February 3rd
"Chaise, I've figured out how to meet the perfect woman."
"By asking me out for dinner? Mr. Hawke, I'm flattered, but I don't want to get fired for violating the company's no-intra-office-dating policy."
"Ha! No. I mean, I'm not happy with my dating life. I have a plan, but I need your help. And call me Jeff. I don't like being called Mr. Hawke, even at work."
"Okay, Jeff. What happened to that woman you were seeing last month? The redhead?"
"You mean Leslie? How did you know about her?"
"You're the owner of the company, Jeff. Your dating habits are honeyed gossip for us worker bees. Amara Patel saw you at that new teppanyaki place near Stanford. Amara said your date -- Leslie? -- was so gorgeous that Amara briefly doubted her own heterosexuality."
"Yeah, Leslie was a beauty, but get this! She had never heard of Blade Runner!"
"A guy has to have standards, even if he himself would struggle to pass a Voight-Kampff test."
"See! Everyone should know that film! Um... Chaise, you think I couldn't pass a test to prove I'm not an android?"
"They're called 'replicants' in the movie, and I meant it in a good way. Mostly."
"Oh, then thank you. Mostly."
"What was wrong with that woman you took to the Sharks game last month? Janice Wu saw you in line for beer. She recognized the woman from some TV show."
"Candace. Yeah, she had a part on CSI: Dubuque, playing a fashion model who killed designers whose clothes made her hips look too big. Candace didn't get a Monty Python reference I made. She had never heard of the show."
"Burn the witch!"
"I was thinking more of turning her into a newt, but she'd only get better."
"There's no justice in this world. Hey, Jeff, I'm just spitballin' here, but have you considered changing your no-fraternization policy and just asking out someone from work? I know at least one of your employees who would love to date you, and she would ace any geek test you threw at her."
"Really, who? Wait, Chaise, don't answer. I'd rather not know. My partner in my first start-up destroyed the company when she dated-and-dumped our lead designer, and we descended into lawsuits and office drama. I'm not repeating that mistake. No intra-office dating."
"That's a pity. So, Jeff, you want my help. Do you want me to set you up with a friend or something? I'd have to think..."
"No, the problem is strategic. I'm bad at approaching women on my own. The women I've been dating lately all approached me, and we don't seem to have anything in common. I need to find women with common interests, but I don't have the time. Computer dating was the obvious solution, but I didn't think I could write the ad. That's when I realized that an ad for finding a partner has a lot in common with writing technical requirements That's where you come in. I need your help writing the specifications for the perfect woman."
"Specifications."
"Yes."
"Jeff, you're smart enough to run a Silicon Valley start-up to the point where your company is the object of a rumored bidding war between Apple and Google, yet you're dumb enough to think your dating problems are caused by the lack of a tech spec? Wait, that particular combination of intelligence and idiocy explains itself, doesn't it?"
"It's only dumb if it doesn't work."
"It'll need to be one hell of a spec."
"You're the best tech writer in the company. Your work on the Silver Lining website was stellar."
"For which I still haven't received a raise. Just sayin'."
"What? The only thing that distinguished that site from every other cloud storage site was the irreverent attitude: 'Porn you want to share with your girlfriend' vs. 'porn you want to hide from your girlfriend'. That one still makes me laugh. It was singled out in all the press, and it saved the project. Dennis never approved a raise for that?"
"He didn't like the approach I took, and he liked it even less when it received most of the credit for the site being a hit."
"But that site was worth half our profits last year! Dammit. And Dennis has the chutzpah to whine about staff retention problems in his division. Grrr. I'll take care of it."
"How?"
"I'll take care of it, Chaise. I promise. What about the computer dating ad. Will you do it?"
"Tell me more."
"Obviously, the dating ad can't read like a technical spec, but I know you can handle that. I heard you were a creative writing major in college."
"My poetry gave all the guys in Freshman Comp very existential erections. Hmm. Describing the girl is only half the ad. You have to describe yourself in a way that makes her want to meet you, and it has to be accurate enough that you aren't wasting each other's time."
"I can see ideas forming in the furrows of your brow."
"It's certainly a writing challenge, and it's a change of pace from online help guides."
"It's off the clock at work, of course. Your raise has nothing to do with this. I'll pay you for this out of my own pocket."
"Jeff, don't insult me. I wasn't even thinking of charging. Um, just out of curiousity, how much?"
"$30 an hour?"
"I said don't insult me! Rates for freelance tech writing in the Valley are three times that, and as you say, I'm a damned good tech writer."
"But you said you weren't thinking of charging!"
"Yes, but even if I do it for free, you should know I'm
worth
at least $100 an hour."
"You're worth $200 an hour."
"Done. I'll take the first five hours on retainer. I'll make an exception from normal business practices and accept a personal check, because you have an honest face."
"Um...I think I just got rolled."
"I may be an excellent tech writer, but I'm an even better negotiator."
"That was too well done for me to object. How do you spell your first name?"
"C-h-a-i-s-e."
"Here's a check for $1000. That's an unusual name. Where did your parents get that?"
"They won't tell me, but I think it's where I was conceived."
"Is that a city somewhere?"
"It's a type of couch -- a chaise lounge. They even gave me the couch when I moved out here. You're paying by the hour, so let's start with you. How would you describe yourself, Jeff?"
"Early thirties, start-up millionaire--"
"You can't call yourself a millionaire in an ad!"
"I should say billionaire? That's lying."
"It's tacky to mention income at all! You can hint about how rich you are, but you have to be subtle or funny about it, or you come across as a douchebag."
"That's what my last serious girlfriend called me before she threw my laptop out on the street."
"You aren't a douchebag. You're just completely lacking in pretense, which makes you socially clueless sometimes. Your perfect woman will see past those quirks, and perceive you the way we all do at the office -- as a brilliant, rakishly-handsome studmuffin."
"Everyone at work thinks I'm a rakishly-handsome studmuffin?"
"Just the women on the third floor."
"Whew, I have my reputation to protect. Wait, aren't you the only woman on the third floor?"
"There's probably a few others somewhere. Hmm. I don't think you'll have a clue how to describe yourself in a way that would attract a woman you'ld like. I think I can handle that on my own. So, describe your perfect girl."
"We should like the same books. Well, not exactly the same, or we won't have fun discussing them."
"Examples."
"Science Fiction classics."
"Wells and Verne?"
"More modern."
"Asimov and Heinlein?"
"Heinlein yes, Asimov no."
"You pick the fascist over the Jew? Jeff, I thought you were a Member of the Tribe yourself?"
"On my mom's side. Asimov was Jewish?"
"
Oy vey.
Yes. Any other authors?"
"Herbert, Haldeman, Vinge, Scalzi..."
"Your first criteria for a woman is that she reads and likes militaristic space operas? Good luck with that. How about fantasy? That's more popular with women."
"It is?"
"Buff heroes treading-the-jeweled-thrones-of-the-earth-beneath-their-sandaled-feet are a lot sexier than space soldiers blowing up aliens with plasma rifles, particularly if the fantasy hero can respect the heroine as a self-empowered individual -- even after he beds her like he owns her."
"I like fantasy. How about Tolkien and Martin?"
"I can work with that. Any genres outside geek lit?"
"I like mysteries and thrillers."
"Like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett?"
"Who?"
"You live in the Bay Area and don't know Hammett? The Maltese Falcon?"
"Wasn't that a movie?"
"Based on a book. It's detective fiction. All the guys are bastards and the women love them for it. Hammett's books are as tough and sexist as any of your space operas.You would love them. So if not hard-boiled detective fiction, then what?"
"Ludlum, Follett, Harris, that sort of thing."
"You don't think Thomas Harris lost his mojo after Silence of the Lambs?"
"Yes, but his first three books are amazing."
"Okay, Jeff, enough with books. What else describes your perfect girl?"
"A great conversationalist. Have you ever had one of those conversations where the world disappears?"
"I'm not sure what you mean."
"Where nothing exists except the conversation. I think that's what love is. When you talk to someone and nothing else exists except the other person. Have you ever had that happen?"
"I'm afraid not. What else is she like?"
"She has a sense of humor."
"She'll need one."
"Yeah, like that. I love sarcasm."
"Any other examples of a sense of humor?"
"Movies like
Airplane!
, and
The Hangover
."
"Everyone likes those. They don't say anything unique about you. What movies do you like that few people our age have seen?"
"My dad was a fan of Peter Sellers. When I was a kid, we used to watch the Pink Panther movies together. I loved them."
"Ooh, good choice. Hey, if you like Sellers, did you ever see Alec Guinness's Ealing comedies?"
"Obi-Wan Kenobi did comedy?"
"Argh! The most versatile actor in the history of film, and everyone remembers him for portraying an aging Jedi who could have been played by any British guy over fifty. Guinness was a brilliant comic actor! Peter Sellers learned at his feet. You should see
Lavender Hill Mob
, or
Kind Hearts and Coronets.
