Alexander Grimaldi
Chairman and CEO
Webnatics
The quiet lull of the office while odd was comforting.
Usually at this time of the day, everyone was at their desks, chatting or discussing business.
But right now, everyone was in the conference room, listening to the R&D team present their ideas.
My steps took me to the conference room and the glass doors quietly parted, making my arrival unannounced. I watched as she spoke to the department supervisors and the rest of my staff.
Her hair glowed under the lights and her face was flushed with excitement when she spoke.
“The presence of A.I. in meteorology has been under-utilized. We’ve heard of the physical applications and simulations, but what if we apply these concepts to make predictions on how Mother Nature is going to respond under these weather variables.” Her voice exuded respect, her demeanor confident, and her words eloquent.
It was hard to believe that she was fresh out of college just two and a half years ago, and when she’d sat in front of Sanjay and I for the interview, she hadn’t as so much said anything as my VP and I were already thinking that there was no way we were going to hire her.
On paper, her achievements were impressive.
4.0 GPA.
Graduated magna cum laude in Physics and Econ.
She came in with the highest recommendations from her professors.
But let’s face it, she was blonde.
Her looks deserved to be in the pages of a fashion magazine.
And I was already thinking about ways to get her into my bed.
I was being sexist. So sue me.
Sanjay and I took turns asking her the standard interview questions. Questions that we’d formulated with the HR Team and were also peppered with specific tasks and responsibilities that we’d wanted our future lead software engineer to have.
She’d answered each question with the fluency of an experienced leader, and the harder the questions got, the easier the answers came to her.
She related the density functional theory as smoothly as she did the quantum Monte Carlo methods along with practical real-world applications.
We’d shaken her hand after the interview, but before she was even out of the building, Sanjay advised me to offer her the job.
And I couldn’t agree more.
She’d accepted the job. But not without conditions.
She’d stipulated that she be treated like ninety percent of her male colleagues, that she didn’t want preference or non-preference because she was a female.
Then, she also dropped the hammer that she was going to file a sexual harassment suit to anyone that came onto her in an unprofessional manner.
It hadn’t been smooth sailing, but it had been a learning experience.
Ninety percent of my staff were men and in a utopic world, none of them would be beating off to her image.
But she’d managed to gain the respect of her colleagues, and the R&D Team she now headed saw her as their Master.
She was charming, but she was also brutal in her honesty.
Project Subzero didn’t get a lift-off because she’d deemed it as unrealistic, impractical, and costly.
She was right, of course.
I’d heard Project Subzero developers received funding from Magna-Com and in three months, their budget had imploded by three hundred percent, completely shutting it down.
“How did I do?” She asked as staff gathered their laptops, tablets, notepads, and slowly trickled out of the room.
“Excellent as usual,” I answered with absolute honesty. My company now belonged to Forbes’ 100 Most Profitable businesses, and since R&D took a large chunk of our budget, I had to give her the spotlight that she deserved.
“Thank you,” was her gracious reply. Then a small grin took over her face, “I’m going to be off for a week starting Tuesday.”
“How will Jayesh manage without you?” Jayesh was her second-in-command. He was a Harvard graduate unlike me, who left during my sophomore year to pursue this dream of creating my own company. Jayesh was a soft-spoken man who would follow his boss to the ends of the earth because he admired her so much. A lot of us Siliconers did.
She has accomplished what many of us had failed to do.
She’d managed to gain the trust of the public, the government, and the private sector in the short amount of time that she’d been around us.
She never used her looks to gain ground. Rather she downplayed it and everyone was caught off guard when this blonde beauty started talking.
“Can you babysit Pepper for us?” Her blue eyes pleaded and even if I wanted to say no to her, I’d be a soulless man if I said no to the three-legged Maltipoo who chomped on my expensive couch, but was so much fun to be around with. He was a rescue dog who was scared of being left with strangers, but for some reason, when I’d stopped by Kara’s place, he wagged his tail at me and we’d been buddies ever since.
I nodded and shrugged. “Sure. I got no life. Where are you off to this time?”
She gave me a big smile, and I knew that in the next day or so, I’d be receiving a two-page instruction on what Pepper could and could not eat, the Vet’s emergency contact number, and Pepper’s daily activities. Kara cared so much for the tiny creature. Actually, she cared a hundred and ten percent for all the people in her life. I knew because nothing came before Bishop, Pepper, Rikko, and her friends.
One day maybe the Gods of Binary Coding would grace me with a woman as caring as her.
“Bishop wanted to tour Portofino at this time of the year.” Her answer was immediate, but the love in her eyes when she spoke of his name didn’t leave.
“Ah. Going for a romantic stroll along Piazetta this time, huh?” They usually went on mountain/hiking adventures so this was new. I nodded my head and gave her a thumbs up. “Good guy.”
“The best.” Another smile. “He says hi by the way.”
“Tell him to call me. We should hang out for a game one of these days,” I replied, to which she answered with a light nod.
Bishop Cordello.
USA Rugby’s shining star.
One of the highest paid athletes in the country.
An upstanding man who donated half of his earnings to charities.
My VP’s Tau frat brother.
A week after we’d hired Kara, Sanjay received a call from Bishop. He’d basically talked to my VP and asked him to kick anyone’s ass if they made a play for his girlfriend.
What he didn’t know was that his girlfriend could kick anyone’s ass all by her own.
I’d seen her shut down anyone who flirted with her as fast as one could swat a fly perched on the window sill.
Bishop had visited her so many times in the office that we were bound to become friends.
What a lot of people didn’t know was that as great as he was on the field, he was also a highly intelligent guy.
Anyone who could beat me in Catacomb by a hundred points had to be a genius.
Because let’s face it, I hadn’t earned a gaming prodigy title at twelve years old without a mantle to my name.
We neared her office and she gestured with her hand, “Keep your company afloat when I’m gone, okay?”
“I’ll try, princess. I’ll try,” I smirked and didn’t dare set a foot inside her office, especially after calling her that nickname.
She wasn’t a princess.
Hardly.
She was a queen, all by her own.