The Delivery Girl

5. Portfolio

"So?" Hayley asks once the elevator doors have slid shut. "How was she?"

I drag my palm against my jaw and think for a moment. "Interesting, I guess." Not what I was expecting, that's for sure. She's not as experienced as I was hoping she'd be, but there's something unique about her that I can't seem to pinpoint. "What's the status of the internship program?" I ask.

She clicks through a couple of screens before looking back up. "Applications closed last week," she says. "The board finished shortlisting the applicants for second round interviews yesterday morning, and they're coming in half an hour to present the next interview list to you."

I raise an eyebrow. "Half an hour? Shouldn't you have told me earlier?"

She frowns at me. "I was busy, who do you think emailed everyone and arranged this?"

I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. "Alright, fine. Send them to the board room on the forty ninth floor when they arrive."

"Sure." She writes down a note on a sticky tab before sticking it to the small white board next to her desk. There are about fifteen other notes crammed onto the board.

I head back to my office, having less than an hour now to prepare for the meeting. It feels like last year's program just ended, how the fuck has it been a year already? I'm much less hands-on with the program than I used to be, but I'm still exhausted just thinking about it.

The process of narrowing down the candidates until we've finalized the internship program's cohort takes at least a few months. Last I checked, we're on week four.

It's kind of obnoxious.

Even twenty years ago when dad first started the company, people here have always had to go through multiple rounds of interviews and presentations before being asked to join the team.

I've always been against it, having tried to change the process since I first took over. But the board wasn't about to let their bylaws be suddenly changed by a twenty four year old. Even four years later, some of them still look at me doubtfully – they're loyal to dad and convinced I'll never be good enough.

I sit back down at my desk, just in time to see Julie's email pop up. I open the portfolio and absentmindedly look through it again. She was relatively talented for someone with no formal education, but that didn't necessarily mean she was talented enough to meet Sterling Studios standards.

But talent isn't everything. I want a team made up of well-rounded individuals. Julie is obviously resilient and a hard worker, how else would she put up with that shitty boss of hers?

"Callen, they're fifteen minutes away," Hayley says through my phone.

Shit. I quickly open up the attachment Hayley forwarded to me. It's a pdf of the shortlisted applicants and their portfolios, over a hundred pages long. There's no humanly way to get through all of this in time.

This is the point of this meeting anyways, right?

–

"Good morning everyone," I say as I walk into the boardroom. Through the door's frosted glass, I can see Jacob's silhouette standing outside, guarding the door. I pretend not to notice and take my seat at the head of the long, glass table.

Most people look over and return a pleasant greeting. A select few, the three who have been on the board the longest, give me the slightest frowns that they don't bother trying to hide.

I really couldn't care less about them.

As Suzanne, the board chair, sets up the presentation, I realize Hayley isn't in the room. I quickly take out my phone to send a text.