Page 77 of Sparks Fly
Stella looked around the floor, the eyes of her coworkers clearly on them.
“Could we maybe go into one of the rooms?” Stella asked.
Now Melanie frowned. “I don’t have much time right now, Stella. I have an editorial meeting in ten.”
“It’ll only take a second,” Stella said. “Please.”
“Alright,” Melanie said. “We can go into Little Mix. That’s where the editorial meeting will be held anyway.”
Grabbing her notebook, she started walking over, expecting Stella to follow, which she quickly did. Once they were seated at the table, with the door closed, Stella quickly dove in before she lost her nerve.
“I’m not sure if you saw the Sprint Week results yet—”
“I did,” Melanie said. “Congratulations, by the way.”
There was nothing in Melanie’s voice that sounded celebratory, but Stella pushed past that.
“Thank you,” she said. “Anyway, you may have also noticed that I wasn’t one of the people Miles said to come get a prize, even though I brought in the most traffic. Now, I know that I didn’t exactly follow the rules—”
Melanie scoffed. “From what Miles told me, you didn’t follow the rules at all. In fact, you blatantly ignored the rules, embarrassing him in the process.”
Stella was taken aback by the harsh words, and it took her a second to gather her thoughts.
“How did I embarrass him?” she finally asked. “I did well. I did the best.”
“Yeah, but without his shiny new toy,” Melanie said, as if it was obvious. “The whole point of this competition was to show how integral this Sparky thing would be for our team’s work, and you not only didn’t use it but then showed up everyone who did use it by getting the most traffic. You know, Miles didn’t even want to list you in that email. He couldn’t give you the prize because you didn’t follow the rules, but he also knew that by not giving you the prize, it’d be obvious you didn’t use Sparky. I had a bunch of emails about it over the weekend, FYI. It was very annoying.
“Anyway,” she went on. “The only reason you were evenincluded in the email is because it would’ve been too difficult to hide the fact that you did well, because we always include everyone’s rankings, which are pulled directly from the back end of the site. We’d have to alter not only your overall number but also the numbers on your posts to make it believable that you didn’t rank as high. And unfortunately, two of your posts already had the viral badge stamped right on them because of the auto system, so that would’ve looked very suspicious.”
Stella, who’d thankfully checked out on all work things over the weekend, hadn’t even known that her posts had spread so widely they’d gotten the Yellow Sparks viral badge, which was a yellow burst that appeared on any posts that were getting an influx of traffic in a short amount of time. She must’ve had emails about it in her inbox, because the site always automatically let the writer know when they got a viral badge. And with those emails, Stella would’ve known if Miles had skewed her numbers.
“So the only reason I even know I was number one was because you all couldn’t figure out a good way to lie about it?” Stella asked, incredulous.
Melanie held up her hands. “Whoa, I had nothing to do with that. Like I said, these emails came through over the weekend, and I have a hard boundary about not responding to work emails when I’m off the clock. I just saw the conversation unfold with Miles and the rest of the editorial board.”
“And you said nothing while they debated whether or not I should get recognition for my hard work,” Stella said.
“Hard workis a bit of a stretch, don’t you think, Stella?”Melanie asked. “You got lucky. Two of your posts went viral at the right time. It could’ve happened to anyone.”
Stella didn’t believe in violence, but she felt her hand twitch at her side, itching to strangle someone. Presumably, her boss.
“But it didn’t,” she said. “It happened to me. Someone who made their own posts without any help from AI.”
Melanie quirked a brow. “So what? You’re saying your work is somehow superior to your coworkers’ because you did it all on your own?”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Stella said, blowing out a breath. “I’m just making the point that it was all my own hard work. I did itmyself. I pulled the graphics, the copy, everything. So no, I do not think anyone could’ve just done what I did. Because if they could, they would have.”
“Okay, so what do you want, Stella?” Melanie asked. “Seriously, what do you want? Because Miles isn’t going to pay you, so what do you want me to do about this?”
Stella froze, unsure what she wanted to say. Melanie had just told her no to the question she hadn’t even had the chance to ask. So what could she ask for now?
And then, before the idea had fully formed in her head, she was speaking again.
“I want to switch to the Spark News team,” Stella said.
Melanie blinked in confusion. “What?”
“I want to switch to the Spark News team,” Stella said again. “I’ve been wanting to for a while. You know I have. Clearly, I’ve proven that I’m a good writer, so I would like to make the switch.”
