Page 4 of Paradigm

“It’s ten o’clock.”

“Oh. Right. Yes, I’m on my way.”

“Great. See you there,” he replied and walked off.

Eline placed both of her hands on her desk and took a deep breath. She had no idea what she was going to do with all the newly discovered information, but first, she had to get through this meeting that she’d forgotten all about the instant she’d seen Arlowe’s name in that email, so she stood and carried her laptop to the meeting room. She wasn’t all that excited about the meeting itself, and she supposed she’d never been, if she were being honest with herself.

Her job was fine, but it wasn’t what she’d been hoping for. When she had arrived, she’d been told that, despite her being the head of QE for the engineering team, the VP, her current boss, had a lot of ideas about how that team should run, and he’d been more of a micromanager than Eline had expected. She did have her own office, which had been an upgrade compared to her former company, but she’d also been told that working from home would be fine when she’d gone through the interview process, and that hadn’t exactly materialized. Her plan had been to work in the office every day as she got trained up and until she felt comfortable and ready to switch to a hybrid-style schedule and work from home a few days a week, but when she’d asked Dave about doing just that about a month into her time there, he had suggested that she not work from home at all because he believed it set a poor example for her team.

It had turned out that while the company’s policy was that working from home was fine and sometimes preferred, the VP’s own opinion was that people who worked from anywhere other than the office weren’t as productive, which was an important piece of information that he hadn’t shared with her during the several interviews she’d gone through before being offered the role and moving across the world for it.

She didn’t mind working in an office, but she’d planned on being able to work from home as well and had even set up a little office space in her apartment for just that purpose. If she needed to later, she’d speak with HR about the discrepancy in the company’s policy versus her manager’s, but she didn’t want to rock the boat right after joining the company, so she’d decided to wait and see if it was absolutely necessary.

Eline sat down in a chair and waited for the other engineering leads to gather and take their seats, too, so that the meeting could begin, but then she couldn’t really focus and pay attention to anything that was said in the meeting because all she could think about was the fact that Arlowe had looked amazing in that headshot. She looked perfect to Eline, outside of her smile because the photo was a professional headshot, so her smile had been a little on the dimmed and forced side, which made sense, but Eline knew how Arlowe could smile so brightly, she could light up the night.

She could picture Arlowe making some sarcastic comment about having to take a professional picture. Eline could even see Arlowe suggesting they use a photo that she’d taken herself, telling her friends and now-colleagues that it would be just fine and that she hated having to look like one of those people who took professional headshots. Eline smiled at the thought. Then, that smile fell because it was entirely possible and even probable that the Arlowe she’d known had changed so much that what Eline had just pictured hadn’t happened at all. Maybe Arlowe liked and no longer laughed at or made sarcastic comments about stuff like that today.

“Eline?”

“Sorry?” she asked when her boss looked her way.

“What do you think?”

“I’m sorry. Can you repeat the question?”

CHAPTER 3

“Arlowe, I know you need more people. I know we’re busy trying to keep up with all the feature requests we’re getting normally on top of the ones coming from school districts and universities. Trust me, I know. I’m the one running the focus groups with Sarai, trying to learn about what they want and need and then coming to you and Enya to find out what we can actually build and when,” Violet said.

“So, I can hire?”

“Contractors, yes. Full-time employees, no.”

“Vi, I need people who actually work here. It’s better that way. They’re more reliable.”

“You can go through that BPO I recommended. They handle all the candidate sourcing and hiring. They even offer to train them for us.”

“You want me to outsource?” Arlowe asked.

“I want you to have the number of people you need, but not break the bank at the same time. We can’t afford to hire more people right now. Once we get the Series D, we can talk about more full-time employees who also get benefits, equity, and things like that. It makes them three times as expensive as someone we’d hire through a BPO,” Violet said, referring to business process outsourcing. “They’ll also handle all the firing and hiring someone new if you don’t like someone they brought on. You can give them exactly what you’re looking for and have them take a test first, too, if you want. If we hire in another country, we can get five to six times the number of US engineers you’d be able to get with the same amount of money. I know it’s not the same, and it’s not ideal, but it’s the best solution for right now. Once we get the next round, I’ve got at least four new full-timers earmarked for you, one for Sarai, and one more for Enya. Gabi needs more help, too, so she’s got a couple of hire requests of her own. On top of that, we also need an HR person and some kind of new-hire orientation program that I don’t have to run myself, so that’s the plan for right now.”

“How many people will Gabi get for hardware?” she asked.

“Two to three, but she’s going to outsource at least one. We’re looking into the hardware being built in and outside of the US, so she’s more flexible than you are.”

“Hilarious,” Arlowe stated sarcastically. “I’m flexible. I know we’re struggling to keep up right now, but it’s easier to handle actual employees than contractors. If I train them up and then they leave right after that or only work on a short-term contract, I lose all that time.”

“It’s either you do that and get help, which you desperately need, or you don’t get any. The most I can do is put off the HR hire. I’d prefer not to do that, because it’s really not advisable at our size, but that’s all I’ve got in the budget for this quarter. So, if you can find an engineer in the US for the same price, and only one, I’ll push that HR role out, but–”

“No, I get it,” she said, setting down her coffee cup on Violet’s desk. “We need to outsource.”

“For now. It doesn’t have to be forever.”

“Vi, you know I’m not good at this negotiating thing that you and Sarai do. Can you set up a meeting with these BPO people so that we can see what they can do and how much they’ll charge?”

“I can do that,” Violet replied. “It’ll take through the rest of the quarter to get things moving, though, after we sign the contract, so you should be prepared to use most of the next one to get them trained up before they’re fully useful to you.”

“How many can we afford?”