“Don’t be the homemaker,” Kelly said, leaning against the doorframe, crossing her arms over her tasteful silk blouse.“Don’t remind people of a homemaker. Don’t bring in baked goods, don’t volunteer to clean out the fridge, don’t fetch tea, don’t plan the holiday party. If you’re a woman in tech and it’s not explicitly part of your job, don’t do anything that makes people think of you like the office assistant or their wife or their mom. Because once you’re in their head as the baker of cookies, you’ll never be the person they think of to lead the department.”
“I guess I never thought of it that way,” Morgan faltered.
“Look, I know, it sucks,” Kelly said. “It’s not fair. You’re trying to do something nice. And you’re talented, so I’m sure the praise feels good, too. But soon enough, that’s all people will associate with you. And then you’ll be the one getting the coffee for guests, not the one presenting.”
“That’s why you never go on coffee runs.”
“I spent my gap year training as a barista in Italy,” Kelly said. “And somehow my first three jobs out of college I just could not figure out the drip coffee machine. ‘Very sorry, I’m so bad at it, you probably want to ask someone else. Did you see that report I sent you?’”
Morgan was never going to be as cool as Kelly.
Kelly picked up a cookie and took a bite. “I’m going to regret telling you this, I know. Your baking is excellent,” she said, turning to head out of the kitchen. “But you deserve better than you’d get otherwise. Your choice, of course. But you should choose knowingly.”
Feeling daring, she asked, “And was this a choice that you made knowingly?”
Kelly raised an eyebrow. She wasn’t going to badmouth Brad directly. That wasn’t a thing senior leadership did—at least, not professional senior leadership. Kelly was never less than professional. “Our product line was not exactly whatI was expecting when I joined the company, no. Of course, pivots always come with opportunities.”
Morgan could imagine this was not at all what Kelly had wanted. Brad had already endangered the Walmart deal by changing the product, which meant Kelly wasn’t going to get the commission from it. She pushed a little harder. “What would be your ideal job? I mean, when this all takes off and we have our exit, and you’re ready for your next challenge and all.”
That got a more thoughtful reaction. After all, it was a safer question. Morgan hadn’t been in the startup world long, but “what would you do if we all made a million dollars on options” was a fun game. Kelly looked off to the distance for a moment, then smiled. “You know, I did a stint in nonprofit early on in my career. Had to leave when I was ready to move up and the only jobs I could get were in the for-profit world. I’ve always thought it would be fun to set up a little consultancy to kind of blend the two. Help early and mid-stage startups, especially the ones with an idealistic bent, the B Corporations and the like. Come in, help people untangle themselves, then get out. Steer folks around some of the bigger mistakes.”
“Keep them from being like us?”
Kelly gave her a Look. The kind she’d once gotten from teachers who knew a rule was stupid but had to enforce it anyway. “I’m not going to say there isn’t a lot broken about how startups work right now. I can’t fix systemic problems. But there’s stuff that’s good, too—there’s got to be a way to keep the innovation and scrappiness without the growth-at-all-costs mindset.”
Morgan suspected not taking venture capital from literal vampires would have helped with that.
“Bootstrap the whole thing,” Kelly continued. “No chasing our own exit, just building a profitable little business helping people, the slow way. Sustainable.”
“You’d be really good at that,” Morgan said honestly. It sounded appealing. Especially the part without chasing an exit strategy. How rewarding would it be to have success defined by simply making more money than you spent, instead of chasing a 10x multiplier?
“Not all businesses are like this, you know,” Kelly said, then looked like she immediately thought better of it. She amended, “There are passion projects, which are nice, but it’s always wise to find something to be passionate about in your work, even if it isn’t the company itself.”
“What if—” It seemed so dangerous to say, but still. She was so tired of pretending about what she actually wanted, including to herself. “What if we’re not passionate about the job?”
Kelly blew out a breath. “Money is safety. It’s choice. Even if you’re not passionate about the work itself, it can help to remind yourself of who you’re trying to protect and support. Which is why we need to hit this quarter’s targets.” That was clearly as much as the sales head was willing to say, even in relative private.
Morgan leaned back against the counter as Kelly walked out. She sighed, looking at the plate of cookies. Another thing on the list of things she’d never even thought about and now needed to think about. But it was kind, unnecessarily kind, of Kelly to say something.
Which meant Kelly was back off the list of potential Deal recipients. Damn it.
She tried to distract herself from her frustration via herphone, but it made things worse. Checking social media gave her an excuse not to head back to her desk, but it only made her angrier. She’d tried to start a cute hashtag to promote their next webinar; a post on LinkedIn had suggested the marketing tactic to drive awareness. Instead, Hawk from GreenField had jumped on and hijacked it, and his follower count was so much higher than hers that #WellnessForGood might as well belong to GreenField now. She angrily canceled the rest of the posts in the series.
She peered out of the kitchen, looking across the sea of bench desks and through the glass door of Tim’s old office. Luke’s shoulders curled defensively. He occasionally twitched in the way that she’d learned meant his tail was lashing. Here, she realized, was the answer to Kelly’s questions. She wanted to protect him. Not just because she felt obligated, not just because she felt pity, but because she wanted to see his shoulders uncurl and his tail still.
Which meant letting Kelly go had most likely been a mistake. Could she afford to be generous? She shoved the rest of her feelings down deep. They weren’t going to save Luke. Or her.
Luke looked up when she slid into her seat. “We OK?”
“For the moment.” She stared at her laptop angrily. She had to toughen up. Stop letting opportunities pass. “For the quarter, not so much.”
“Yo, team,” Brad called from the center of the Zabloom desks. “I need you.”
21
Morgan and Luke joined the rest of the Zabloomers.
“Let’s get excited, folks,” Brad said, clapping his hands once. “I want a booth at NETX. Marketing, what can you rustle up?”
