Page 15 of Falling Off Script

I blink. “And what brings you here?”

She folds her hands. “I’m looking for a growth opportunity in a fast-paced environment. Ideally something hybrid—strategy and operations. Your brand is obviously evolving, and I’d love to be part of building that next phase.”

I stare at her. It’s a good answer. Averygood answer. Which is, frankly, even more suspicious.

But she’s already steering the conversation forward.

Jessie scrolls something on her tablet. “Looks like your content streams don’t talk to each other. Is that a feature or a glitch?”

I blink.

Okay.

Rude.

Accurate.

But rude.

I glance at her tablet. She’s not even pretending to backpedal. No smile to soften the hit. Just calm, quiet competence in a blazer.

Definitely thetoo smartkind. The kind that will one day build a system so flawless I can’t fire her without breaking it.

She keeps going. “And some of your guest booking seems reactive—tied to trending topics—but not necessarilyintegrated with your launch funnel. That’s something I could help streamline.”

My radar pings. Loudly. This woman talks like she just stepped out of a Notion dashboard.

“You’ve clearly done your homework,” I say.

“I watched some episodes,” she replies.

“Well, let me walk you through the role a little,” I say. “It’s mostly just... admin stuff. Emails. Posting clips. Booking things. Nothing too...intellectual.”

The word hangs there.

Intellectual?

Damn it. That’s the kind of thing that scares off half my audience—and would be too much for the last five candidates. It slipped out like a bad tell.

Jessie raises an eyebrow. “Noted. I’ll keep font sizes in check.”

She says it lightly. Like a joke. But I clock the subtext: she caught the slip. Logged it. Filed it next to whatever other soft spots I just broadcast.

She scrolls through something on her tablet. “If this is about relevant experience, I did some freelance editing last year. Just a small podcast project, but very fast-paced. High volume, lots of moving parts.”

“What podcast?” I ask, mostly out of habit.

She blinks. “It didn’t have much reach. Very... local.”

“Name?”

She coughs into her sleeve. “MmmphCast.”

“Sorry?”

She waves it off. “Not important. What mattered was the workflow. The host was unpredictable. Like,emotional support Google Doclevels of intense.”

I lean in. “Unpredictable how?”

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