Love Hacks: Chasing it All

2: The True Principal

2: The True Principal

Phoebe rushed towards the front doors of the high-rise office, struggling not to spill any of the coffee that she carried in two flimsy cardboard carriers. When she pushed open the glass doors with her hip, the mocha latte she'd set aside for her manager nearly tipped over onto her black blazer jacket. Because she worked at a tech startup, her male coworkers often dressed like the typical engineer: the perennial shorts with unfortunately aromatic sandals, along with shirts that had not been washed for some time. But like her female colleagues, she was held to a higher standard of professional dress. The pink tax. She navigated such waters by creating mixtures of professional and laid-back clothing. For instance, her current blazer was paired with fashionably ripped jeans and a T-shirt with the Armani Exchange wings flaring out to either side. Her dark hair was parted at the side and fell in sharp straight lines to her shoulders.

She took the elevators up to the office, said her usual hello to the secretary at the front desk, and rushed past the variety of children's toys present in most tech startups: the inflatable pool, the Chuck-e-Cheese-style ball pit, the table of Nerf guns, and even the room with a sketchy bed of all things. The company was called Virtual Soulutions, and it specialized in mobile apps and virtual reality experiences that were supposed to be soulful. Phoebe kicked off her pumps by a lounge couch: she usually deposited her uncomfortable shoes there and walked the carpeted office barefoot, only returning to put the shoes on if clients came on-site to view her team's work.

But of course, despite being possibly the best engineer on her team, Phoebe could not really call it "her team." For several years now, she'd been relegated to a junior position even though she could out-deliver the seniors and so-called "principal" engineer. To add insult to injury, she was always the one who had to drop down to the streets of New York to pick up Starbucks for the daily stand-up meetings.

"Phoebe, how's that latest bounce algorithm story coming along?" Her tech lead asked when she got to their team table. He was an insecure man who constantly complained that women didn't like "nice guys" like him. He was young but somehow already had the aura of old age about him, complete with excessive groans whenever he stood up. Her eight teammates took their drinks from the trays she'd brought in with inhumanely cheery thank-you's.

Of course they'd assign her the bounce algorithm story. A "story" was an engineering assignment, and the "bounce algorithm" referred to getting certain parts of a computer game's characters to bounce as realistically as possible. In a way, the mathematics and physics involved were interesting, but the regularity with which she was assigned such tasks was not. Still, Phoebe always pulled through with computer code that was a marvel of software development. Of course her coworkers would raucously laugh and raise a beer to her accomplishments (beer was served in the office starting at noon; if women drank, it was looked down upon). And some would turn to one another with whispers that made her feel yet more exhausted. But there was one person who saw her work for what it was: a senior scrum master named Ethan.

In many software companies, a scrum master was in some ways the opposite of a product manager. Where product managers were obsessed with hitting deadlines and making clients happy—even at the cost of team burnout—scrum masters were instead focused on strong team performance and maintaining high levels of engineer happiness.

Out of the dozens of scrum masters Phoebe had worked with, Ethan was by far the best. He was a former literature professor who decided the pay wasn't good enough, and so he took his math smarts over to the corporate engineering world. His nickname was Professor X because he was an ex-professor and because of his voluminous knowledge about a wide range of Humanities subjects. What was more, unlike the engineers, he was a snappy dresser who always smelled of just the right amount of aftershave and cologne.

"They gave you this obnoxious story?" he asked her after her stand-up meeting, before she went to one of the private rooms to go heads-down on her latest assignment ("gorgeous hair flow animations").

Phoebe blushed and nodded. She was usually eloquent enough, despite her nerdy shyness, but Ethan tended to make her feel like she was precariously floating on a cloud and could drop at any moment.

"But I did see what you did there," he added as he gestured to the laptop at her work station. "Reading your code is like reading fine poetry. Even if you have to do...what was it called? 'Bounce algorithms?' I keep telling the chief that they'd be idiots not to give you a promotion."

"That's...not necessary," she said. "I'm sure they know my worth."

Ethan shook his head. "If the world were just a little bit fair, other companies would be head-hunting you right now, offering huge salaries to snatch you away. Then leadership here would feel compelled to keep you with the kind of raise you deserve. Your team might pretend not to know this, but without you, they'd be sunk."

"I'm not that important," Phoebe said. "They just have me working on side projects as I level up." Her parents had always taught her to be humble, to not overstep her bounds, to not over assert herself. Even in the salsa dance classes she attended at night, where she felt particularly gangly and awkward, the instructor told her not to stomp so aggressively towards her male partners or she might "scare them."

None of that applied to Ethan. He wasn't afraid of her intellect. He held it in awe, as if it were a precious, rare gem that everyone should treasure.

"Yes, they have you working on side projects because they're afraid you'd unseat every single one of them if you took over central duties," Ethan said. "I've seen this a thousand times. Cowards. You should be not just a senior engineer but a principal."

Phoebe couldn't help but note how differently he presented himself at work. He was wearing brown dress shoes, sharp navy blue slacks, and a dress shirt made of Italian cloth. Phoebe caught herself admiring the stitching. He had his sleeves rolled up to his defined biceps. He was in his late thirties or early forties, but he easily looked to be a twenty-something with the wisdom of someone older.

He sighed. "There are times when I beat my chest and shout down the fools, but then there are times when the buffoons must be insidiously destroyed from within." He shook his head. "In this corporate world, unfortunately, sometimes we must choose subterfuge to take down the men-children."

"I just want to be able to do what I love," she said. "When I'm building something new by just typing at a keyboard...it's like time goes away. I blink, and suddenly, hours have passed. And then something that never existed before is right there on the screen in front of me."

Ethan did a double take, as if he were seeing her in a new light. And she saw it in his eyes: he was attracted to her. She wasn't sure how she knew this. Besides, she was clumsy, awkward, and not entirely good at applying makeup. She thought that her eyes were dull and that her attempts at fashion always fell short of the mark, especially by New York standards. She certainly didn't know what to think of her body in general; some days, she felt fantastic, and other days, she couldn't stop seeing herself as some kind of eternal self-improvement project. And besides, there were plenty of smart women out there; the world was bursting at the seems with brilliance.

But she couldn't mistake it: Ethan was beholding her, not merely looking at her.

"Oh, I forgot," he said. "I got you your favorite coffee in my office. Let me go get it."

As he went to retrieve it, Phoebe realized that of course, in getting her entire team coffees, she'd forgotten to get herself anything at all.