CHAPTER 5 -- Interview 4 (Stella - Finance)
The walk was uneasy. I tried to control my breathing. I needed to get myself together. I tried to shut off all the voices in my head. I stopped outside the door and took a very deep breath. From other side of the door I heard a woman's voice, "Megan, let's go please."
I had not knocked. How did she know? My heart was pounding. I turned the knob and opened the door. As I walked in I saw Miss Johnson sitting behind her desk. She beckoned me to come to her. As I got closer she pointed to one of the two chairs facing her desk. I sat down and tried to portray a posture of confidence. She was on a phone call but still looked at me for the longest few minutes of my life. I held her gaze almost as strongly as I was holding my breath.
I could only see the top half of her. She was very pretty with shoulder length wavy jet black hair. Her pale skin popped against it and the dark navy blue sleeveless dress she was wearing. She had very pronounced cheekbones and her eyes were large and bright. Her makeup was well done and the slightly mauve lipstick finished her face very nicely.
Finally she ended her phone call and broke the silence. "Megan, I know it is not your fault that you are late. But you are going to be effected. Instead of you having a lunch by yourself or maybe reconvening with Nicole, you will be having it with me. It is 11:30 now and you are supposed to meet with Victor at 1 pm and I'll be damned if I am only going to get 30 minutes with you."
I exhaled and nodded my understanding.
She continued, "On the positive side, I have asked Beatrice to bring us in lunch. I made an executive decision on what you might be interested in. I apologize ahead of time if it is not to your liking."
I replied, "It is okay Miss Johnson. I am happy that you are willing to see me."
"Good answer Megan. As you may have picked up on, each of us have a different set of questions we are going to be asking you. Each of us has different things we care about. Just like each of us have different tastes when it comes to sex. So I plan to ask you my questions and then test you out just like the others. But I will warn you. I am not as gentle as Matt or Nicole or probably anyone else you will see today. Although, who knows what Victor has planned."
A light knock on the door interrupted her. "Enter!" she shouted. When she saw it was Beatrice she got up to meet her. It gave me a chance to look around the room briefly. It was similar to Matt's office that I just left. The bookshelves had way more books than it did doodads. I noticed the door next to the bookshelf this time, which I assumed also led to a bathroom. She did not have a couch; however, but instead had a large conference room table with 6 chairs around it. That is where I spotted the two women.
Beatrice was an older woman, slightly overweight. She dressed very conservatively with a flowery dress that went to her knees. She seemed to be a nice mixture of pleasant and all business. She was pulling things out of a canvas bag and placing them on the conference table.
When she finished Stella asked her, "Can you come back and get this stuff and pick up Megan at precisely 12:45 pm?"
Beatrice agreed and left the office. Stella summoned me to join her at the table. "We can eat lunch while we talk. I have some questions for you and I want to set some expectations with you."
I joined her at the table and took the chair across from her. As I was getting seated she continued, "First things first. I have a dominating personality. Some could say it is borderline dominatrix, except I don't want to own you, or anyone for that matter. But my personality is to tell people what to do and I expect them to do it. As it relates to you, today and if you are fortunate enough to get this internship, you do what I tell you immediately without complaint. Do you understand?"
I replied respectfully, "Yes Miss Johnson."
Stella invited me to pick out some food from the selection Beatrice had brought in. There were several fruits, nuts, cheeses, and small sandwiches. My stomach grumbled a bit at the sight of food. Apparently the work I had put in this morning had made me hungry.
She continued, "Secondly, I have taken on a mentoring role for this internship. As a woman in corporate America, I feel it my duty to mentor other women attempting to succeed in a man's world. I mentored Nicole and she has done very well for herself."
I smiled at her and nodded my agreement. She continued, "I saw your grades from school. They did not represent someone who is going to overachieve here. Convince me otherwise."
My smile left. Steve had asked me this question earlier so I at least had a basis for how to answer. But something told me I needed to be more convincing with Stella. "I messed up. I did not take school seriously soon enough and it had a longer-term effect. The important lesson that it taught me was that I need to take everything seriously from day one, that I need to give it my 100% immediately, that I should not accept just getting through it, but that I need to excel if given the chance. Miss Johnson, I have taken this internship opportunity seriously from the minute I walked through the door this morning, through Steve, through Nicole, through Matt. I am 100% dialed in with you right now. If I am fortunate enough to get this internship, I will work my butt off every single day to do whatever it takes for me to be successful and for this company to be successful."
She smiled at me. "Did you practice that answer?"
"Not exactly. Steve asked me a similar question, so this is really the second time I have answered it today."
"I see. My input to the leadership team for who we should look for in this role fits you like a 'T'. I told them it would be easy to find some young whore that just wants to get paid to fuck everybody. But I told them I wanted to find a young girl that is hungry for a better life. I wanted someone that was super smart, and attractive, that we could convince to do the other stuff as opposed to the other way around. I wanted someone that is willing to get fucked all year to take advantage of the excellent opportunities we can give them. I structured the benefits of this internship in such a way that someone like Nicole could set herself up by putting in the work. And she did."
I stopped eating and intently nodded my agreement. She asked, "What will you do with the non-monetary benefits that are offered in this internship?"
"I can only tell you intent. I just found out about them at a high level a few hours ago. I am a planner by default. So if I am fortunate enough to get this internship, I will sit down during those few days before I move in to consider that very thing. Then I will work with Nicole that first week and use her experience to put together a schedule that supports what I want to achieve."
"And what do you want to achieve, using the information you know to this point?"
"I want a successful career and a successful life. And I plan to use everything this internship has to offer to help me get there." I emphasized 'everything' again. "Everything! I am going to talk to a bunch of people about their jobs and the functions they do. I am going to build relationships with people who can help me. I am going to take full advantage of all the training I can get. I am going to make as much money as I can. I am going to use the gym and the chef constantly to get in the best shape of my life. Everything! Why wouldn't I?"