Read Online Who You Know by Theresa Alan - Free Book Online Page B

freak. He still acts like it’s a company of ten instead of a company of more than a hundred. Everything still has to go through him; it’s ridiculous. It’s a total bottleneck. You can’t get anything done; it’s impossible to get anything done by our deadlines, and Morgan never seems to notice that he’s the one holding the project up for three weeks.”
    â€œEven so, never, never send something out without his approval. A long time ago, more than four years ago, Sharon sent something to the printer without his approval. He’d seen the next-to-last draft—Sharon incorporated his changes and assumed it was good to go. But after it went to print, it turned out there was something Morgan didn’t like, and he just went nuts, screaming and yelling. He was so furious; I thought Sharon might get fired. He kept ranting about how he’d already said that nothing could go out without his approval, didn’t we respect him at all?”
    â€œAny other characters I should watch out for?”
    â€œThere are eight VPs at McKenna, and they are all men, but you probably won’t ever see any of them because we’re not important enough,” Jen said. “On the McKenna Marketing food chain, we’re like, swamp algae.”
    â€œThere are fourteen managers, three of whom are women: Eleanore, Sharon, and Pam,” I added. “They all report to Glenn, the VP of marketing. Pam is the one manager I really like. She’s incredibly hard working and always puts in insane hours and she’s just really nice and very competent.”
    â€œThe corporate mafia there,” Jen said, “are three close friends known as the M&M gang because their names are Marc with a c, Mark with a k, and Mary. Marc and Mark both worked in the IT department and are something managerial. Mary works in marketing and is about as genuine as a silicone implant. Mark with a k is also known as Killer Mark because he’ll start screaming at you for like, no reason at all. The M&M gang are all really good-looking, but they basically have the IQs of rotted logs. God forbid you ever need to get the IT department to run stats for a report. Marc and Mark are all arrogant, like their department is the most important, and therefore they can’t be bothered to help anyone else get their jobs done. And when they finally do do what you ask them to, they always get it wrong, and when you point out that what they gave you wasn’t what you needed, Marc goes blank and Mark goes ballistic.”
    â€œSounds great,” Rette said.
    â€œI know sometimes I think . . .” I started. “You want some more wine?”
    â€œPlease,” Jen said.
    I poured her another glass. “Sometimes I think about my life and I just wonder, how did I get here? This was never how I expected my life would turn out. I went to a performing arts high school in New York, right? And then majored in dance in college, and I was never taught how to write a résumé or fix a toilet or balance a budget. I never worried about that stuff. I just thought about dancing and writing and pottery. I never even considered a future after dance. After I quit my job on the cruise ship, I came home, got the job at McKenna, and spent a year sort of picking up the pieces of my life after breaking up with Marcos, this guy I’d dated on the ship. McKenna was just this job I was going to have until I figured out what I was really going to do with my life. Then I met Gideon and put all my energy into that relationship, and I’ve been licking my wounds since the divorce. And now here I am, five years later, doing an eight-to-five job working in marketing, and I have no idea how I got here.”
    â€œSo if you could be anything, what would it be?” Rette asked.
    â€œReally, I don’t know, that’s part of the problem. Something creative. I was thinking I could see if I could work for Pam doing some