Page 28 of Not Safe For Work

“Great. Nice to meet you, Gavin.” Fuck, even her voice is sexy.

I lead the way up one flight of stairs to the main office. We start every interview with a quick tour.

“All our sales and customer success teams are on this side. Kitchen’s in the middle. Then the rest of go-to-market here.” I say it all while walking, anxious to get my last interview of the day over with.

“Go-to-market?” she asks.

Right, because she has no experience in tech. “Just means all teams that have a hand in the customer experience. So all the customer-facing teams like sales and support, plus marketing and product.”

“That makes sense. Thanks for explaining it.” She lowers her gaze when we stop walking and I wonder if I made her feel like she should have known the answer.

“It was a good question, Olivia. No one else ever asks it but I have a feeling most candidates don’t know all the terms we throw around here.”

She smiles up at me and I’m a fuckinggoner. I want to offer her a job on the spot just to see her face light up again.

“Cute skirt!” Our tour is interrupted when Andie, our solo marketing team, pops into the kitchen. “Are you interviewing here?”

“Yeah, for sales,” Olivia clarifies.

I let them chat for a minute while I check my email on my phone. I’ve been waiting for two days to get this latest contract signed and the quarter ends tomorrow.

Andie grabs a pack of carrots from the fridge before leaving. “I like this one,” she says on the way back to her desk. “You could use some feminine influence on your team.”

Shit. Most of the female candidates become wary once they hear we’re still trying to hire the first. It’s not that I don’t want to. There are just a lot less women who want to sell software, less who have experience, and unsurprisingly not many who want to be the first one. They must think we have one big circle jerk at lunch every day.

Honestly, I’m kind of desperate to hire a woman. It doesn’t look good that we don’t have any and it comes up every quarter when HR releases our latest diversity report. But I also refuse to hire someone just because they’re a woman. Isn’t that just as bad?

I do my best to ignore Andie’s comment and show Olivia the rest of the office.

“Do you really train service dogs?” I start once we’re seated in the conference room. I’m too curious not to ask.

“Yeah. My whole family does. As part of a charity organization they run.”

“That’s so cool. I love dogs.” I was hoping we could move up to Marin at some point, get a place with some land, maybe a dog or two. Now that Gabby will be commuting down to Stanford three days a week and I’ll be paying off loans for eternity, that seems unlikely. At least I have the world’s greatest hedgehog for now.

“Me too. I grew up with golden retrievers. They’re the best.”

It’s difficult to stop myself from asking about them, because I find myself wanting to know more about Olivia, but none of the questions on my mind are related to the job.

“So, tell me why you’re interested in sales,” I pivot, quickly. “It’s a grind.”

“I think it sounds exciting.”

“It can be, but it’s a lot of rejection. It gets draining, trust me. Are you sure you’re up for that?”

“Are you trying to sell meagainstthe job?” she asks, with a healthy dose of incredulity.

“Not at all. But you haven’t worked in sales before. I feel like it’s my duty to warn you of the pitfalls. Closing deals, even just securing a meeting can make you feel like you’re on top of the world. But as soon as the celebration’s over, you’re back to an eighty percent rejection rate.”

She purses her lips and when she looks back at me, I can see a hundred thoughts floating through her eyes.

Finally, she says, “Do you have an eighty percent rejection rate?” I force myself not to grin. That was unexpected.

“Mine’s closer to fifty, but I’m the best.”

She straightens in her seat, placing her hands on the table between us. Her nails are dark blue and as glittery as her skirt. “Then I’ll be the best too.”

I laugh. “Love the confidence, but even fifty percent is a lot of rejection. It’s grueling.”

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