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> [secretary to a rich moneybags ceo]

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Elizabeth Wolff is the secretary to Robert Smith. As of earlier this year, she has started to hate her job. Oh, don't get her wrong, she has always hated waking in the morning to do work - she just hated it even more nowadays.

Where should she start?

Firstly, her boss decided to buy over Tumblr without asking her whether it was a good idea or not. She understands, micromanagement is bad, but this isn't micromanaging, no, this is Robert's impulsive decision that could very well jeopardise the company's name. Robert is the CEO of this company - every action that he does may go under scrutiny, or may be twisted into something vile by the media. Once publicised, their stocks and the number of their customers may decide now was a great time jumping from her boss's ego to his iq to suicide.

Actually, she isn't that mad that he went and bought over Tumblr. It was the impulsiveness of his decision, she mused, walking towards the den that kept the big snake in his tower. Anyone who knew Robert well knew that he was not one for impulsiveness. He was calm, collected, and would usually consult others before making an informed decision. This wasn't like him.

Fear of Change.

The blinds were drawn when she entered the room. The swirly chair swirled from left to right.

"Sir."

There was a sigh, and Robert Smith turned to meet his secretary. "Hey, hows it goin?"

Elizabeth cocked an eyebrow and kept silent long enough to let Robert know that his humor wasn't going to allow him to escape this. Robert pulled an expression like that sniper from winglet's overwatch vs tf2 ep 2 at the 1.27 mark.

"Sir", she started again, "the VidWatch that you're supporting... you'll only allow banner ads? And you're still giving the same pay as YouTube?"

Right. The second problem. Her boss decided to fund making a YouTube lookalike that runs the same way, from scratch. That requires good coders, a good salary to keep them working, and more departments. Not to mention that the Robert Smith company doesn't really involve social media. This was a huge step in a weird direction, and frankly, she was 70% sure they were going to break their ankle doing so. But Robert had already taken it, so there was nothing to do but go ahead with it and try not to break every other bone in their body in the process.

"Yes. Is there a problem with that?" Robert inhaled. Elizabeth hoped he had realised that his brain seriously requires more oxygen.

"Several."

The two shared a glance. Robert's expression was that of please-don't-kill-me and Elizabeth's expression was that of fat-chance.

She continued, "First, we would have little to membership. Managing such a website and its apps would cost a lot of money. Cost of facilities. Without membership, ads company wouldn't want to invest in us. Furthermore, if you're only going to... no, since you have already blatantly stated on your twitter account that,"

Robert winced.

"- our new item will only use banner ads, ads companies may not really want to invest in us since YouTube allows them to reach thousands, millions more, without banner ads. Everything else is a manifestation of that problem. Where are we going to get the capital to pay the coders without the profit from the ads? Where are we going to get the capital to pay the first few members? Where are we going to get members?"

Robert laughed. He snorted. "I thought it was going to be worse than that."

"Worse? Its already so bad! Why do you want it to be worse!?"

"Eliza, Eliza." He breathed, "we are not an upstart company struggling with making ends meet. I thought you would have figured it out, what with your impressive intellect. We take the money from my first company and use it to pay off all the problems from the VidWatch."

"Okay, but that still doesn't solve the problem with membership."

"Tumblr. We advertise on Tumblr."

Elizabeth does her best impression of that gif where the blonde bloke blinks.

"Okay, but we still have a problem. How are we going to pay the staff manging Tumblr? Even with the profits from the company, adding together all the money problems of VidWatch and Tumblr together, the coders, the staff, the compliants department, the members seeking to gain money..."

Robert patiently waited for Elizabeth to reach her conclusion.

"...the losses would be what, 100 million per year? And that's a conservative estimate!"

Robert fucking smiled. "Elizabeth, I am a rich man. I have 3 billion in my bank account. Even with taxes, I could most plausibly support everything by myself for at least what, 10? 5 years?"

In the artifical light, Elizabeth saw a smile that was anything but artificial. A shiver went through her skin, conveying an emotion that she could not decipher.

Robert Smith stood, an imposing statue. He seemed to fill up the entire room. Larger than life, she recalled, and suddenly she recalled all that time ago, when she signed on to this company. It was a different office, it was a different time, but that smile was still the same.

"That is enough time to turn everything around."

Look out, her mind whispered to her, the snake is here.