“The hot one whose sperm I want?”
I nodded. “That’s him.”
“What did the email say? Does he need me to drop off a sterile collection jar?”
“No, this is even crazier. They offered me the job.”
“Oh, wow! That’s great!”
I nibbled on my fingernail. “Is it? Do I really want to work somewhere that the big boss doesn’t believe the job needs to exist, or that I’m able to fill it properly?”
“That depends. What does it pay? And can you negotiate for extra vacation time and a side order of sperm?”
I turned back to my laptop. I’d only made it through the first few lines that said I’d been selected for the job. There was an attached employment contract. Scanning the nine-page document, I was surprised to find the salary was more than my last job—definitely not commensurate with the experience Merrick Crawford felt I had. And the vacation time was very generous, too, not to mention the potential for a hefty bonus.
“Ugh. It pays really well, has four weeks of vacation to start, and profit sharing after one year.”
“And you’re saying ugh because you’d rather have shitty pay, no time off, and zero cut of the profits?”
I shook my head. “It wouldn’t be so painful to turn down a shitty-paying position.”
“Why would you turn it down?”
“The owner only wants to hire me because he found me the least-competent candidate. He admitted that. He said his board is forcing him to create this position.”
“So? Who cares what he thinks? Do you think you could do the job?”
I considered it for a moment. “I’m sure there are more qualified people who know the industry and would be able to jump in and have no learning curve. But I’m good at my job, and I think I’d be fine after I understood more about what causes the stress at work. I mean, aside from the boss, who clearly has a unique management style.”
“What’s the problem then?”
“Did you miss the part where the owner thinks I’m incompetent?”
She shrugged. “Prove him wrong. What happened when Mom told you you’d never be able to play on the volleyball team because you were too short?”
“I made the team and became captain the next year.”
“And when everyone suggested you apply to some ‘safety schools’ for your PhD, instead of just your top three choices, because all of them had a less-than-ten-percent acceptance rate?”
I smiled. “I got into all three.”
“Do I need to go on? Because I’m still bitter over me staying behind after I told you you’d never get backstage to meet Justin Timberlake when you were sixteen.” Greer shook her head. “You want to know what I think the real problem is?”
“I’m not sure. Do I?”
“The boss. You think he’s a bigger challenge than the job itself, and maybe he is. But so what? Look at him like a project you need to tackle, separate from the position. The Boss Project. It sort of has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”
I nibbled on my bottom lip. “I don’t know. This guy made me nervous for some reason. I felt like he was trying to read my mind or something.”
Greer scoffed. “Trust me. You wouldn’t have been offered a job if he could see what was going on in there. I sort of imagine it like Cirque du Soleil, only the performers are a little drunk and also doing mind-bending, complex math problems while folding themselves into pretzels.”
I laughed. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll think about it more later.” I finished my coffee and got up to rinse my mug in the sink. “Right now, I need to get dressed and go meet with my lawyer about the lawsuit. But don’t worry, I’ll be at the store to cover you by five, like I promised.”