Business Casual [San]

1

I stood in the doorway of my boss's office, waiting for him to wrap up his phone call. He'd called me in for our weekly one-on-one but had gotten preoccupied before I wrapped up the task I was working on.

"No, Hana, I can't pick her up from soccer practice. I'm at work," San mumbled into his phone with an apologetic glance in my direction.

"Just tell her she'll have to wait til you pick up her brother. She's 12. She'll understand," he argued.

He turned around in his chair to face the wall, so I could no longer see his expression. I debated leaving but stood awkwardly nearby to wait on him instead.

"Hana..." he started, but she must've cut him off. "Hana, I have a meeting. Hana...fine. Yes, I'll let her know."

San turned back around and shot off a text to someone before motioning for me to join him.

"Take a seat, please. Sorry about that," he sighed. "I forgot, do you have kids?"

"No," I laughed. I'd been single for years. I much preferred to keep to myself in that department

"Good. Don't. I mean, I love them. I just wish they had less going on."

He turned to his computer and clicked a few buttons to pull up my weekly calendar for us to talk about.

"Seems you're quite busy this week," he started as he clicked through all of the client meetings and scheduled posts that I had. "Are you sure that you have time for all of this?" he narrowed his eyes at me. I'd only been working here for a few months, so he didn't quite understand my capabilities yet. I was much better at organization than most other people.

"Most of it is pre-planned stuff. There is one collaboration launching this week that I'm very excited about!" I sat up confidently and placed my final product on the desk in front of him. It was the first campaign I'd gotten to work on without any oversight, and I was very proud of how it had turned out.

The client was a startup launching women's self-pleasure products, and I'd even gotten to help come up with a tagline.

San stared at it but didn't say anything. I jumped into action attempting to further explain my thought process.

"'You like that?' is meant to be a joke about what men usually ask women during sex while also being a reference to how good the product is. We wanted to keep the background basic and usable in multiple mediums and for numerous platforms. We are planning to launch this on billboards, website ads, and Instagram. We also made these," I handed him a few lenticular prints and shook one to show him how the image moved before placing it down.

"We have a street team being sent to a few music festivals and concerts to pass them out with a 10% discount code on the back. We also have Charli XCX, Kard, and Addison Rae on standby as potential partners."

San furrowed his brows and picked up the image to test it out before tossing it back to the desk carelessly before uttering a simple, "No."

"Excuse me?" I asked. Had I heard that right?

"No. The image is too controversial for what our company is known for."

"It's an ad for vibrators. It's going to be different than a campaign for a soda or a sneaker. In fact, it's the first product of its kind we've gotten to work on. If engagement is high, it could open more doors."

"No," he tossed it back and collected the images into a pile to hand back to me. "Let the client know that it's being scrapped and bring me something new to look at tomorrow ."

"But the client loves it..." I argued. I'd spent weeks in meetings with them learning what they hadn't liked about previous drafts they'd seen from other firms. Their faces lit up so excitedly when I presented this.

"Vivienne, I said no. I know you're new but that's how business works. You don't always get what you want. You'll be told no in this industry more than you'll be told yes."

I hated being spoken down to. I hated my good idea being stomped on. But I needed this job, so I picked up my things and stood up, trying to maintain my pride. "Okay. I'll draft up something new for you to review tomorrow."

"Close the door on your way out."

I did, and I went back to my desk to get started on redoing the ad campaign. I stared at all of the mockups and prep I'd done for this client. So many orders had already been placed for merch and ads, and they were genuinely so excited for the launch since we were the third agency they'd tried to work with.

I tapped my keyboard mindlessly and opened their Instagram to cancel the post that was scheduled to go out tonight.

I clicked delete.

Delete scheduled post?

I tapped my desk staring at the screen. It all seemed so stupid.

Did I really deserve to have my hard work thrown away by a guy who was just upset his wife was mad at him? No.

Did my client deserve to have a campaign that they were excited about tossed out for the same reason? No.

I clicked cancel and watched as San collected his things and left for the day

"Hana, I'm leaving now. She'll just have to wait a little while longer," he snapped. "Well, you should've picked her up yourself then."

Maybe if he'd been in a better mood he wouldn't have killed my idea. I felt confident that this post would rack up a decent amount of engagement. Especially if I had the influencers and celebrities that I had on standby share and promote it. I sent emails confirming their collaboration efforts, outlining payment details. Kard and Charli were being paid a flat rate for allowing our street team at their concert. Addison would be paid per purchase placed through her TikTok promotion.

My heart fluttered anxiously and I closed out of my computer for the day. The post would go up this evening...and I'd found out if betting on myself had been worth it.