— The Interview —
Emi landed in Hawaii for the first time and enjoyed all of the exotic differences from the Seattle, WA area. After checking into her hotel in Honolulu she decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood. Everything felt somewhat familiar, but also different in many ways. It was humid but not as hot as Emi had imagined that it would be. She also noticed that most people seem to be either middle-aged or senior citizens.
A little while later, while walking along near the beach she got a call on her cell.
"Hi Emi, this is Becca. How was your flight? Did you get settled into your hotel ok?" said the woman with who she had talked with during her phone interview the week before.
"Hi Becca, the flight was a bit bumpy but good. The hotel is great! Everyone just assumes that I'm from Japan, which is kind of funny."
"Yeah, they get a LOT of tourists from Japan here. They are generally treated well because they tend to spend more than your average tourist," said Becca with a chuckle.
After a pause, Becca continued. "Look, I know the interview is tomorrow but I just can't wait to meet you. Can I buy you an ice cream or something?"
"That would be wonderful!" said Emi.
A short while later a stunning redheaded woman with short-pant designer ripped jeans and a stylish casual top that showed her jeweled bellybutton walked up to Emi. Her top was thin and her designer black c-cup bra could be clearly seen under it. Her black thong was stylishly up above the low rise jeans. With the exception of no makeup and normal looking hair, Becca looked like a rockstar.
Emi, felt like she was dressed too conservatively despite wearing her everyday Lululemon clothes. She politely offered her hand to Becca.
Becca shook her hand vigorously, and then pulled Emi in for a big hug. She was a couple of inches taller than Emi's 5'7″ height.
Holding Emi out by the shoulders, Becca beamed with a friendly unguarded smile that made Emi instantly like her.
After an ice cream and some casual conversation about Hawaii and good places to eat, the conversation swayed back to the interview.
"I looked at your GitHub account in detail last week, and your code samples are really impressive. Also, your personal apps in the iOS and Android app stores are amazing, did you collaborate with anyone on those?" Becca asked.
"No, I did those alone," Emi stated while playing with the rim of her cup.
"What about the UX and graphic design? Did you use a template or were you inspired by some other apps?" Becca probed.
"No my best friend is a UX/designer/illustrator and he taught me quite a lot about UX and graphic design. It's my new side hobby actually." Emi explained.
"Unbelievable! I think that you are probably overqualified for this position, that makes me a bit worried about how much you will cost," Becca said with some concern in her voice. "But we can talk about that later. So your best friend is male, but I guess that makes sense in the tech world," Becca said as she took a quick sip of her coffee.
Emi just smiled politely.
"Currently, we are rushing to finish up a tough job here in Hawaii. It will probably take us at least three more months to complete. Then I have a new gig lined up at a brand new Resort. But I'm afraid that we might lose that deal if I don't close it soon. The Resort job will also be challenging and so that's why I wanted to bring in a heavyweight. I want to go in there with both guns blazing!" Becca said in an animated manner than made Emi laugh.
Emi hadn't met the rest of the team yet, but she already felt good about the job. She realized that she wanted it so bad that it almost scared her.
"So why did you leave your old job?" Becca asked casually.
Emi froze for a moment. "Um, I was just looking for a change mostly."
"A change?" Becca probed. "Did anything happen that made you want to leave?"
Mr. Woo strikes again, Emi thought bitterly as she struggled to keep a poker face. Time passed uncomfortably as Emi struggled to come up with a reasonable answer.
Suddenly Emi decided to forget the whole thing. She stood up quickly almost spilling her coffee. "I'm sorry..." she started to say with a grim face.
"That's alright Emi. You don't have to go into any details." Becca interrupted, looking at Emi carefully.
"Congratulations, this job is yours... if you want it." Becca suddenly decided.
Emi was surprised and then overwhelmed with relief.
"Usually we grill someone on the whiteboard but somehow I don't think we need to do that with you," Becca added.
Becca stood up and hugged Emi deeply. "Welcome to the family," she said softly into Emi's ear. "You have just landed the coolest software developer job on the planet."
Emi hugged her in return. She was so happy that her eyes started to water.
"You are so adorable, " Becca said, taking out two tissue papers from her trendy hip-hugging bag. She gave one to Emi while she dabbed at her own watering eyes.
Emotionally pent up, Emi finally laughed and did the same.
Soon after they both happily agreed to a generous salary worthy of Emi's prowess, and both were quite happy as Emi signed the digital offer, on Becca's iPhone, with just her finger.
Becca told Emi to enjoy the rest of the day as they needed to get her started the next day if possible. Then she turned and strutted away confidently showing off most of her left butt cheek through an alarmingly large rip in her designer pants.
— Meeting the Crew —
The next morning, Emi was emailed some developer setup information from someone named Sam.
Emi spent some time setting up her machine and then joined their Slack group. It was still early, so she decided to go for a run.
A while later Emi's watch buzzed. She stopped running and read the message.
"We are dying to meet you Emi. Can you meet us at Coffee Shop 831 in an hour?" slacked Hanna.
"Sounds great. I'll see you there," Emi replied, verbally. Her voice was transformed into text and she hit the send button.
Later Emi arrived at the small coffee shop somewhat early. Not a fancy place, but it seemed quite homey. This might be a nice place to get some work done she thought. She walked in and immediately felt the air conditioner cool her skin. The smell of freshly baked goods was in the air.
Her new co-workers were not there yet. There were just two elderly couples having a grand conversation with tea and pastries.
Out in the back, however, there were more tables. She spotted two young women sitting outside with laptops. A shop-girl was cleaning a table beside them, partially blocking Emi's view.
The two girls looked smart.
One had blond hair in a bun, the other smaller girl looked to be half Asian. They were both looking at the same computer and seemed to be deeply engrossed. They did not notice Emi standing there, probably because the cleaning girl was blocking their view.
Not sure if this was them or not, Emi stood there somewhat awkwardly as they chatted excitedly about what sounded to be some type of new style tennis rackets. This must be my co-workers, she thought, as she heard the french blonde call the other one 'Sam'.
Great, Emi thought, I don't know anything about Tennis.
The blonde, who must be Hannah, had a slight French accent and her light summer dress had faint blue flowers and butterflies all over it. She had a pale blemish free skin. A cute upturned nose of the style that other girls go to the plastic surgeon hoping to achieve. Her hair had little wisps hanging down with a youthful shine and natural highlights created by the tropical sun. Her gentle blue eyes were clearly visible, as her sunglasses were sitting up upon her head. She seemed deeply approachable and friendly. The back of her laptop showed dozens of stickers from all around the world.
Sam had short black hair and her eyes were obscured by little round sunglasses that barely covered her eyes. She was wearing a black tank top and punk-like oversized red shorts. On her shoulder was a tattoo of a computer chip. The back of her laptop had "Las Tres Amigas" written in big bold black letters.
"Well if it isn't super-girl," said Sam, apparently recognizing Emi and realizing that she was watching them.
"Emi!" gushed Hannah. She quickly got up to shake hands enthusiastically, with a smile. The other girl remained seated.
"I'm Hannah. This little monster is Sam," she said gesturing back towards Sam.
Sam raised her hand, wiggling some fingers.
"Aren't you a bit early?" Sam asked, her head slightly tilted.
Emi didn't like that she couldn't see her eyes. "I..." she started, but Hannah cut her off.
"Don't mind her Emi, she's not from this planet. Let's get you a drink," she said, dragging her back into the shop.
The rest of the morning went well as the three girls settled in and enjoyed getting to know each other and the current project on hand.
Sam turned out to be somewhat friendly and was also the team lead. She was in charge of security, tools and backend servers, and any other low-level techie stuff.
Hannah's specialty was graphic design and user experience, UX for short. She is also an amazing web programmer.
Becca ran the show. She had a bachelor's in business and paid everyone's salary. She is also an elite front-end iOS developer and programmed all the jazzy user-facing stuff that Hannah designs. Becca however, never acted like she is anything more than just another programmer.
Apparently, all three girls used to be tech leads themselves. After joining forces, they became a truly elite team, often slicing through the competition, usually larger teams, like a hot knife through butter.
The only thing that seemed less than ideal was that Sam and Hannah loved playing tennis together. But that was okay as Emi really enjoyed her solo runs in this new exotic location. The rest of the job couldn't have been any better. It often felt like being paid top dollar to be on vacation, especially since everyone there, including herself, loved what they did every day.
A week later, the four of them were working in the shade by the beach and enjoying some cool drinks.
"Sweet! Fold up, we are rolling out," Becca announced excitedly.
