The Temp

Hiring Jessica wasn't something I immediately jumped to. I've been running my own one person consultancy for four years. I go in, work with a company, improve their bottom line and then set up a small annual retainer for monthly workout sessions that did little more than keep the CEO's accountable for the things they said they wanted to do. In one sense it was very simple. I provide an intelligent and respected outside perspective to suggest changes. More than a few of my clients have thrown me under the bus when our discussions led them to exit an employee or reorganize a department, but they paid me enough to make it worth it. I even did the decent thing by helping conduct the exit interviews myself.

Four years of talented networking and enough success stories to point to justified my fees and created a solid pipeline of business. So when Micah asked me if I was hiring, I had to pause. I wasn't, but I might entertain some help for the summer if he someone who would like a three month contract. I'd pay decent, but I didn't want to mess with health insurance or workers comp so it would be a 1099 position. Plus, Micah had joked about the Skinterns in his office, the young women fresh out of college who ran around as gophers, eye candy for CEO's signing contracts, and cute coffee girls learning the ropes of his CPA firm. It might be fun to have some eye candy to help out for the summer.

Jess showed up for her interview and my mind went bust. I'm in my mid-30's and she was at least ten years older than me. She wore charcoal gray slacks and a lighter gray blazer over a satin blue blouse. Her black hair waved in the sunlight coming in the window and her eyes were fiercely intelligent. She was clearly no Skintern and her resume was more impressive than mine. She picked up an MBA from Gonzaga and then went on to become senior VP a regional bank overseeing their credit analysis division. A little more than ten years ago she walked away from it all, had two children, and now was looking to get back into some sort of career. Her previous bank was caught up in the recent recession and was liquidated by the FDIC. There weren't a lot of high powered banking positions for a "former" anything, especially someone who spent the last decade changing diapers. Micah thought of me: I have a great network so working for me for a few months might be a good way for her to create new relationships to transition into something permanent and full time after a few months with me.

I put an offer on the table for Jess. She countered with less of a base and a bigger swing upward for bringing in new clients. I'm a sucker for anyone who is a risk taker, but even more so for a woman who embraces the entrepreneurial spirit, so I quickly agreed.

The day she started she wore the same outfit she had for her interview. Coming into my office she sat down and we spent the morning talking through her job responsibilities: Answering the phone, digging through my LinkedIn connections looking for companies, several other marketing initiatives, and using some of her previous professional experience to look for companies needing our services. In addition to the work side of things, there were some assistant type duties: bring me coffee and the paper, make sure we had supplies, take care of meetings in the office, and handle my errands like dry cleaning. Nothing too extravagant, but stuff I didn't want to deal with. I was used to going to Costco and buying a year's worth of bottle water and napkins. The only thing I was particular about was my coffee: French pressed and the beans had to be roasted within the previous week.

That week went well and we began working through the usual employer employee issues. She was punctual and professional, friendly and a little chatty. Over the course of the week she would arrive at eight. Ten minutes later she would bring me a perfect cup of coffee and the newspaper. We'd chat about what we were both trying to accomplish throughout the day and I'd answer her questions about her tasks and what she could help me with. In these little discussions, I learned that she was recently divorced and was working hard to keep her kids in a private school. Despite her committed expenses, her sense of adventure and strong work ethic made the lower base and contingency upside very appealing for her. She worked hard to earn it; setting some meetings with people I had not contacted in a while or hadn't thought about contacting.

She was a good fit for me. On Tuesday she went out with my dry cleaning and came back with a few suggestions. "You have a lot of blue shirts. Maybe I could go out and get you a few more in a different variety. Also, I see you mostly wear khaki pants. I think black is very slimming."

On Wednesday she brought in some food she had prepared for our lunch. I got the feeling she was very grateful for the job and didn't want to suggest she didn't need to feed me, but I felt a bit uncomfortable. As the week progressed, I got the feeling that we both felt the age difference between the two of us despite our professionalism.

When she brought in my shirts from the cleaner on Friday, she saw I had knocked some papers on the floor while on the phone. She quickly bent over and started cleaning up after me and I saw that some things needed to be addressed. That afternoon at 3, I called and end to the work day and called Jessica into my office.

"We're calling it a week. Grab me a scotch from the bar Jess, and grab whatever you want for yourself and lets talk." I leaned back and undid my tie and ran my fingers through my hair.

"Am I doing ok? I'm having fun working here and hope I'm doing well." She poured herself a pinot grigio and handed me my Glenfiddich 12 year old on some marbles I kept in the freezer to cool my scotch without dilution.

"Jessica, you are doing wonderfully. Setting up our meeting with Robert was impressive. I've known him for ten years and he's a great guy, but being friends I hadn't thought to ask him for his business. Good job!" I lifted my glass in a toast to her.

She smiled and sipped her wine. "Thank you! You said to look for manufacturers, and he was on your LinkedIn page as a friend."

"Ok, but there are a few things that need to change. Jessica," I pause, looking her directly in her eyes. "Jessica, you are not my mother. Please, don't make me lunches. Don't make wardrobe suggestions or offer to help pick out my clothes. You are an amazing woman and doing a great job for me but I want a compatriot, a comrade in arms, someone who can help me build this thing. Not to pick up after me. If this goes well and you can help me get some new clients to pay for you, I will keep you on after the summer. So if I knock some papers off my desk, I can clean up after myself."

I watched her cheeks turn pink as she smiled, accented by her black hair and blue eyes. "Ok, Mike. I am not your mother." Jessica sipped her wine, a big drink like she was preparing for something. "What else needs to change?"

"This one is a bit more awkward for me because I am a guy. You wear boring banking clothes! I like working here. I want you to like working here. You need to wear something bright and fun!" I saw the wince as soon as the words left my mouth. I had a plan and really hoped this work.

"I'm sorry! I haven't been able to buy new work clothes since my days back at Alliance Regional and I'd like to update my wardrobe to better fit for work."

I looked her up and down. Doing the mental addition, I added up the wardrobe, the divorce and the private school, subtracted ten years of being outside of the professional world and reached for my checkbook and wrote her a check for the week she had completed.

"Jessica, lets do this. I will pay you each week on Friday after the week is done till you tell me not to. Cash flow is important to me and I gotta believe it's important to you as well. And Fridays are casual Fridays around here. You can wear jeans or whatever as long as its not ripped or tattered. But I'm putting an additional $1000 in here that is for clothes but you have to pay it back if you buy anything gray."

"Yes sir!"

--

Monday morning Jessica came in with my coffee and paper and a completely different appearance. She wore a snugly fitting dress, lemon and sunshine yellow in the chest and waist, giving way to white and brown in the skirt. Her abandonment of the drab professional grays and blacks for bright and shining life brought out her beauty. I confess, when I saw the pale crease of skin between her breasts I paused my eyes. What was hidden last week was an unexpected treat to see now.

"Michael. I am not your mother!" I blushed at being caught. "And aren't you grateful?"

"Jessica, I am most grateful! And very happy you didn't protest too much. I've been in enough gray and drab offices to make me suicidal. What you're wearing is perfect for what I like around here." Before degenerating into complete lasciviousness, I smiled and asked, "Hell, in that dress we could just turn off the lights and let you be the sun! Well! What's on the docket this week?"

"Well, my boss needs to wipe up his drool at 8:15, then we have a conference call with Michaelson's at 9 and we have the presentation on Wednesday with Robert at MetalFab."

"Right. Is the meeting with Robert here or at his office?"

She checked her notes. "Here. Will you need anything for it?"

"Not yet. I know his business pretty well. There are several points I need to flesh out but I will work on them and then you can put together our Power Point and print out several presentation copies."

"Sounds good, boss. Anything else before I go prospecting?"

"Nope! Thanks, Jess!"

--

Wednesday rolled around and we were teed up for my friend Robert, AKA: Jessica's first prospect for me. In one sense there was a lot riding on the meeting because it could be a great commission check for her. In another sense, Robert and I went back a long way and it was just as much a meeting of good friends.

Jessica led Robert into our conference room while I picked up our presentation packets. I felt a little weird since Robert and I were such good friends. He had a good business, I had a good business, but could we do more business together?

A bottle of water was at my spot when I sat down at the end of the table next to Robert. Jessica had just handed him a cup of coffee when I felt her hand on my shoulder. This was new and unexpected. Her hand felt warm and inviting, a subtle hint of possession even though she was chatting with my friend at the time. I pulled myself mentally back into the present.

"Anything for your coffee, Robert? Cream or sugar? No?" She gave us both a warm smile that lights up the room and she exits. I followed Robert's eyes as she left and they were fixed firmly on her ass. Jessica is cute, but this was the first time I'd really thought of her as a sexual being. Despite the cleavage incident on Monday, my friend's distinct attention to my assistant stirred something in my loins. Protective or desire? That question was shoved to the back of my brain until later as I kicked into gear with Robert.

Ninety minutes later we had outlined a clear need for my services, I could help Robert grow his business and he ended up signing a deal with me with a retainer for the first 30 hours. I saw him eying Jessica again while he was signing the retainer. As he slid the check across the table to me he asks, "So is she going to help?"

I didn't even blink. "Absolutely. My hours bill out at $225, she bills at $175. And there will be a number of times we will be using her banking expertise to help you address your valuation issues." This was, of course, total bullshit. However, I wanted the deal and we bill by the hour. I get to charge for her time, too? How was this not a winning proposition?

--

Friday morning Jessica brought me the paper and my coffee. She took my instructions on casual Friday well. Her hips were snugly wrapped in blue jeans and an orange button down blouse with a tied on cloth belt. When we sat at the end of the day talking through our week, she pulled off her hair scrunchy and let her hair swing free. I tracked her swinging hair with my eyes wide in admiration. She smiled as she reached for my scotch and her white wine.

While she poured our drinks, I pulled out the checkbook to write her weekly paycheck. I wrote one check. And then wrote out a second check for $2000, her share of Robert's retainer check. I raised her paycheck up over my head with an impish grin. "Dance for it!" She jumped up and wiggled her butt a little, smiling as she took the check.

With a more serious tone, I folded up the second check and held it out. "And darling, here is a check you have already danced for."

"Hmm? What do you mean? Have you been watching me at home? I thought I paid my security bill this month!" She teased but her eyes lit up at more income.

"No, we closed Robert this week and you played no small part of that. He wants your help on some valuation issues," I informed her. "And not to alarm you. I don't think he's being completely professional, but if you don't mind a little harmless flirting while we work on his project, you will be involved and I'm billing for your time. If I subtract your pay and my expenses from what we're billing, I net about $100 an hour. I'm splitting that profit with you 50/50. Here is a check for your first ten hours plus your client bonus which he paid in a retainer this week."

"Wow! Thank you!" Then she looked at the amount and I was compelled to laugh along as this middle aged professional woman giggled like a four year old being tickled.

"Ha! No, thank you! My check is bigger!" I raised my glass of scotch in a toast to her first help on a sale.

"Is that's all that's bigger?" She inquired with an impish inquiry.

The question was naughty and unexpected. Clearly the pinot grigio was good for unlocking the woman inside the professional exterior. That or snug jeans make her feel impish. I decided to leave the environment with a little sexual charge but not push it. "I don't know. Robert and I don't go to the same Lifetime."

--

Monday morning Jessica swished in wearing a snappy black sun dress with a rainbow belt. "Good morning, Boss!"

"Good morning, worker bee! I like the new dress! How was your weekend?"

"More shopping! Do you like it?" She was full of grins.

"It looks great! Spin and show me!" I wanted to say that she looked great. She really did. I let my eyes linger on the way her smooth legs extended below the short fabric and dribbled into her shoes. She dressed up and wanted to show me so I decided I was going to enjoy the show!

"I'll keep adding to it to meet your strict office standards," She mocked me as she poured two cups of coffee and set one in front of me. Sitting on my leather couch she crossed her legs. "You were right about one thing. Robert's valuation is all fucked up."

The splitting of the air with a labial aspirant on a Monday morning from what I falsely imagined her virginal lips incapable of speaking was shocking. Almost as surprising was the sudden injection of business matters. I was on my first cup of coffee and hadn't even started looking at Robert's file. The intelligence that poured from her mouth was not surprising. She continued, "His EBITDA is too low for his five year sales trends and profit. Is he skimming money from the company?"

Robert was preparing to take on some private equity money but they had ordered the snappy glove treatment from their CPA firm downtown to take a look at his books. Our lean processes and sales channel management programs were going to help improve sales and make his company more efficient, but Jessica's years in banking came back to bless me.

She outlined what she read in his file over the weekend then we spent the next three hours sorting out a strategy for Robert based on three possibilities: He was skimming from the company. Someone else was skimming from the company. Or the CPA fucked up. If it wasn't one of those three options, we probably couldn't help him or solve the problem before the equity parties bailed. I was grateful for Jessica's leadership on this as my mind kept following my eyes to her crossed legs, then passing their reach to questions of lingerie. What kind of panties did she wear?

We decided to set up three separate meetings: With Robert, with the CPA who did the valuation and with Robert's CFO. I'd discount these hours from Robert if we didn't find anything but if we did, we would more than earn our fee. Jessica set up three separate scenarios with different numbers in areas for each: Executive compensation for Robert (based on the difference in sales/profit and EBITDA), Taxable dollars for the CPA and a Profit vs. Margin analysis for the CFO.

On Thursday we were set up. Jess wore a tight knee length leather dress and a white cotton blouse for the meeting. Clearly her commission check had gone to good use! But the power outfit was topped with a cream blazer as she sat next to each subject, taking notes on the questions. Whenever they would get fidgety I could see her lean forward to make eye contact with the person we were interviewing. At one point, she even uncrossed her legs and I caught the CPA glancing down at her legs as we were asking some very pointed questions.

We found out that the CFO was skimming the books. We pushed him on what the CPA numbers were compared to what the sales and profit numbers appeared to be, and how the company was short nearly $200,000. When we put everyone back in the same room, we got him to confess in front of Robert and CPA that he'd been taking money for the previous three years. Robert was very angry, and fired the CFO on the spot, but Robert demonstrated relief that there was a reason for the disparity in the numbers. We called the equity company and had a conference call discussing what happened, answered their questions and set up an audit independent from the CFO and CPA with a temporary CFO, and in order to secure the injection of capital Robert asked the investors to put their own CFO in once the audit process was completed.

A week later, Robert walked into my office and handed me a check for $20,000. He had a "friendly agreement" with the exited CFO that if he repaid half of what he stole, which was all that he had left from it, then Robert wouldn't prosecute. In thanks to us he wanted to give us 20% of the hundred grand he recovered before it went back on the books of the company, especially since our effort secured the equity guys interest in his company.

--

Lightening flashed and fat raindrops fell as Jessica brought my scotch that Friday. I'd written her check for half of Robert's gratitude since the idea and solution were hers but wanted to wait to give it to her until we could talk.

"Your work has been amazing the past few weeks. Not only was your analytical approach to Robert's financing issue very impressive, but I loved the style you had in the meetings. You were like a dominatrix weaning the truth out of the CFO -- and keeping Robert and the CPA on their heels!" I was gushing, but that's because I'd already hit the scotch after lunch and had spent the afternoon just working over my long term growth plan to see how the company would look if I kept her on.

I watched her cheeks blush with satisfaction. "You, Sir, are very good with flattery!"

"On the contrary, my dear, I just tell you the truth about how awesome you are! And of course, you are making me money. We're just four weeks into what Micah sold to me as a summer internship for some up and coming college student. You're far down the road to making not continuing this past Labor Day an unacceptable option. Do you want to stay on?"

Jessica looked hard into her wine as if truth lay in the bottom of the glass. "I'm having fun here, but I will have to think about it. I'm used to the more uptight world of banking and a law office. They have clear instructions and commands. I'd have to adjust to the way you run things by the seat of your pants. I feel like there is room between what you expect and what you want. But if you can tell me what to do, where you want me to do it and how you want it done, with clear performance expectations, I think we can work this out." Looking up, she made eye contact with a funny smile.