Page 74 of The Reboot
‘Great.’ Roly dreaded Ray’s ideas.
‘We should spread the word about you working here – get it out on social media, you know. Maybe even go viral,’ he said dreamily.
‘Oh!’
‘So, are you okay with that?’
‘Um … yeah, sure.’ He was so far from okay with it, but he didn’t feel he could say no to Ray.
‘Great!’ Ray rubbed his hands. ‘I’ll tweet about it tonight to kick us off.’
Roly relaxed. He’d seen Ray’s Twitter. He hardly ever tweeted and he had less than a hundred followers, many of whom, Roly suspected, were inactive accounts or bots. ‘Good idea.’
‘And then I want you to retweet it, so all your fans see it.’
‘Oh.’ This wasn’t so good. In fact, it was very bad. Roly rarely went on Twitter anymore, but he still had something like thirty-five million followers – and he didn’t want a single one of them to know that he was working as a waiter at Insider Out. What would they think? What would the other guys think? They’d have a right laugh about it. Not only was he working in a cafe, he’d look like he was really proud of it. Shit!
‘I don’t really tweet anymore, Ray,’ he said. At least that was true.
‘Well, I’m sure you still have plenty of people who’d see it if you did. And what about Insta? Do you Insta?’
‘Um … yeah.’ Unfortunately, he did ‘Insta’. ‘Mostly Stories, though.’
‘Good, good.’ Ray nodded. ‘Well, Insta’s even better. We could brighten the place up a bit, make it more photogenic. I think you’re onto something here, Roly.’ He grinned.
‘Well, it wasn’t my idea…’ Roly didn’t want to take the credit for his own downfall.
‘No, but you’re taking my idea and running with it. Using your initiative. Insta Stories…’ He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘I like it.’
Roly tried not to panic. Maybe he could post something in the middle of the night when not many people would see it, and find a way to make it disappear quickly. Or maybe there was some way he could make a post so that only Ray would see it? He’d have to look into it when he got home.
‘I suppose you’d want to make the place a bit more Instagrammable first,’ he said, looking around, hoping to stall for time. ‘I mean, it’s very nice, but…’
‘I hear what you’re saying, Roly. Some fairy lights? Lick of paint maybe? New tables and chairs?’
‘You don’t need to go that far.’ Roly couldn’t let Ray shell out for painting and decorating because he didn’t want his new career to go viral.
Ray slapped the table suddenly. ‘Sure, what am I thinking? We don’t need any of that stuff. We have our most Instagrammable asset right here in front of me.’
‘What? Where?’
‘You.’ Ray pointed to him. ‘If people started coming in and taking selfies with you … that’s major bragging rights. It could blow up big time.’ He reached out and took a brownie from the pile. ‘Now we’re motoring. We need to come up with some snappy hashtags. Let’s brainstorm it. More tea?’
19
‘Ella! Phillip, everyone!’Dylan called excitedly as he and Kerry swept across the office floor, Dara and Jake following behind carrying a couple of large boxes.
‘Come on! They’re here!’ Jake called.
Everyone dropped whatever they were doing and followed in their wake, hurrying towards the meeting room. No one had to ask what ‘they’ were. They’d been impatiently awaiting the first consignment of Heatsmart Neo jackets for days.
Ella followed the excited procession. In the meeting room, Jake and Dylan were already slicing open boxes. Everyone stood around the large table watching as they pulled out plastic-wrapped packages. Jake quickly opened a couple and slid the jackets across opposite sides of the table for everyone to pass around. Then he, Dylan and the designers huddled together as they opened a couple more, beaming as they pored over the details, murmuring delightedly to each other as they checked out zips and seams.
Ella was shocked to find tears springing to her eyes. She knew how hard they’d worked for this, the months spent agonising over every detail, coping with factory delays, testing failures and production problems. Now it was finally here, and she felt so proud and happy for them.
Kerry slid a jacket along the table to her, and she picked it up, running her eyes over it. She knew every detail so well already – she’d seen numerous drawings and photos on her computer screen. But now it was a real tangible thing that she could hold in her hands. She couldn’t quite fathom it, as she turned it over, putting her hands in the pockets, pulling the zipper up and down, running her fingers over the COTW label. It was perfect. She was surprised how emotional she felt about it. But she’d had a part in this, and she felt a shared sense of pride and ownership as she passed it along to the next person.
‘Okay, everyone, that’s a wrap! I think we can sign off on this one.’ Jake pulled the top off a marker, then lay one of the jackets open on the table and signed his name on the lining with a flourish. He handed the marker to Dylan who did the same before passing the jacket along to one of the designers.
