You had enjoyed a decent start to his career, landing a good corporate job straight out of college working as a data analyst. You worked there for 5 years, making good money but didn't enjoy a single second of it, despite excelling and being promoted multiple times. So when your old college friend, Rachel, offered you a role at her new start-up, you were excited. It was a solid idea, first and foremost and the early numbers she was pulling in were extremely promising. Not that you were surprised.
Rachel had always been an overachiever. Straights As, 4.0 GPA, took all the hard classes, student president of her sorority, not to mention the entire university. She served on so many clubs, took active part in so many things and everybody liked her. Not to mention, she was smoking hot. When you had first met Rachel, you were in awe of her, but you soon became very close. She liked to joke that you were 10% smarter than her but 100% less driven and always pushed you to be better. you wouldn't have done nearly as well in college without her as a friend.
When you arrived on his first day, you were surprised. Not by how small the staff was, that was fairly standard for a start-up at this stage in development. You spied 7 other people at the office. There was of course Rachel, founder and CEO. Then you saw Lisa, another college friend, a short, black haired beauty, who was head of marketing. She walked by, stopped when she saw you. "John!" she exclaimed, giving you a big hug. He laughed and they caught up for a minute.
A cute brunette with hair to her shoulders, walked past them, giving a little wave. You instantly found her to be very cute, she was very much your type - the girl next door. You also saw 3 more people in their cubicles and a cute, young Asian girl walking around, who Lisa informed you was the intern.
What surprised you when you entered the office was that all the employees thus far had been women! Not that you had a problem with that. In fact, after 5 years of being in a massive corporate office, especially in data, it would be a good change of pace, considering how you hated all the obnoxious office bros.
"John! You're here! I was afraid the evil overlords over at your old job would've made you an offer you couldn't refuse and you wouldn't show. Really happy you're here!" Rachel exclaimed excitedly, walking over from her office towards you. She gave you a big hug, just like they used to do when in college. Once they let go, she smiled widely and said, "Wait, let me introduce you to everyone."
"TEAM MEETING" Rachel yelled, and everyone came out to the common area. You felt awkward standing next to Rachel, facing six women (all of whom were extremely attractive) his age. Well, except for the 20-year old intern.
You waited to be introduced to the whole team, excited to open this new chapter in your life
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"All right, ladies, I would like to introduce you to our newest worker bee here at Company Corp, John! He will be taking over as Chief Technology Officer and joins us from a pretty prestigious company, and is quite a coup for us! He also happens to be an old college friend of mine, so let's do our best to make him feel welcome!"
Everyone clapped as you awkwardly acknowledged the welcome. As the applause dies down, you realize you have to say something. "I'm very excited to start working with you all here, and I would like to thank Rachel for this opportunity to get in at the ground floor here. Once again, I'm going to be relying on here to pull me with her to excellence, just like I did at university. I also want to say how excited I am to working with all of you, Rachel has assured me each of us is brilliant - and that is very impressive coming from her!"
"Quite the charmer isn't he," said the cute brunette with the shorter hair, "and quite easy on the eyes too! I hope you didn't just hire him for that, Rach!" she said, giggling. She then turned to you and said, "Hi, John, I am Marina, nice to meet you. I am Chief Marketing Officer here. This," she pointed at the 2 of the 3 women who he had seen in the cubicles, "is my marketing team. Sandy," she pointed at a hot blonde wearing glasses that made her look cute as well as hot, who gave you a little wave, "and Olivia." This time she pointed at a slim brunette with longer hair, who looked a little younger than himself. She also gave a little wave, but she seemed much more nervous and shy, which you found adorable. Marina then continued, "I know despite your title being Technology, you'll be handling a lot of the data stuff, so we will be working _closely _with you!" Her strange emphasis on closely hung in the air.
Then Lisa spoke up. "Well, you already know me! I'm Chief Product Officer here and a fellow member of the "carried by Rachel" club in college. Glad to have ya on the team, John, you're, like the smartest person I know! "
"And this," she said, pointing to the remaining cubicle worker, a pale skinned, black haired girl, fairly tall and clearly well endowed, "is Jules, our one and only product team member!" Jules looked non-plussed and flashed you a little peace sign.
Rachel then stepped in. "Last but certainly not least is our lovely intern, Emily!" she said, gesturing to the young Asian beauty who flushed red and gave a little nod. Rachel then clapped her hands. "Right!" she said, "Now that the introductions are done, we should get back to work! John, I will walk you to your office and get you situated. I hope I can trust the rest of you," she said, looking at the 6 women sternly, "to focus on your jobs rather than the new man who has joined us here?"
They all nodded, except for Marina who said, "Awww boss, you can't bring in someone like him and expect us not to gossip." Rachel said nothing, but her expression was enough. "Fineeee" Marina said. Rachel then led you to your office, which was fairly spacious and had blinds to give you some privacy as you worked. Rachel handed you some work, and asked you to get started. As she left your office, she turned back and said, "Hey, don't worry about Marina or the others. They like to tease, but they're great at their jobs and harmless" she then hesitated for a moment and followed her statement with, "I think." With a smile, she closed her door and exited.
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The first six months went by smoothly. You built a rapport with all the ladies at the firm. Marina and her team - Sandy and Olivia, loved you and you worked closely with them. Marina and you had a teasing, flirty relationship, while Sandy and Olivia seemed to have shy, little crushes on you, which you enjoyed. Lisa, you noticed, also took nearly every opportunity to give your forearm a little squeeze. The pale Jules didn't pay fawn over you like the rest, but you did notice her glance down at your privates when he came to work from the gym (you sometimes showered and changed in the office bathroom, a nice perk). The intern Emily was very shy, and only spoke to you when spoken to, which was understandable in this environment.
Since there was no sales division, being an online company, the marketing department was in charge of all sales, since their efforts in getting the name of the company out there led directly to sales. You, as data chief, would do forecasting and tell the team how to optimize their marketing strategy. You and Marina often disagreed about the results, with you being generally more conservative and data-based and Marina going more off of intuition and talking with customers. Since it was a start-up many jobs had to be done outside of one's remit, like you handling forecasting or Marina having to speak with organizations who want to buy in bulk (since there was no sales team).
Because of your teasing relationship with Marina and constant disagreements, you developed a culture of wagers. At first, they were harmless - one involved Marina having to get everyone's attention at lunch to say, "John is much smarter than me and I shouldn't question his forecasts" for instance. But they started to get more and more involved. At first Rachel balked at this, but after some convincing that this friendly competition was good for the company, she relented. However, she did make everyone in the office sign agreements that they were doing wagers off of their own free will, and that everyone was okay with it (even as a non-participant) and would not sue the company. It also stated that she would not get involved in these bets in any capacity. Everyone signed on.
Some highlights of the office wagers so far had been you having to wear track pants to work with bold pink "JUICY" written on the back. There was the time Marina lost and had to wear a dunce cap for a week. You did lose once and have to wear jean shorts for a day (that day you did notice all the girls looking quite openly, even Rachel). However, on the whole you won about 4 bets for every one that she did.
Today, six months in, you saw the girls (minus Rachel) huddled up whispering as you entered the office. They also look up at you as you enter, like a bunch of schoolgirls caught doing something they shouldn't. "What are you ladies up to?" you say, in a friendly tone. "No good." says Marina, smirking. You head into your office for the rest of the day, getting to work. It's the first of the month, so you have to push out the sales projections by end of day
"Wow, you really have no faith in us, huh?" said Marina, barging into your office. "These projections are only 10% higher than last month. Come on, we'll sell more than that!"
