The Resort Ambassador Pt. 01

At first, he balked at some of her suggestions, especially the two years' pay and he pushed back on keeping Jeffery after his betrayal of confidence.

"Betrayal of confidence?" Emi asked incredulously? "BETRAYAL OF CONFIDENCE?" she repeated her eyes couldn't grow any wider.

Mr. Woo realized his mistake and stuttered a bit before finally agreeing to everything, unreservedly.

She also added that Jefferey was to audit one of his devices once a month, randomly, and that there would be consequences if any more illegal nude images were found. Starting with an immediate audit of all his devices and computers at home. He reluctantly agreed to everything. The three of them did the devices audit soon after they left the office. The flash drive ended up not having anything on it except important client info.

Emi was finally satisfied. She wasn't happy with the idea of leaving, or what he did, but she was glad to find out that she didn't really have a killers heart. Plus she was glad that he didn't die. That would have been much worse on many levels.

After the audits, Emi took Jeffery out for a donut and told him what happened and also about his big pay raise. Once again she forced him to swear to secrecy and he agreed.

"Umm... oh yeah," Jeffery said, acting as if he just remembered something. "I took a picture of the evidence in case you did not agree to follow me to Mr. Woo's office. Erm... maybe you want to delete it... I guess," he said awkwardly.

Emi looked at him, she was distracted and just starting to realize what he was saying as he opened his phone and placed a full-frontal nude image of her, face-up, on the table.

"Ahhhh!" Emi grabbed the phone quickly and looked around, and behind herself. She quickly deleted it and then flushed and looked at him exasperatedly.

Jeffery smiled nervously.

Emi calmed down and returned his phone after checking it a bit more. She held her head in embarrassment for a minute then finally started to laugh about it.

It was a busy day. She was out of the office all day taking care of all the details and making sure she got her payout and that the other two got their raises. She made sure that contractors were coming to tear apart the shower rooms and turn them into storerooms instead. She also made Woo show her where all the cameras were located, and she removed each and every one of them herself.

Later she slacked everyone, telling them something came up and that she would be out of the office all day. It wasn't unusual for a dev to sometimes work at home in the morning, so nobody questioned her absence.

That night at home she practiced what she was going to say to the crew about why she was leaving. She started to get angry again, why did this have to happen? She loved her job and her co-workers, the distance was perfect for running, but she just couldn't work for Mr. Woo anymore, not after what happened. She didn't want to ever lay eyes on him again.

For some unknown reason, she was surprised that Jeffrey seeing her naked didn't bother her as much as she had thought it should. Still, it was embarrassing, his big eyes viewing her just coming out of the shower. It made her cheeks heat just thinking about it. The traumatic experience made them somehow closer. He felt like a brother to her now. He could be trusted with her secret, she knew that. She was glad that he came to her with this news.

Although, now that she thought about it, she wondered how many pictures there were of her and how long Jeffrey looked at them. Perhaps he zoomed in and took a longer look to make sure it was her. She flushed at the thought.

She tried to shake the image of him carefully looking at many naked pictures of her. Regardless, he was like a hero brother. Thinking about all this she decided that she was, so deeply glad, that she had returned the favor by getting him a proper salary.

— Sad Wednesday —

Emi didn't want to leave her bed. She was warm in her pajamas and had no desire to face her last day at work. It would be hard to leave her clients hanging and her co-workers with extra pressure. No doubt they would have to extend some due dates for particular releases. The hardest part though would be saying goodbye to everyone. They were friends of hers, and Evan, in particular, would be difficult to say goodbye to. It was precious that she got to work professionally with her best friend. That was likely a once in a lifetime experience she imagined, and right now was not a great time for Evan to lose her in his day to day life. Again, Emi felt a well up of sorrow and anger about this whole thing. She pulled the blanket back up over her head.

Later that morning she messaged Evan privately via mobile. 'Meet me at Starbucks at 9 am,' she slacked.

'Roger that, boss!' he slacked back.

Erg, this was going to be harder than she thought, as she looked at his message. She felt terrible.

Emi left her house and jogged slowly to work, stopping sometimes to walk because she didn't want to sweat too much. No more showers at work.

Up ahead was Evan. She could see him through the window from outside. He was looking at his phone. Soon they would be parting ways. This was a precious last moment. She decided to delay it for a while and enjoy a drink with him first.

"Hey Evan," Emi said as she sat down with a coffee.

"Oh I didn't see you come in," he smiled.

"You look good today," Emi said.

"Huh, what... wait, is my shirt inside out?", he looked at his shirt.

"No, I'm just seeing you in a new light today," she said carefully.

"It's the stories right! You have finally come to admit that they are not that bad," he smirked.

Feeling generous, she decided to humor him for a moment. "They actually were not terrible I guess," she said reluctantly.

"I knew it!" He slammed his hand down on the table. People nearby turned and looked.

"I said they were not terrible," she regretted falsely leading him on, but it was nice to see him happy for a moment, even though it was deeply annoying at the same time.

"Which story did you like the most?" he grinned.

The moron ruined the moment she thought. "Look, Evan, I called you here today to let you know that today is my last day," she said.

"Huh? why... what are you saying Emi?" He sat up and put his drink down.

"Something personal came up and I have to quit my job today," she said watching him closely.

"Was it the stories? The poster?" He looked confused.

"No, no not at all. It has nothing to do with our awesome team," she explained.

"That sucks Emi! Are you just going to leave? What about the clients?" he asked unhappily.

"Derrick should be able to help fill some of the gaps, I hope. Look, Evan, I thought you would be more supportive. This isn't easy for me you know. I didn't want this to happen," she explained with a serious voice.

"Will you still be living with your family?" he asked.

"Yeah, I don't know yet. It's complicated Evan... at least there is a silver lining here. I talked Woo into giving you a 30% raise." she said.

"Oh really?" he said, perking up at that news.

"Yes, that should help right?"

"Honestly Emi, I would rather you stayed," he said looking at his cup.

"I will miss you. It was precious that we got to work professionally together for the last couple of years," she said.

"What? We are still friends right?" he asked suddenly.

"Yes, of course, best friends! You can text me anytime," She smiled warmly.

The rest of the day went by in a blur. Nobody was happy about the news, but she treated them all to lunch, her goodbye lunch. She made linked-in connections with everyone she knew and wrote a decent goodbye email to everyone. She said she will stay connected remotely for up to two weeks to help with any technical issues. However, for the most part, she is to be considered gone.

That night she plopped down on her bed. Too tired to brush her teeth, she just put on her pajamas, laid down. After a minute she pulled the covers up over her head.

The rest of the week ended up very light and she only had to do a few hours work remotely with the technical transition. Derrick was indeed pretty good. She was glad about that.

She didn't tell her family. She didn't need the extra drama right now, or perhaps she would never tell them exactly why she left. They didn't even know that she had quit her job yet.

Feeling up for a change, a big change, she started looking for work across the country on various job boards, starting with Monster.

One posting particularly caught her attention. "Looking for a full-stack female mobile developer who can handle some server-side as well. Must have a good eye for design and UI as we do high-end apps."

As Emi read more about the posting she found out that the small dev team was all female and that they frequently traveled to exotic resort locations and created jazzy apps for clients all around the world.

An all-girls dev team seemed kind of weird, and ultra-rare in the tech world but the job and location seemed too good to be true so she researched further.

After doing some research she noticed that they certainly seemed like the real thing, and the apps that they had in the app store were amazing. Emi thought it might be exciting to work at various vacation resorts for a living. Also, she was curious about what it might be like to work with an all-girl team (especially after Woo), but mainly it was the idea of being part of a truly elite team that cares about making beautiful apps that are easy to use that attracted her. Also, she knew that once they could see what she could do they would likely love her.

Emi carefully wrote a letter of application and sent it to them along with her resume.

A few days later Emi got a phone call. After a great phone interview and follow up email, Emi decided to take the freely offered plane ticket to Hawaii. It was just an interview, but she loved the idea of a free trip to Hawaii. This couldn't be better timing, she thought optimistically.