The quiet sound of my name somehow soothes, and I close my mouth.
"This isn't about your attitude or who you are. I have been looking at the files, seeing the work output."
Oh, fuck. Is he firing me and blaming it on poor performance?
He closes the file. "You know there's a promotion for someone in data analysis."
I frown and nod. "I haven't been here long enough for that."
"Thing is, you more than qualify." He makes another gesture to the seat on the opposite side of his desk. "Your work, your degree— all of it. But I have got a conundrum."
"Well, I'm not a businessperson, so?—"
"Louie wants Luke to come with him. They have worked together for years, so I was wondering, for a big pay raise, if you'd take on the promotion and the task of managing my office."
I gape at him.
After a few seconds, I clear my throat. "That's...a lot."
"It sounds like it, yes. But I handle most of my stuff myself. It is just the odd call and seating people in the waiting area on occasion."
"But you're the CEO..."
He smiles. "I run things differently. Trust me, I won't have many visitors, and you can treat the reception desk as your own office. I will pay for both jobs, obviously. What do you say?"
And then he tells me the amount of the pay raise.
The word astronomical wanders through my head, making me reel.
I'm gobsmacked. That is what I say. I mean, I don't say it, but I would if it didn't get me out on the street. Or if I could find my voice.
But all that extra pay is like a godsend. And it doesn't sound like more work. Probably some extra hours each week, but...
It means I would be answering directly to him.
Eagerness surges up and fills me until it is slammed down into dust by reality.
He is offering a hell of a lot of pay for a nice promotion that is not nearly worth even a quarter of the number, and a seat in a room next to his.
Is this so I can, what? Do his bidding when he wants it?
It is not a deserved promotion. I haven't been picked for the reasons he is saying.
A smart boss would give the promotion a couple of weeks before settling on a candidate, especially a smart, new boss...and that boss would hire a replacement for Luke, not get a data analyst to do reception duty. Even if that duty is, as he claims, very much on the low side.
It all makes depressing sense.
All of it.
I haven't worked for this, and I don't deserve it.
He either wants to control me or placate me, or something like that.
Maybe they are both the same thing.
I don't know, and I don't fucking care.
"What's the catch? Because we both know it is too much money, and I haven't been here long enough to get that kind of promotion."
