“I wasn’t,” Martin protests, then turns to me: “I swear I wasn’t. I was just going toaskif you were ina—”
“Band,” Ben jumpsin.
“Doomsday cult,” John adds, hot on his heels.
I laugh. “I am not in a band, a doomsday cult,ora relationship, if that’s what you were going to ask.”
Beside me, Connor groans. “We’re going to get reported to HR before 10a.m.”
“You would no matter what,” I assure him. “My best friend is inHR.”
He looks at me likeah, this all makes sense now,but I’ve interacted with Connor enough to know he won’t hold that detail against me. Besides, I’m on the team now. No take backs.
“So are you on any of the apps, then?” Martin asks, like this is all a standard part of the onboarding process.
“Not currently,” I say. “But I’ve been known to dabble.”
“I’ll add you to my contacts so you don’t come up in my matches,” Martin tells me. Chivalry isn’t dead, folks.
“She wouldn’t match you,” John ribshim.
Martin shrugs, supremely unconcerned. “Maybe she would. Maybe she wouldn’t. I have a very good profile.”
As it turns out, Martin is a bit of a legend on Hinge. After years of striking out on the apps, he underwent a rebrand, embracing his status as a short king.
“I just put it right in my bio now. I get so many more matches that way. Really gives me a niche, you know?”
Despite the fact that the guys clearly engage in this kind of rolling back-and-forth all day long, for whatever reason, the subject of Martin’s Hinge profile has never specifically come up in conversation before, and gets them all thinking.
“I wonder what my niche would be,” Ben muses.
“Antacid king,” Connor offers.
“Sun rash king,” Ben replies with a grin.
John bounces a pencil against the edge of the desk. “Mine would be like…curly king.”
“That sounds like a shampoo brand, dude.” Martin, it is clear, is the arbiter of king status.
“Yeah, OK,” John says, dejected for a moment. He brightens. “Well, see? It just goes to show you. Not everyone has a niche. It’s a smart move.”
“That’s what I’m saying.” Martin nods. “You know I even get tall girls matching me sometimes. They like that I ownit.”
Ben is doubtful. “How do you know they’re tall? Does it saytall queenin their bio?”
We never get to find out: Connor flips the screen of his phone over and tells us, “Time to go. We have a call in five.”
Class is dismissed.
—
What was once a bank of four desks is now a bank of five. Martin Short and Curly John take their places at the same desks I saw them at last week. Big Red moves to the head of the table, and Connor takes the seat closest to him, which means…I’m sitting beside Connor. Great. Perfect. Loving it already.
His desk, if it’s possible, is even more of a catastrophe than the last time I saw it. The mountain of paper has doubled. I assume this is because he emptied the entire contents of his drawers to clear them out for me, and hasn’t found a new home for all of ityet.
“So we’ve got this call,” he says, trailing off as he searches under a pile of paper, fishing out his headphones. “Hopefully won’t be too long. Then you and I can catch up about the dashboard.”
Ah, the dashboard. I spent the rest of my time back home pulling reports to learn my way around it, and I’m pleased to say I mostly got the hang of it after three frustrating days of tearing my hair out and cursing the skies aboveme.
