Jack in the Box Oneshots

Selling Like Hot Cake

Summary: You're on the marketing team for the Jack in the Box restaurant chain, and suggest a less than conventional way of advertising... 

(romantical near the end, no smut, gender neutral, ~1,600 words)

The clock informed you of the ever decreasing amount of time between the present and the scheduled starting time of the meeting, now just over five minutes. You reviewed your notes to make sure everything you needed was there. The team was going to be proposing new advertising methods, and by the time you were preparing mentally for the conference you'd reconsidered and overthought nearly every idea you'd prepared.

You sat waiting in your usual spot near the back of the table, relative to the presentation board. All there was to do at the moment was pretend to be busy organizing your things just like everyone else was as more people filled in the seats. Eventually the last person walked in, closing the door behind them, signaling the director to begin the meeting.

When time came for everybody to provide input, it seemed some unspoken order was placed so everyone would go one at a time in a circle around the table. You watched it start at the other side as one person would make a suggestion, we'd discuss if it would work or why it wouldn't, and then the person next to them would pipe up with their own idea, all the way down the table until it was almost your turn to go.

Hastily, you skimmed your notes for one solid contribution. You'd narrowed it down to 2 or 3 when the person next to you was going. The team was just finishing discussing the previous idea, and you could feel your palms getting slightly clammy. Before you knew it they seemed to come to a general conclusion, and now heads had begun to turn your way.

"Have we considered Jack's sex appeal?"

Everyone in the room seemed to collectively pause to process what you'd just said. Finally, someone piped up, "do you mean to say that sexualizing our mascot will draw an audience in enough to actually sell more products?"

You spoke before you could think, "I don't think we should change anything about the mascot. What I mean is that our most popular advertisements have been the more suggestive ones, and that can be proven if you just look at the statistics-"

"-I'm sure you're on to something, Mx. L/n, but unless you're volunteering to have that conversation with Jack yourself, I don't think it's going to happen."

The topic changed faster than the stock market. In retrospect, you realized the only thing they took from your suggestion was probably just that you think the big boss guy is sexy, which isn't wrong, but it also wasn't the point you were trying to make. By the end of the meeting the whiteboard was marked with every usable idea, none of which were yours.

Throughout the day you overheard a couple people talking about the meeting in passing. From what you picked up on it seemed like some twisted game of telephone had occurred, starting with: "someone on the marketing team suggested we exploit Mr. Box's sex appeal" and ending with "someone on the marketing team confessed to crushing on Mr. Box during a meeting." And that's just from what you heard, you were nearly certain it kept spiraling after that.

By the end of the day it seemed most of the people in the building who knew your name had heard one thing or another about the events of that day's meeting. With just over an hour left on the clock, the intercom sounded with a chime, followed by the voice of the CEO's secretary requesting you to come to Jack's office.

...

Through all the nerves of waiting in dread to be confronted and/or fired for unprofessionalism all you could think was "Do all CEOs have a whole waiting room for their personal office?" This brought to your attention that y0u'd never actually been this close to Mr. Box's office before. The thought felt weird because you'd never considered Jack to be in any way distant, he'd always seemed so close to all the rest of the employees. He greeted whoever was in the elevator with him in the morning, brought Free Mini Churros from the Jack in the Box menu, and engaged in regular small-talk with anyone he caught on break, treating everyone like people rather than employees.