Genius Girl

GENIUS GIRL

The receptionist led me through a series of halls and doors until we reached a large, comfortable conference room, "Please make yourself comfortable, Ms Avery. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?"

"No thank you Kelly, I'm fine." I always make it a point to remember the names and be nice to the "help", if you will, and I recognize that's a pejorative term. But while everyone else is sucking up to the big bosses, it's the people on the ground level who get shit done. She smiled back at me and turned away, leaving the door open.

The stylish woman was already standing and walking toward me, "So nice to meet you in person, Ms Avery. I'm Janet Taylor, the staffing manager for the engineering department. I'm the one who did the phone screen with you, I'm sure you remember."

"Yes, of course Ms Taylor. You can call me Alex though."

"Great Alex. Well, we will just wait a few minutes until the rest of the interview team shows up before we get started." She was friendly, non-committal, caring and gentle in a very non-specific way that must be a class at HR school.

That was fine; I'm perfectly comfortable sitting quietly in awkward silence and not feeling the slightest bit awkward about it. After the third other person entered and took a seat, Janet started off the interview. "So Alex, you know me, Janet Taylor, Staffing Manager, and my pronouns are she/her. How about you introduce yourself, and then we'll go around the table."

"Hi everyone, Alex Avery, my pronouns are zie/zir..." I picked up on Janets cue, then told them about my experience. It was all in my CV, but this is the game, so.....

Next up was, "I'm Dr. Geoffrey Baxter,...." important something or another, thinks he is all that, probably get's by on being 6'2" and very handsome. But uses so damn many buzzwords it makes me cringe. And who needs 3 minutes to introduce themselves, anyway?

"Hi Alex, I'm Tammy Anderrson, Chief Engineer." The woman was what you'd call non-descript: medium height, medium weight, medium hair, medium eyes, medium everything;... that name sounded vaguely familiar.

"Um, OK, I'm Ben... Aabrams, one of the process engineers."

So it was going to be Tammy and Ben who are the brains here; pay attention to them. The interview went like they always do. They made me an offer, and I accepted it without much argument. It was slightly less than I was getting now; but money is not really my primary concern. I'm confident I could have got more if I'd felt like arguing about it, but mostly I just needed an escape from the travesty that was my last employer.

My old boss was a complete, obnoxious jerk who unabashedly hit on me at every opportunity, and was totally inept. But I had, let's just say, taken measures, that his total incompetence would be shortly exposed; so my primary goal was to not be there when it all happened. And so I wasn't. But I did get to hear about it later from some of my former colleagues; which is a great story, BTW.

----

As I'd suspected, Tammy was my new boss. She didn't say much, and didn't bother me much, but what she said always mattered. Usually I worked with Ben, who was kind, and crazy smart, even if a complete social disaster. He was fine around me, but any time a 'pretty woman' entered the room he totally stopped functioning. It would have been really amusing, except I felt bad for him because he's actually quite a sweet kid.

About a month into the new job, Ben and I had a meeting with Tammy to go over a stack of calculations for a 3-component distillation process we had put together. Also in the meeting was another engineer, Jack, who had reviewed all our work.

"So, these number seem to be inconsistent. First of all, let's look at your report of uncertainty. Jack, I don't see any comments you made to the uncertainty analysis, did you review it?"

"Um, well I didn't see anything wrong with it?"

"So about that: OK Jack, we understand that you don't know anything about statistics, so why didn't you have Allison look at it?"

Nobody had an answer to that.

"The first problem with this is, that you totally failed to consider the error associated with the equations of state. What EOS are you using?"

Here Ben lit up, this is his specialty. "We're using IFC97 for steam and water, of course, and NASA-Janaf for air, and Peng-Robinson for hydrocarbons.."

"Peng-Robinson? Why not NISTRefprops? At these conditions Peng-Robinson has as much as 2% error. So OK, fix that.

Then the next thing is, your isentropic efficiency for this compressor is put in at 63.2% Is this based on vendor data? It's not listed in the references, and 3 sigfigs implies that....

........ so the results you are reporting are not consistent with the uncertainty target. We can never agree to performance guarantees unless we have better than 3%. And for this particular project, you read the RFP, right?, for this one we need better than 1%."

And then she spent another 20 minutes taking us apart in the most humiliating way. I was thinking that I should just crawl into a mudhole and end my life right there. My first opportunity to demonstrate my competence at a multi-national engineering firm, and all I demonstrated is that I'm way out of my league. I struggled to keep up with what Tammy was telling us; I barely understood half of it.

As we walked out, I was shattered; Ben on the other hand seemed pretty happy. I said he is entirely, socially inept, right?

"Ben, how the fuck can you be happy after we just got our asses handed to us?"

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"Tammy just tore us to pieces!"

"Well no, she just identified 6 things we need to correct. We need to have Allison fix the uncertainty analysis; incorporate the uncertainty associated with the EOS....."

I just looked at him. What I had heard was Tammy telling us everything we had done wrong; what Ben had heard was Tammy telling us what needed to be fixed. But as I thought back on the whole interaction, she had never been unkind or critical. Maybe taking that much time to describe in minute detail what needed to be corrected, was just her patiently explaining the minutiae of process modeling? I was so out of my league.

-----

By Friday at 10am we had the new numbers. By 5:18pm the proposal had been submitted, and everyone was happy. And by 5:18:01 everyone was ready to get the fuck out of there. Tammy came around to thank everyone.

"Come now, everyone! We are going to McGillivrey's Pub! I'm uncharacteristically confident about our prospects for a satisfactory outcome, might I even say a fortuitous turn of events? You shall all join me forthwith and partake a stirrup-cup before retiring to your own abodes!"

Ahhh??? Who even talks like that? But hey, she is buying and I'm not asking questions.

----

Tuesday, I had another meeting with Tammy. My one month review.

"Hi Alex. Sorry about being so late with this, I was supposed to do it a couple weeks ago. Not that it actually matters, anyway. So? How are you doing so far? Is everything OK?"

"Yeah, as far as I'm concerned it is. But isn't this where you tell me all the things I need to improve on if I want to be a success in this organization? Give me the speech about being a team player?" I'm not sure why I felt snarky just then, but somehow I had the feeling she was inviting it.

"Nope. When I come across something you need to fix, I'll tell you within the following 8 seconds."

"8? That is an oddly specific number."

"Not really. 5 seconds to consider the word selection and 3 seconds to say it."

I smiled, she was real. A total hard-ass when it comes to getting the numbers right, or to thinking through everything that can go wrong, or making sure nothing would go wrong... I was starting to get Ben's understanding: it wasn't about finding what was wrong, so much as making sure everything is right.

The next week was a bit more relaxed. I worked on a few projects, doing some routine calculations, editing a couple of specifications; nothing special. On Friday early afternoon Ben stopped by.

"Hey, Alex, a couple of us are going to ahhh, get a few drinks, ahhhh, you should come?"

"Sure, yeah. Sounds like fun." Something was going on here, I wasn't sure what. Maybe, or maybe not, Ben had figured out I'm a lesbian. Maybe not is the most probable answer; but also, he is not a total basket case around me, like he is around Pretty Women. But Ben is really sweet, he is just a basket case around anyone that is a potential 'romantic interest' (queue up the Christmas Romance Movie music).

Remember how I said that I make an effort to pay attention to the "help"? Yeah, I hate that concept, but my hating it won't stop it from happening. I'd stopped off and chatted with Kelly enough over the last several weeks to know that she did not currently have a boyfriend, nor any immediate prospects. So it made complete sense to me that I should invite her along and try to set up her and Ben. Kelly is 100% pretty woman and sure to be Ben's undoing; while Ben is 100% sweet dork, who is not at all bad looking and also has a very attractive income, both of which are sure to be of interest to Kelly. I'm such a heartless bitch, but fuck me: if Ben and Kelly can find something happy together, then I hope they do.

It ended up being me and Ben and Kelly and Tammy, who went out. I'm not sure what happened with everyone else, and I didn't care. I didn't really want to be there, but I had this weird kind of investment in seeing Ben find someone to make him happy. He was such a sweet kid, so ridiculously smart, and clueless at the same time. He needed a good, solid woman to keep him grounded; to be watching out for all the things he is totally oblivious to; to figure out life for him while he ambled blissfully along. The thing is, Kelly is really, as in

really

, attractive. And maybe she is "just" the receptionist, but she is smart, engaging, empathetic and totally everyone's wet dream. They would be the perfect cute couple. I couldn't figure out why Ben was sitting there like a lump, but I figured it must be just his normal Pretty Woman Problem.

"Hey Ben? Are you going to make a play on Kelly, or not? 'cause I'm pretty sure she is a straight girl and she's not going for me. But if you don't do something here in the next like, 38 seconds, I'm throwing my cards on the table and going for it." I whispered to him conspiratorially while Kelly was saying something to Tammy.

That turned out to be a lie, I waited at least 4 more minutes for Ben to do something before I grabbed Tammy's hand and pulled us away. I made some excuse about going to get everyone more drinks, but my ulterior motive was to give them some space. Inside my brain I said "and I hope to see some right proper snogging soon" in my best Harry Potter Movie interpretation, accompanied by the John Williams orchestration.

We didn't come back to their table with drinks though, we sat a bit away. I have this really bad tendency to revert to "problem solving mode;" it's typical of engineers. Ben wants a girlfriend, Kelly wants a boyfriend >>>>> problem solved. But Tammy is way worse even than I am. After I explained my interpretation of the scene, she was ready to schedule their wedding and send out the invitations for them. We both relaxed and drew closer as we made wedding plans for the unsuspecting not-yet-a-couple, and I found myself feeling a connection with her on a new level.

Eventually we tired of that topic and defaulted back to the proposal we were working on, she actually mentioned that she thought I was doing a good job, which surprised me. I'm sort of self-conscious about compliments so I descended into silence, which killed everything, and we spent the rest of the evening looking over at Ben and Kelly to see how they were getting on. After a while Tammy asked something about the college I went to, classes I took and that stuff. I just went to State College, so nothing special. Which made me wonder why she seemed to be so interested in that. It was all in my CV, she already knew all that, there wasn't anything else to tell.

Whether it was the drinks, the quite decent food, or the fact I hadn't been serious about anyone in nearly 3 years, I was really starting to like Tammy; there were just a few problems with that: she's my boss; and I'm not getting any hints that she is into girls. I did not need to fall for a straight woman who is also my boss. Of all the catastrophic methods for exploding one's career, that has to be the.... (somebody give me an adjective here...) ugliest?

After the third 7&7, and sharing a plate of Macho Nachos, I was ready for bed. I'm too old for all that partying, dancing, chasing around until all hours of the night..... damn, I'm 32 for fucks sake. So I was back home and glad to be in bed before 9pm. (..and I don't

even

care what all you literotica readers want to say about me going to bed by 9.....)

------

You might think that once we had submitted the proposal, and it had been evaluated according to the very carefully defined criteria, that the answer would be obvious.

But that would be too obvious. We then had to fiddly fuck around for another 3 weeks talking about 'qualifications of the team.' So we deployed Mr, Dr. Geoffrey Baxter, 6'2", Impressive Somebody, handsome person, to assure them that they were making the right decision by hiring the best qualified team. (which team, BTW, did not include Mr. Dr, what the fuck was his name again???) But none of that involved me so I could go along blissfully unaware of all that.

We did finally win the work though, and the guy who was assigned as project manager set up an internal project kickoff / team building event to get the people who would do detailed design familiarized with the process design. Some of us who had developed the proposal were there to explain the process design, and to help smooth over the hand off to the team who would be building it. There was a happy hour scheduled at the end of all the meetings; they brought in some appetizers and invited more informal discussions. I still didn't know many people outside of the handful I'd been working directly with, so I was in my usual corner, comfortably enjoying my own awkward silence and watching everyone.

I noticed Ben, over talking with a group of his friends and considered joining them. But just then Tammy stopped to talk to me. "You did great on this one Alex. Thanks."

"Ah, well thank you!" I paused a minute, then said in as close to a joking tone as I could manage, "I'll admit though, I thought for a while there, that you thought I was a total idiot."

She didn't say anything, just looked at me quizzically.

"You know: when you reviewed our modeling results, you nit picked everything."

"Oh that," she waved her hand dismissively. "There is a lot of potential risk on this project. If we are wrong by even a fraction of a percent it's millions of dollars. So we needed to be within 1% on our process guarantees. On most projects it's OK to have 3% uncertainty, so you would have been fine."

Now it was my turn to look at her quizzically, I'd never worked for anyone before who was so obsessed with knowing the basis for every single piece of data. I felt like I was looking at her for an uncomfortably long time, but I wasn't sure what I was trying to figure out.

"You don't remember me, do you?" she asked, completely out of nowhere.

"Remember you? From.....?" I wracked my brain. Her name had sounded familiar when we first met, but.....

"From college. I was 2 years behind you. We had a couple classes together."

Tammy Anderrson! Suddenly I remembered. "Oh shit! You, you're Genius Girl!" I blurted. Damn right I remembered her now. She was 2 years younger, and still taking a bunch of classes that I (a senior) was in, and she smoked all of us. In college we never referred to her by her actual name, we all just called her Genius Girl. I didn't exactly know her, but everyone knew who she was.

Her face twisted in a half smile, "I guess? I didn't know people called me that."

"No, probably not," I said, embarrassed that I had blurted that out so stupidly. "I guess nobody said it to your face. You were pretty intimidating."

"Seriously? Why?" she was genuinely curious.

"Well first, because you are so much smarter than everyone else. But then that thing you do, where you wait five seconds, just looking at a person, before answering a question. Everybody thought.." I caught myself, I wasn't going to tell her

that

"...thought that was pretty intimidating."

"Hmm, perhaps. I simply believe it to be inadvisable to give an insufficiently considered reply; I prefer to choose my words more deliberately."

"Yeah, and that too. You talk funny." I joked, and she laughed. "I'm surprised you remember me though."

"You were pretty noticeable, Alex. The most popular girl in the College of Engineering, with the most beautiful woman in the state, as your girlfriend. Hard not to notice that."

Like a lot of people, probably, compliments make me feel self-conscious, so I mumbled a thanks and tried to think of a new subject.

"How is Kaitlyn, anyway? Are you two still together?" she asked casually.

"No, it didn't last much past graduation. Neither one of us really expected it to, I think. We got along fine, just never had all that much in common. She got a great job in Philly, so it just made sense to go our separate ways. No hard feelings."

Even though it wasn't a painful topic anymore, I was still relieved when Tom, the project manager, came and joined us. He pretty much ignored me, which was fine by me, and was, not very subtly, sucking up to Tammy. I wasn't quite sure if it was personal or professional, but he very obviously wanted her approval. Tammy was polite, but I got the distinct impression that she couldn't be bothered to have an opinion about him. The thing I didn't say before, what everyone called her back then, was: 'ice cold cunt'; she was sort of being that now. It wasn't true though, she really wasn't unkind. She just put no effort into caring about things which were not relevant to her objectives. And Tom was not relevant.

Tom was trying hard to make the argument that he is relevant... but really? Is someone a 'cunt' only because we refuse to pretend someone is significant, when in fact they are sooooooooooooooo mediocre? At a pause in his talking at her, I broke in with a question. "Hey Tom, how come none of the rest of the people who helped on the proposal are here? It's just me and Ben."

"Who do you mean? It was Tammy and you and Ben who did it."

"Seriously? You think we wrote it all by ourselves? Brenda and Kelly wrote the actual text of the proposal. And none of the CAD group are here, or any of the cost estimators, or Shelly, who developed the schedule. You didn't think it might be a good idea to pay attention to the schedule and the budget, on this 3.1 billion dollar project?"

I took a drink from my can of Sprite and peered over the top at him, as he stammered a reply. He clearly didn't expect a mere engineer to chastise such a high and mighty Project Manager as himself. It didn't matter to me what he thought: '

I was looking for a job when I took this o

ne' - as Gerry Guffy used to say. I enjoyed his discomfort, and watching from the corner of my eye I think that Tammy did too. I have a bit of an evil streak in me, and people with too high an opinion of themselves irk me. So it amuses me to provoke them a little bit. And sometimes they do correct the errors of their ways. My last boss didn't; hopefully Tom wouldn't be one of those kind.

I didn't have any interest at all in Tom's opinion or reply; now I'd had my fun, and it was boring, so I took my leave. "Hey I'm going to talk to Ben about something. Seeya guys."

I walked away.

"Guys, you all know Avery?" Ben asked the others as I approached. "She does process modeling with me."