Wilford Warfstache (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cottoncandypink) wrote2018-04-07 01:47 pm
cottoncandypink) wrote2018-04-07 01:47 pm
you should be on the other side of town photoshopping out my freckles
He was angry. He was actually angry over a fucking ballgame, of all things. But here they were, struck out in the ninth and down by six. Wilford slammed his thumb into the power button on the remote, before hurling it across the room, just as the door opened. Billy stopped in the doorway, watching the remote bounce off the sofa and onto the ground. Before Buster could find it and eat it, he picked it up and put it on top of a filing cabinet.
“How much did you put on it?” he asked.
“Fuck you.”
A lot. That was how much. More than he wanted to admit to. But he was bored enough to start gambling on baseball, so something needed to change.
“I need to go anyway,” he said, sparing a passing glance to the clock on his monitor. He was a bit early, but this was the sort of thing he could be early to.
“You’d better do your ADR before I get shouted at again.” Billy said.
“Later,” Wilford said, already rushing toward the door. He stopped suddenly, struck by an idea. He looked up at Billy just long enough to get a suspicious look from the man. Calm. Steady. Perfect. Wilford lifted up his phone and took a picture. “Great. See ya later,” he said, making quick tracks away from Billy and toward his door. He was stopped twice on his way by people he didn’t want to talk to. He did the same thing with them — stared until they got uncomfortably quiet, and then took their picture and made his escape.
He drove toward the beach, sticking to surface streets to avoid most of the mayhem that time of day, but after getting caught up behind a taxiing crop duster for eight blocks, he’d lost any shred of early he’d had on his side, and was bordering on late. The place was neck deep in the lunch rush by the time he got there, Having nothing else to do until it subsided, Wilford headed to the bar to watch how everything moved. He hadn’t been inside during working hours since the day he impulse bought the place. But the papers had all been signed, and the money was where it was supposed to be, which officially made it his. Nobody knew that yet, so the blonde behind the bar treated like like any other afternoon pain in the ass and barely gave him the time of day after she took his order and poured his drink.
After five minutes of watching too little staff run around trying to take care of too many tables, Wilford had already decided that the manager was going to be the first on the chopping block.
Or the second. She was too busy to notice him, but Wilford recognised one of his interns the second he spotted her trying to convince someone that no, really, breaded chicken has gluten in it.
Before he had the chance to get rumbled, Wilford got up and headed back to Justin’s office. The place was so busy and chaotic, nobody even noticed him until he let himself in and startled Justin almost out of his seat.
“Oh. I was wondering when you’d get here,” Justin said, standing up.
“I’ve been watching the front house for twenty minutes,” Wilford said, putting his empty glass down on the desk. “Who’s the manager right now?”
“Mike,” Justin said. “We’ll close up for an hour after lunch so you can finally meet everybody.”
Wilford nodded. He wasn’t going to be very popular for a while, but he wasn’t here to be popular. He was here for something to do.
“Mike in charge of the hiring?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah. General manager’s generally in charge of everything,” Justin said.
Wilford had already figured out why the place was a slowly sinking ship while the sale was in-process. He was more surprised that it hadn’t sunk already. It might actually be fun trying to get it moving again, even if just in some random, listless direction. As long as it made money and gave him something to do, he’d be happy with any outcome. He pointed at the computer, and moved to crowd Justin out of his seat.
“What’s the password for this thing?” he asked.
Justin quickly stood up and shook his head. “I could never remember it, so I took it off.”
Of course he did. Wilford took Justin’s seat, and immediately went to the user settings to remedy that situation. New username. New password. Eliminate the fuck out of the guest account. He’d have to go very carefully over the books to make sure nobody’s been cooking them when backs were turned. And probably update the network security while he was at it.
“Who do you advertise openings through?” he asked, pulling up the browser. The default browser. Ugh. Before he did anything, he started installing something that didn’t completely suck.
“You’d have to ask Mike,” Justin said. “What are you doing?”
“Rover’s a piece of shit. At least use fucking Lightning Bug or something.” He preferred Cobalt, but at that point it just came down to where you liked your browser tabs. Once he had it installed, he headed to CashForDreams to take a quick glance at how other places were formatting their opening posts these days.
“Oh, you’re hiring new people,” Justin said. “That’s brave.”
What he wasn’t saying was how there was no money for new hires, but he didn’t have to. Wilford had already loosely gone over the financials, and had seen how the place ran. It was a shitshow, but he could at least make it a functioning shitshow.
“When you closing the place up?” Wilford asked, not looking up from a listing that was trying to make working for some chain restaurant sound like an important career decision.
“Right,” Justin said, thankfully able to take a hint.
It took almost an hour for the staff to clear the tables, but it was an hour Wilford was able to spend drafting a preliminary posting for a new general manager. Finally, Justin popped his head back into the office to let him know that everyone was waiting out front. It was not a large staff. It was about the amount of people needed to run some little Mom and Pop’s venture; not a trendy spot on a busy street with heavy tourist traffic. “Who’s off today?” Wilford asked Justin as they approached.
“Nobody.”
Wilford managed not to shake his head, if only just.
“Oh, shit,” one of the girls in the group hissed as he walked over. He gave Rosa a look that told her he knew she was here, which she turned away from as if doing so meant she hadn’t noticed him.
“So, hey guys,” Justin said awkwardly to the group. “You all know the place was for sale. Well, meet the new owner. Wilford.”
“Aren’t you on TV?” someone asked.
Wilford ignored the question. “I’ll spare you the speech. There’s gonna be some big changes around here,” he said.
“I think that guy is on TV,” someone in the group whispered.
Wilford ignored that as well.
“What do you make?” he asked, pointing at some scrawny waiter who barely looked old enough to drink.
“Uh.” He looked around the group awkwardly, and shook his head.
“I’m asking them next. What do you make?” Wilford asked.
“Two-fifty,” the kid said.
Wilford hadn’t seen the payroll records yet. Just the expenses.
“You’re serious?” he asked. “What are tips like?”
“The people here are mostly tourists. Tips suck.”
“You?” Wilford asked, pointing to the next person.
“Same. Two-fifty,” the young woman responded.
It was the same across the room. Nobody was making more than four dollars an hour.
“What about you?” Wilford asked who he assumed was Mike, going off of his lack of black and white uniform.
“I don’t have to share that,” Mike said.
Wilford turned to Justin. “How much does he make?” he asked.
Justin shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t know. He handles payroll.”
“How much, or your fired?” Wilford said.
Mike shrugged lazily. “Thirty,” he said finally.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I say or? I meant ‘and.’ Get the fuck out. You’re fired,” Wilford said.
“He also takes half the tips,” Rosa said suddenly.
Justin had the balls to look absolutely shocked by this, but he was clearly useless.
“Leave, before I make you,” Wilford said, crossing his arms over his chest.
Mike shook his head and slapped a glass off a nearby table, so it shattered on the ground. “This is bullshit. You can’t just walk in here and fire people.”
Wilford wasn’t going to bother with a smart remark for this guy. He didn’t deserve it. What he deserved was to get grabbed by the neck and hauled out to the door, which is exactly what Wilford did. The nervous laughter behind him suggested he might wind up popular after all. Even as Mike shouted and swore and fussed, Wilford threw him outside and locked the door behind him again. When Mike still didn’t get the hint, Wilford made a show off calling the cops, which finally got the point across. Which was good, because he hadn’t actually connected the call, and didn’t want to deal with that bluff being called. When he was reasonably certain that Mike wasn’t coming back, he returned to the group, now smaller by one.
“Well, that’s thirty an hour cleared up right there,” he said. He looked over at Justin next. “What have you been paying yourself?” he asked.
Justin cringed. “I’m gonna go,” he said, pointing toward the door and already moving backwards.
“Please do,” Wilford said. He watched in silence as Justin quickly disappeared the way Mike had gone, feeling like he’d already solved one problem.
“That’s… probably, what? Sixty? Seventy an hour cleared up right there?” he guessed, going off of what he could remember from the expenses reports.
There were six servers — five, after he dealt with Rosa — and two whole bartenders, whose story was mostly the same. He couldn’t make any decisions on the spot, but he had something to work with, at least. When he was done with the front of house, he pointed straight at Rosa, making sure she saw.
“Go wait for me,” he said, pointing back at the office.
“Okay,” she said awkwardly. While she disappeared into the small closet Justin called an office, Wilford headed back to the kitchen to get their story. It wasn’t a nice one, either. Understaffed, underpaid, no head chef, and Mike had somehow gained control of the menu. What a fucking disgrace. At least the food was good. It could be better, but Wilford had definitely had worse. He’d probably been responsible for worse. It had occurred to him more than once that Mike and Justin were working together, and needed to sell the place to get out of trouble, but that wasn’t Wilford’s problem. His problem was figuring out how to pay people and bring in more on a shoestring budget. That was a problem for later though. There was a more current problem waiting for him in the office. He stepped inside, shutting the door behind them so nobody could overhear.
“So, you’re busting your ass over here for two-fifty an hour, when you should be on the other side of town photoshopping out my freckles?” he asked as he said down.
“Two-fifty plus tips,” Rosa said. “And I’m pretty sure those are moles; not freckles.”
“They’re freckles, and they’re cute as hell. And not the point.” How dare she call his freckles moles? “How are your grades?”
Rosa inhaled deeply. “I’ll graduate,” she said, not exactly sounding confident.
Wilford nodded. He expected that sort of answer. “It’s about an hour between here and the studio, if the traffic is good. Forty five in the other direction to S.A.L.S. So.. two hours between there and here? Where’s home?”
“Rancho,” Rosa said, all of that defiant spunk suddenly gone.
“Yeah, no wonder your grades suck. I’m not paying you twelve bucks an hour just so you can flunk out. They make us pay interns now to make sure that doesn’t happen.” He pulled out his phone and shot off a text to Nichola.
“So, what? I’m fired?” Rosa guessed. “Thanks for doing it back here, I guess.”
“I can’t pay you more at the studio. And I wouldn’t anyway, because your photoshop skills suck. But I’m still doing you a favour. Take all that time you’re spending on your commute and put it into your grades. Take all that money you’re spending on gas and see if you come out ahead by not having to drive all the way out here all the time.” He tapped his fingers against the black screen on his phone for a few moments.
“If you’re coming out here, why not give me a ride?” Rosa asked.
“No.” Ew. God no. “But if that’s how you want to do it. Either I see you at the studio tomorrow, or I see you here. You can’t be my intern and work for me. Now get out of here.”
Rosa sighed and slowly got up. She gave Wilford a contemplative look for just a few moments before she turned toward the door to leave. Wilford needed to do the same. He’d already spent more time here than he’d meant to, so he emailed the CashForDreams drafts to himself and dug up old payroll reports before leaving the office as well. On his way out, he stopped by the bar and pointed at the blonde who had served him earlier. “Hold down the fort while I’m gone. I’ll be back tonight to figure this shit out.”
He felt like he should have bailed on his ADR, but there were other things at the studio that needed his attention beyond some VO work. But he could rush through most of it and be back by closing.
Nichola was waiting for him in his dressing room when he returned, stretched out on the sofa with Buster stretched out on top of her. “What’s going on?” she asked as she idly played with one of Buster’s ears.
“Did you find what I asked for?” Wilford asked as he took the payroll binder over to his desk to start going through it. It was an absolute disaster. The whole damn thing needed an audit.
“I did. You didn’t say why you need it though.”
“Because if she’s smart, she’ll quit her job and show up here tomorrow,” Wilford said, wondering how in the hell Justin thought it was acceptable to pay himself what everyone else made combined.
“She works at your new place?” Nichola asked. “Is that legal?”
Wilford shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably. I implied it wasn’t though.”
“Why?” Nichola asked incredulously.
Wilford shrugged again. He really didn’t know.
Nichola shook her head and picked up her phone from the coffee table. “Use it for good; not evil,” she warned before she tapped the screen. A few seconds later, the email client on Wilford’s computer chimed at the arrival of a new message. He opened it and clicked on the Life Invader link at the top of the long list of social media profiles. Her profile was private, but she had a public page full of photo posts and links to her blog. A lot of makeup and fashion, which seemed a bit out of place for someone pursuing a media degree. Her other social media accounts were much of the same. Selfies, artistic shots of eyeshadow palettes, complaints about cheap brands. But then there was a MeTV account, with about 300 videos uploaded. Her photoshop still sucked, and nobody had ever taught her how to layout a good bumper, but the videos themselves were surprising. A million views here, two million there. A lot of people really wanted to see what a 19 year old college student had to say about the latest shade of lipstick, apparently. She was comfortable in front of the camera, and despite shooting in her bedroom in front of a messy closet, it was well framed and lit. It didn’t sound like it had been recorded on a toaster either, the way most MeTV videos did. The media degree made sense.
“Who heads our social media department?” Wilford asked.
“You. And you suck at it,” Nichola said.
“I do?” Wilford asked. “I have that Tweetr account. That you set up. That’s not head of anything.”
“I told you. Good; not evil,” Nichola warned.
“I’m not using it for evil.” No matter how tempting it was.
He wasn’t sure why, but Wilford was surprised when Rosa let herself into his dressing room early the next morning.
“Oh, you’ve come to your senses,” Wilford said, getting up to usher her right back outside. “Good.”
“Well, yeah. I’d like to graduate, and six credits is kind of a lot,” Rosa said, letting herself get pushed back out into the hall. “I feel bad, because now they’re even more short-staffed.”
Wilford led her back to her desk in the bullpen. “That’s not your problem,” he said. “Your problem is our social media presence.”
“What about it?” Rosa asked cautiously.
“We don’t have one. Fix that,” Wilford said. “Consider this an extended job interview. Build me something nice, and you’ll be salary in June.”
“Uhm.” Rosa looked around, but nobody nearby seemed willing to get involved with her new problem. “Okay? What the fuck?”
“Talk to Nick about the Tweetr accounts.”
He left her there to sink or swim while he went off to interview someone for the general manager position.
“How much did you put on it?” he asked.
“Fuck you.”
A lot. That was how much. More than he wanted to admit to. But he was bored enough to start gambling on baseball, so something needed to change.
“I need to go anyway,” he said, sparing a passing glance to the clock on his monitor. He was a bit early, but this was the sort of thing he could be early to.
“You’d better do your ADR before I get shouted at again.” Billy said.
“Later,” Wilford said, already rushing toward the door. He stopped suddenly, struck by an idea. He looked up at Billy just long enough to get a suspicious look from the man. Calm. Steady. Perfect. Wilford lifted up his phone and took a picture. “Great. See ya later,” he said, making quick tracks away from Billy and toward his door. He was stopped twice on his way by people he didn’t want to talk to. He did the same thing with them — stared until they got uncomfortably quiet, and then took their picture and made his escape.
He drove toward the beach, sticking to surface streets to avoid most of the mayhem that time of day, but after getting caught up behind a taxiing crop duster for eight blocks, he’d lost any shred of early he’d had on his side, and was bordering on late. The place was neck deep in the lunch rush by the time he got there, Having nothing else to do until it subsided, Wilford headed to the bar to watch how everything moved. He hadn’t been inside during working hours since the day he impulse bought the place. But the papers had all been signed, and the money was where it was supposed to be, which officially made it his. Nobody knew that yet, so the blonde behind the bar treated like like any other afternoon pain in the ass and barely gave him the time of day after she took his order and poured his drink.
After five minutes of watching too little staff run around trying to take care of too many tables, Wilford had already decided that the manager was going to be the first on the chopping block.
Or the second. She was too busy to notice him, but Wilford recognised one of his interns the second he spotted her trying to convince someone that no, really, breaded chicken has gluten in it.
Before he had the chance to get rumbled, Wilford got up and headed back to Justin’s office. The place was so busy and chaotic, nobody even noticed him until he let himself in and startled Justin almost out of his seat.
“Oh. I was wondering when you’d get here,” Justin said, standing up.
“I’ve been watching the front house for twenty minutes,” Wilford said, putting his empty glass down on the desk. “Who’s the manager right now?”
“Mike,” Justin said. “We’ll close up for an hour after lunch so you can finally meet everybody.”
Wilford nodded. He wasn’t going to be very popular for a while, but he wasn’t here to be popular. He was here for something to do.
“Mike in charge of the hiring?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah. General manager’s generally in charge of everything,” Justin said.
Wilford had already figured out why the place was a slowly sinking ship while the sale was in-process. He was more surprised that it hadn’t sunk already. It might actually be fun trying to get it moving again, even if just in some random, listless direction. As long as it made money and gave him something to do, he’d be happy with any outcome. He pointed at the computer, and moved to crowd Justin out of his seat.
“What’s the password for this thing?” he asked.
Justin quickly stood up and shook his head. “I could never remember it, so I took it off.”
Of course he did. Wilford took Justin’s seat, and immediately went to the user settings to remedy that situation. New username. New password. Eliminate the fuck out of the guest account. He’d have to go very carefully over the books to make sure nobody’s been cooking them when backs were turned. And probably update the network security while he was at it.
“Who do you advertise openings through?” he asked, pulling up the browser. The default browser. Ugh. Before he did anything, he started installing something that didn’t completely suck.
“You’d have to ask Mike,” Justin said. “What are you doing?”
“Rover’s a piece of shit. At least use fucking Lightning Bug or something.” He preferred Cobalt, but at that point it just came down to where you liked your browser tabs. Once he had it installed, he headed to CashForDreams to take a quick glance at how other places were formatting their opening posts these days.
“Oh, you’re hiring new people,” Justin said. “That’s brave.”
What he wasn’t saying was how there was no money for new hires, but he didn’t have to. Wilford had already loosely gone over the financials, and had seen how the place ran. It was a shitshow, but he could at least make it a functioning shitshow.
“When you closing the place up?” Wilford asked, not looking up from a listing that was trying to make working for some chain restaurant sound like an important career decision.
“Right,” Justin said, thankfully able to take a hint.
It took almost an hour for the staff to clear the tables, but it was an hour Wilford was able to spend drafting a preliminary posting for a new general manager. Finally, Justin popped his head back into the office to let him know that everyone was waiting out front. It was not a large staff. It was about the amount of people needed to run some little Mom and Pop’s venture; not a trendy spot on a busy street with heavy tourist traffic. “Who’s off today?” Wilford asked Justin as they approached.
“Nobody.”
Wilford managed not to shake his head, if only just.
“Oh, shit,” one of the girls in the group hissed as he walked over. He gave Rosa a look that told her he knew she was here, which she turned away from as if doing so meant she hadn’t noticed him.
“So, hey guys,” Justin said awkwardly to the group. “You all know the place was for sale. Well, meet the new owner. Wilford.”
“Aren’t you on TV?” someone asked.
Wilford ignored the question. “I’ll spare you the speech. There’s gonna be some big changes around here,” he said.
“I think that guy is on TV,” someone in the group whispered.
Wilford ignored that as well.
“What do you make?” he asked, pointing at some scrawny waiter who barely looked old enough to drink.
“Uh.” He looked around the group awkwardly, and shook his head.
“I’m asking them next. What do you make?” Wilford asked.
“Two-fifty,” the kid said.
Wilford hadn’t seen the payroll records yet. Just the expenses.
“You’re serious?” he asked. “What are tips like?”
“The people here are mostly tourists. Tips suck.”
“You?” Wilford asked, pointing to the next person.
“Same. Two-fifty,” the young woman responded.
It was the same across the room. Nobody was making more than four dollars an hour.
“What about you?” Wilford asked who he assumed was Mike, going off of his lack of black and white uniform.
“I don’t have to share that,” Mike said.
Wilford turned to Justin. “How much does he make?” he asked.
Justin shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t know. He handles payroll.”
“How much, or your fired?” Wilford said.
Mike shrugged lazily. “Thirty,” he said finally.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I say or? I meant ‘and.’ Get the fuck out. You’re fired,” Wilford said.
“He also takes half the tips,” Rosa said suddenly.
Justin had the balls to look absolutely shocked by this, but he was clearly useless.
“Leave, before I make you,” Wilford said, crossing his arms over his chest.
Mike shook his head and slapped a glass off a nearby table, so it shattered on the ground. “This is bullshit. You can’t just walk in here and fire people.”
Wilford wasn’t going to bother with a smart remark for this guy. He didn’t deserve it. What he deserved was to get grabbed by the neck and hauled out to the door, which is exactly what Wilford did. The nervous laughter behind him suggested he might wind up popular after all. Even as Mike shouted and swore and fussed, Wilford threw him outside and locked the door behind him again. When Mike still didn’t get the hint, Wilford made a show off calling the cops, which finally got the point across. Which was good, because he hadn’t actually connected the call, and didn’t want to deal with that bluff being called. When he was reasonably certain that Mike wasn’t coming back, he returned to the group, now smaller by one.
“Well, that’s thirty an hour cleared up right there,” he said. He looked over at Justin next. “What have you been paying yourself?” he asked.
Justin cringed. “I’m gonna go,” he said, pointing toward the door and already moving backwards.
“Please do,” Wilford said. He watched in silence as Justin quickly disappeared the way Mike had gone, feeling like he’d already solved one problem.
“That’s… probably, what? Sixty? Seventy an hour cleared up right there?” he guessed, going off of what he could remember from the expenses reports.
There were six servers — five, after he dealt with Rosa — and two whole bartenders, whose story was mostly the same. He couldn’t make any decisions on the spot, but he had something to work with, at least. When he was done with the front of house, he pointed straight at Rosa, making sure she saw.
“Go wait for me,” he said, pointing back at the office.
“Okay,” she said awkwardly. While she disappeared into the small closet Justin called an office, Wilford headed back to the kitchen to get their story. It wasn’t a nice one, either. Understaffed, underpaid, no head chef, and Mike had somehow gained control of the menu. What a fucking disgrace. At least the food was good. It could be better, but Wilford had definitely had worse. He’d probably been responsible for worse. It had occurred to him more than once that Mike and Justin were working together, and needed to sell the place to get out of trouble, but that wasn’t Wilford’s problem. His problem was figuring out how to pay people and bring in more on a shoestring budget. That was a problem for later though. There was a more current problem waiting for him in the office. He stepped inside, shutting the door behind them so nobody could overhear.
“So, you’re busting your ass over here for two-fifty an hour, when you should be on the other side of town photoshopping out my freckles?” he asked as he said down.
“Two-fifty plus tips,” Rosa said. “And I’m pretty sure those are moles; not freckles.”
“They’re freckles, and they’re cute as hell. And not the point.” How dare she call his freckles moles? “How are your grades?”
Rosa inhaled deeply. “I’ll graduate,” she said, not exactly sounding confident.
Wilford nodded. He expected that sort of answer. “It’s about an hour between here and the studio, if the traffic is good. Forty five in the other direction to S.A.L.S. So.. two hours between there and here? Where’s home?”
“Rancho,” Rosa said, all of that defiant spunk suddenly gone.
“Yeah, no wonder your grades suck. I’m not paying you twelve bucks an hour just so you can flunk out. They make us pay interns now to make sure that doesn’t happen.” He pulled out his phone and shot off a text to Nichola.
“So, what? I’m fired?” Rosa guessed. “Thanks for doing it back here, I guess.”
“I can’t pay you more at the studio. And I wouldn’t anyway, because your photoshop skills suck. But I’m still doing you a favour. Take all that time you’re spending on your commute and put it into your grades. Take all that money you’re spending on gas and see if you come out ahead by not having to drive all the way out here all the time.” He tapped his fingers against the black screen on his phone for a few moments.
“If you’re coming out here, why not give me a ride?” Rosa asked.
“No.” Ew. God no. “But if that’s how you want to do it. Either I see you at the studio tomorrow, or I see you here. You can’t be my intern and work for me. Now get out of here.”
Rosa sighed and slowly got up. She gave Wilford a contemplative look for just a few moments before she turned toward the door to leave. Wilford needed to do the same. He’d already spent more time here than he’d meant to, so he emailed the CashForDreams drafts to himself and dug up old payroll reports before leaving the office as well. On his way out, he stopped by the bar and pointed at the blonde who had served him earlier. “Hold down the fort while I’m gone. I’ll be back tonight to figure this shit out.”
He felt like he should have bailed on his ADR, but there were other things at the studio that needed his attention beyond some VO work. But he could rush through most of it and be back by closing.
Nichola was waiting for him in his dressing room when he returned, stretched out on the sofa with Buster stretched out on top of her. “What’s going on?” she asked as she idly played with one of Buster’s ears.
“Did you find what I asked for?” Wilford asked as he took the payroll binder over to his desk to start going through it. It was an absolute disaster. The whole damn thing needed an audit.
“I did. You didn’t say why you need it though.”
“Because if she’s smart, she’ll quit her job and show up here tomorrow,” Wilford said, wondering how in the hell Justin thought it was acceptable to pay himself what everyone else made combined.
“She works at your new place?” Nichola asked. “Is that legal?”
Wilford shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably. I implied it wasn’t though.”
“Why?” Nichola asked incredulously.
Wilford shrugged again. He really didn’t know.
Nichola shook her head and picked up her phone from the coffee table. “Use it for good; not evil,” she warned before she tapped the screen. A few seconds later, the email client on Wilford’s computer chimed at the arrival of a new message. He opened it and clicked on the Life Invader link at the top of the long list of social media profiles. Her profile was private, but she had a public page full of photo posts and links to her blog. A lot of makeup and fashion, which seemed a bit out of place for someone pursuing a media degree. Her other social media accounts were much of the same. Selfies, artistic shots of eyeshadow palettes, complaints about cheap brands. But then there was a MeTV account, with about 300 videos uploaded. Her photoshop still sucked, and nobody had ever taught her how to layout a good bumper, but the videos themselves were surprising. A million views here, two million there. A lot of people really wanted to see what a 19 year old college student had to say about the latest shade of lipstick, apparently. She was comfortable in front of the camera, and despite shooting in her bedroom in front of a messy closet, it was well framed and lit. It didn’t sound like it had been recorded on a toaster either, the way most MeTV videos did. The media degree made sense.
“Who heads our social media department?” Wilford asked.
“You. And you suck at it,” Nichola said.
“I do?” Wilford asked. “I have that Tweetr account. That you set up. That’s not head of anything.”
“I told you. Good; not evil,” Nichola warned.
“I’m not using it for evil.” No matter how tempting it was.
He wasn’t sure why, but Wilford was surprised when Rosa let herself into his dressing room early the next morning.
“Oh, you’ve come to your senses,” Wilford said, getting up to usher her right back outside. “Good.”
“Well, yeah. I’d like to graduate, and six credits is kind of a lot,” Rosa said, letting herself get pushed back out into the hall. “I feel bad, because now they’re even more short-staffed.”
Wilford led her back to her desk in the bullpen. “That’s not your problem,” he said. “Your problem is our social media presence.”
“What about it?” Rosa asked cautiously.
“We don’t have one. Fix that,” Wilford said. “Consider this an extended job interview. Build me something nice, and you’ll be salary in June.”
“Uhm.” Rosa looked around, but nobody nearby seemed willing to get involved with her new problem. “Okay? What the fuck?”
“Talk to Nick about the Tweetr accounts.”
He left her there to sink or swim while he went off to interview someone for the general manager position.