Chapter 6: First Day Tears

Jasmine inspected her outfit in the mirror. Her black slacks clung to her thighs and flared out slightly towards the bottom. The blue button-up blouse was snug around her arms and chest but flowed loosely around her stomach. She finished off the look with a pair of kitten heels and small pearl earrings. With her hair up in a neat bun, she was sure she was within the business-casual dress code.

If this had been any other situation, she would have worn her full suit as proof of how far she wanted to go with the company. Unfortunately, she knew that in a few months her stomach would make that outfit problematic.

The whole weekend before her first day, she strategized how she’d hide her growing baby. She decided that wearing flowy tops from the get-go would buy her another month or so before people started to ask questions. By that time though, with the massive salary offered, she would be in a much better position if the pregnancy became an issue with Merrick or Nicholas.

Nicholas refused to leave her mind since she’d gotten the job. He was playing some sick game with her, and she was only going to play along for as long as it was beneficial to her. The only thing that mattered now was making a good life for her baby and making sure Nicholas could never take them away.

Jasmine touched up her lip balm, took the morning sickness pills, and headed to the massive tower that housed Whitlock Inc. and her future.

Mr. Efold told her on his original call to head to the 30th floor on her first day. Now armed with an exclusive parking pass, the battle for a nearby space was significantly easier. Whatever Nicholas wanted from her, at least there were perks for it.

Jasmine made her way through the building, now having a better understanding of the layout. Her head held high, she pressed the button for the 30th floor.

When the doors opened again, she was greeted with the calming scent of lavender. The wall facing her was entirely glass, and the furniture placed within it made the whole room feel welcoming. Well-maintained plants dotted the edges of the room. She glanced down the hallway to her right and saw more plants hanging from the ceilings and lining doorways. If being a manager didn’t work out, she could get a job as the building’s gardener.

A young man sat behind a simplistic cedar desk. He was unassuming, his brown hair cleanly styled and the sleeves of his button-up shirt rolled up. He didn’t exude the same power as Merrick or confidence of Nicholas, which made her feel less intimidated walking into the new job.

He looked up and smiled warmly. “Hi! Let me guess, you’re Jasmine Thornton?”

She returned his smile and walked up. “Yes, though I don’t know who you are.” Her tone slipped into the distant-professional she had spent much of her grad program practicing and mastering.

“Ah, that’s okay. I don’t expect most of the brass to know me anyway.” He slid a folder over to her. “I’m Brian, and I’m your first line of defense.”

Jasmine chuckled. “Is that so?”

He nodded, a faux-serious expression on his face. “I keep all the companies that can’t afford us away from your phone line, and if any client has a complaint, I can resolve it 95% of the time.” He leaned over the desk and said in a loud whisper, “And the other 5% you can blame on Triston most of the time.”

She covered her mouth to suppress her laughter. If the rest of the team was anything like Brian, this was going to be a lot better than she initially thought.

Jasmine picked up the folder.

“In there is your schedule for the day, which is mostly a lot of paperwork for HR and getting caught up on all the projects the team is working on. I’ve taken the liberty of setting up a one-on-one with each member, and then there will be a big welcoming party towards the end of the day,” Brian explained.

There were several layers of documents, but she focused on the schedule on top.

“What are these two hours that just say ‘Study’ between two and four?”

“Oh, Mr. Efold told me that Mr. Whitlock wanted you to still have time to dedicate to your studies, so that time will always be blocked out for you to work on your degree.”

She clutched the folder a little tighter. “What if the team needs me or there’s a major deadline?”

Brian smiled. “Mr. Efold said that time is only to be used for work if there is a multi-million-dollar contract on the line, which isn’t often.”

She sighed. “Alright, I can’t say it doesn’t help me out a lot. Thank you for all the help already, Brian. I look forward to working with you.”

“That makes two of us. Your office is the last door on the left. If there’s any equipment or furniture you need, shoot me an email and I’ll get it ordered.”

She swallowed the question of What office? and replaced it with, “Thank you so much. I should get started now. I’ll see you later,” and walked down the bright corridor. None of the rooms had doors attached, which she found peculiar. The first six rooms on each side of the hallway were small conference rooms, likely meant for brainstorming sessions or collaboration efforts.

As she got closer to the end of the hallway, she saw two large rooms that housed several sets of cubicles. Living plant walls lined one end of each room, and the desks were as simplistic as Brian’s. A couple of people were already sitting at their stations and gave her a smile and wave. She hoped that the office environment was as calm as their demeanor suggested.

Finally, she reached the only room with a door. A small plaque was already up.

JASMINE THORNTON

LEAD PROJECT MANAGER

Her heart fluttered in excitement. Her classmates would kill to have this opportunity. It was easy to get lost in how she got this job, but she knew that she would do everything to prove herself worthy of it.

She opened the door and had to squint her eyes until they adjusted. The morning sun shone brightly through the eastern glass wall, lighting up the spacious room.

A huge mahogany desk took up the central space, with a leather office chair to match. The left wall was lined with bookshelves holding knick-knacks and classic novels, clearly meant to give off an impression of intelligence to anyone who walked in. Two smaller black cloth chairs sat in front of the desk, angled slightly towards each other.

Jasmine walked around to examine the computer: the monitor was already lit, her name and an option for the password in front of a mountain landscape photo. The computer itself looked to be one of the newer if not the newest model available commercially.

A small sticky-note was attached to the top left corner of the monitor. “Password is 1234Management” it read.

She sat down and entered the password, finding a clean and sleek desktop, not cluttered with dozens of documents like her personal one. She clicked through, finding the basic software she’d need to get started, and opened up her email.

There were already over a dozen messages in her inbox, though most of them appeared to be automated messages for different process runs. There was one email in particular that caught her attention. The subject line read To Do: Add Bank Account and Routing for Direct Deposit.

She clicked the message open and saw a personalized message from Merrick requesting that she submit her info to get her payment set up. All of it was standard, but the last sentence made her eyes bulge.

Once this has been completed, I will send your $5,000 sign-on bonus to the requested account. If completed today, it should arrive by end of day.

Welcome aboard,

Merrick Efold

He hadn’t mentioned any sign-on bonus when he made the offer. She double-checked that it was actually Merrick’s email and not some sort of scam, and it was indeed his actual email.

She couldn’t stop the tears of joy as she sobbed in relief. Depending on Whitlock Inc’s pay schedule, she might not have gotten paid soon enough to keep her apartment; now, that was no longer an issue. She couldn’t be bothered to be suspicious of the lack of communication regarding the bonus; the roof over her head wasn’t going anywhere, and she could afford decent groceries for the first time in a month.

Jasmine quickly responded with her bank account information and then turned her attention to her schedule. The first hour was blocked off for all of the HR paperwork within the folder, and then the next five hours were meetings with the team. It looked like she’d have ten direct reports. Brian had included a brief description of each individual, giving her a sliver of insight into her new team.

Triston was the most senior of the project managers, but if Brian’s description of “Waiting to retire” was accurate, he seemed content to stay where he was at.

Most of the other names had generic descriptors like “ambitious,” “problem-solver,” and “team player.” One descriptor, however, was written in red ink, standing out amongst the black ink.

“Astrid. Natural Leader. Warning: She wanted your position and will likely be upset.”

Jasmine didn’t like starting off on the wrong foot with anyone. She chewed on her lip, trying to figure out a way to diffuse the inevitable tension between them. Maybe she’d offer the next big project to her as a show of good faith. Team stressors were inevitable in any environment; she just needed to be compassionate enough to work through them.

Regardless, she’d have to figure it out after the small mountain of new-hire paperwork was done.

It felt like only a few minutes passed when she heard a knock at the door. She glanced at the clock: it was 9 a.m. already. Time for Triston’s meeting, and she still had five more pages to fill out. She was a lead, though, and it was more important to establish her as such.

“Come in,” she said, plastering a small smile on her face as the door clicked open.

***

The meetings felt like they were never going to end. None of them had gone bad, but Jasmine didn’t have any room to breathe. As soon as she was done with Triston, Mark was at her door. As soon as Mark was done, Riley walked right in. It continued in this fashion until she wanted to bang her head against the desk.

Despite her frustration, she had already learned a lot about her team and their dynamic. Mark and Lana managed most of the social media marketing projects and would not stop praising each other during their respective meetings. She’d have to check on the policies of workplace dating because they clearly had a thing for each other.

Riley, Triston, and Warren handled advertising projects for new shows and movies about to debut either in theaters or on Whitlock’s streaming service, Strut Max. Riley and Warren seemed to do most of the work on that front, with Triston giving the thumbs-up once it was done.

Beth, Carson, Emma, and Henry handled the individual marketing strategies for the subsidiaries. It sounded like they worked independently for the most part, and Carson requested she not get too hands-on with his projects outside of standard QA.

Astrid was the last meeting of the day, and when Henry walked out, she wasn’t waiting on the other side. As much as Jasmine was trying to act like she wasn’t nervous for that final meeting, it had been a weight on her shoulders the whole day. After five minutes and no Astrid, she was starting to feel relieved that a confrontation was avoided.

Just as she leaned back in her chair, the door opened. A woman, around Jasmine’s age, maybe a little older, walked in as if the office was hers. Her curled black hair was styled into a twisted ponytail, looking like she just walked out of the salon. The dark gray suit she wore was broken up by a purple collared shirt underneath her jacket. Her makeup was as put together as the rest of her: with lipstick as red as blood, and eye makeup accentuating her green eyes that were filled with a deathly calm rage.

Jasmine was hit with a sudden sense of familiarity looking over her.

She looked like Nicholas.

Shit.