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At least the men. The women in this room appear to be spontaneously ovulating.
Britney is practically choking on her drool, and even Sandra—who must be at least thirty years his senior—is nearly as red as I am.
“For the last few months, I’ve been working on Project Belka,” the Impaler says without so much as a “howdy y’all.” “It’s now in the testing stage.” He glances at me for a heartbeat, and Britney’s eyes turn my way, then narrow into slits.
I sink lower in my seat and do my best tortoise impersonation. For the love of C++, please don’t tell them about the suitcase full of sex toys. Pretty please, with a gallon of the juiciest blood on top.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he moves his gaze to where the accountants are sitting. “If the QA team files any expense reports tagged Belka, the paperwork is to be expedited. If you have any questions about the whys of the reports, direct those to me.”
The expressions on the faces of the accounting team imply there will be no questions. Ever.
This is actually great. I really wanted to expense the exuberant shipping costs I’m about to accrue, but without his executive order, I wouldn’t have bothered. The accounting team gave me a runaround when I ordered myself an ergonomic keyboard, and that’s as work-related as any expense can get.
But how did he know? Is he a precognitive vampire, a la Alice in Twilight?
“This goes for everything else.” His gaze sweeps the room, lingering on me for a second. “Project Belka is a priority.”
Wow.
No pressure or anything.
Did Sandra just sneak a guilty glance at me? She was the one who assigned me to this project, but then again, given how important this thing is turning out to be, she’d kind of paid me the compliment of “let’s throw the most likely to survive under that bus.”
Britney raises her hand with the excitement of a grade-schooler who knows the answer to something for the first time in her life.
Ignoring her, the Impaler turns on his heel and strides out of the room.
“Do you need any help?” Britney shouts at his back. “I can code review if—”
The door slams behind him.
The room takes a collective relieved breath—everyone except Britney, that is. She looks like someone has just shaved her beloved pet tarantula.
The conference bridge phone beeps, notifying us that the Impaler has just rejoined the meeting as his usual ghostly presence.
One of the project managers takes over the meeting, but I can’t follow what he or anyone says due to all the adrenaline coursing through my system.
This project is mega important.
I can’t mess it up.
To soothe myself, I take out Precious.
Pretending like I’m glancing at an important memo, I bring up my app and use it on my coworkers.
Sandra’s cartoon doppelgänger turns out to be Dory from Finding Nemo. Britney gets Maleficent—no surprise there. Someone in sales reminds the app of Sylvester J. Pussycat, a woman in accounting is Pepe Le Pew, while two guys from the development department match Beavis and Butt-Head.
Seeing most of my fellow employees like this makes me realize something: The ratio of women to men in the development department, and the company overall, is much higher than for the software industry at large. This is especially interesting in light of said ratio in the educational system. When I was taking computer science courses at Brooklyn College, I was often the only female in my class.
Is the Impaler behind this, or the HR department? If it’s the Impaler, color me impressed—with his vampiric lifespan, he might’ve grown up when the glass ceiling was two inches above the floor.
Well, whoever’s behind it, it’s one less thing to worry about when it comes to moving to the dev department.
Speaking of which, I feel more determined to do that now than ever. In fact, I think I should make my request ASAP. At first, I was waiting for the completion of the Belka project, but thanks to this meeting, I’ve earned some visibility and there probably won’t be a better time.
For the rest of the meeting, I play out different versions of my “move” pitch in my mind.
