had managed to get the casino to where it was today without the help of social media. I had a feeling I was about to see this casino explode to even greater heights. My parents were going to be very surprised. And hopefully very proud. I wondered briefly if my brothers were going to be jealous of my success.

“That was great and very interesting. Thanks for that Abbie, I know people don’t see the work that you do behind the scenes but I know it was a long process to get to where we are today. Trust me everyone, Abbie literally had piles and piles of paperwork to go through.” I noticed that she was back to her sweet and smiling self. She always perked up when she was asked to do her job, and I’m sure the coffee helped in making that happen. She was a good girl and a great assistant and I just loved messing with her. Also, she was a girl and so was easily swayed by compliments. “Now, let’s go around and see what everyone thinks. Let’s take it to a vote.”

In the end it was down to either Jane Greiner and Martin Trumpor. Three votes for Jane and three for Martin.

“I honestly think Martin is our guy. He’s by far the most interesting one. Also he’s a bit older than everyone else and for once that might be a good thing.” David Ellis was the main marketing director at the casino and someone that I had hired because of his ability to stand up for his beliefs at all time. He had a good eye for people and it was important that the right person was chosen for him – because he would be working with them closely. However, for probably the first time, I disagreed with him.

“No, I don’t think so. I’m sorry to disagree with you but I have an inkling not to go with him and I think I should follow my gut. It’s never lied to me before. I think Jane’s our girl. Martin seems great but he seems a bit all over the place. That can be good in a lot of ways, but I want someone with a more clear direction. I want to be able to see their vision clearly and to see how they are going to execute it without me constantly wondering what they’ll do next. Jane sounds like someone with a good head on her shoulders.”

“You can’t say that though, you haven’t even met her. Okay, let’s ask Abbie. Abbie, you’ve met everyone – what are your impressions of them compared to what they showed you on paper.” I knew that Abbie had voted for Jane so I was confident that this was going to help my case. Not that it mattered, I’d choose Jane regardless. But I’d like everyone to think that they at least had a choice in the matter.

“Well, my vote is for Jane too. Now, don’t get angry David. I know exactly why you wanted to choose Martin. Martin is great. I chose him for a reason too and if the majority were going to go with Martin then I would’ve been happy with that decision. But there was definitely something about him that I didn’t like. I had a feeling that he would be the one that would flip decisions easily. Jane is a solid choice.”

“I think that as the marketing director for this company I should have the biggest say in the vote. It’s three for Martin right now so surely I have the right to choose him? I’m going to be working with him after all.”

I looked at David then and felt bad that I was going to undermine his authority. But I always believed in going with my gut and gut was telling me to definitely not go for Martin. “David, I do appreciate your input. That’s what this whole thing was about. And like Abbie said, if everyone went for Martin it would’ve been another story. But as the owner of the casino I do believe the final choice is ultimately mine. And with that I’d like to hire Jane Greiner to head this marketing campaign. But, having said that, we can keep Martin’s details on file so that if something does go wrong and we need someone else then we can have a back up.”

David looked at me and then sighed. He knew that he didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to final decisions. At the end of the day, I was still his boss, even though he was ten years older than me. “Fine, Sebastian. We’ll take Jane. I’m sure it will all work out just fine. But please do keep Martin on file.”

“Wonderful! That’s decided then. Abbie, you can give Jane a call in the morning and set things up. Right guys, that’s a wrap. Party time!”