Page 33 of Just Like That

‘Ooh, I like that. Tell us more.’

‘OK, here it is.’ Lauren flips over to the next page, revealing a similarly scrawled flowchart, and points to the first step. ‘We obviously need to advertise our event in some way, maybe drum up some local media interest. When our daters sign up, they’re asked to complete a self-assessment to find out their animal personality type.’

‘I am thinking I would be big hairy gorilla,’ Serge announces, then illustrates this point by pounding his chest King Kong-style, making us all laugh.

‘Sounds about right.’ Lauren gives him a once-over, and I swear there’s a predatory glint in her eye. ‘Anyway, as I was saying, they do a self-assessment and are assigned a personality type. We’ll have them for animal groupings – primates, big cats, reptiles, etc – rather than individual animals.’

‘Do you think people will be happy being labelled a “reptile”?’ I wrinkle my nose as I say this. ‘Especially as the first thing that comes to mind is that they’re cold-blooded.’

‘Yeah, maybe that’s not so appealing.’ Lauren shrugs, open to accepting this constructive criticism. ‘At least they have a backbone though, right? Unlike the molluscs and the arthropods.’ She giggles at her own joke and Serge gives a walrus-like guffaw.

‘Yeah… I think you’re getting a little carried away there.’ I shake my head with a smile. ‘Don’t think any dater’s confidence would be boosted by assuming the identity of a sea snail or an insect. It would become the shortest-lived dating service in history.’

‘Fair enough,’ says Lauren. ‘But maybe the reptiles are looking a bit more appealing now?’

‘We’ll see. We may need to stick to more appealing animal groupings, or perhaps go with individual animal personalities, but I do like the premise so far. Carry on.’

‘Cool. So, at the same time as they find out their animal personality, we review the assessments and put together the best matches.’ Lauren moves her finger down the flowchart as she speaks. ‘Then when they attend the event, we pair them off with three potential matches and they have three mini-dates doing different activities around the park – sharing a cocktail by the zebra enclosure, feeding the elephants, doing something arty like painting pictures of the penguins. At the end of the event, we bring them back together and they fill in a card to say which of the three people they dated they’d like to see again, and where there are matches, we put them in touch with each other. We could start with heterosexual matches, and if that goes well, we look at branching out. What do you think?’

‘I think it sounds like a reality dating show and I’d love to see it play out on screen.’ I grin at Lauren. ‘Which means I’m sure people in that younger demographic will be interested.’

‘Why just the young people?’ asks Serge. ‘We could offer it to the old timers as well.’

‘I’m not sure theretireeswould go for it.’ I correct his use of language on this for the second time.

‘I could find out,’ says Monika. ‘I have contacts I can tap into now. Dating among older age groups is on the increase, so you never know.’

‘OK, sure.’ I nod. ‘Worth a shot, I suppose. But let’s be open to tailoring things a bit differently for that group if needed. I can’t imagine any of them wanting a Love Island-style experience.’

Monika gives me a short thumbs-up in acknowledgement of this while writing something in her notepad. Serge looks pleased that I’ve taken his suggestion on board.

‘Lauren, this is a brilliant idea.’ I join her at the flipchart and turn the page back to review the implementation plan. ‘There are two things on my mind though. Firstly, how do we make sure the personality test has some level of credibility? It needs to be able to hold up against a basic level of scrutiny. And secondly, this implementation seems a little fast. I mean, you’re talking about announcing it this week and having the first event in a fortnight. How are you going to get all this done in such a short period?’

‘Perfectly segued. Thank you, Jess.’ Lauren turns two pages on the flipchart this time. ‘Not only do I have a plan and a process flow, I have a to-do list with the majority of the main tasks already ticked off.’

I’m almost floored with astonishment as I look down the list and see that Lauren has indeed done a lot of the development work already, including designing the self-assessment tool and building the online portal it will be hosted on. The remaining tasks, other than the advertising, are mainly logistical in nature, which I can offer my expertise on.

‘Wow. Well done, you.’ I give her an impressed look and she beams at me.

‘I may have gotten a little carried away over this one, but it has been so much fun.’ She picks up a pen and quickly corrects an error she spots on her list. ‘And to answer your question, I’m studying behavioural science, which mixes well with my knowledge of the animal kingdom from working here. I’ll ask one of my lecturers to have a look at the compatibility matrix I developed as well as the self-assessment content.’

‘Great, that will help with the credibility aspect. Are you building the online portal yourself?’

‘No, I’ve got one of my coursemates doing it. I also think I can fill our first few events through the university community, giving us time to get the word out more widely.’

My mouth drops open as she says this. Lauren isn’t just the park’s office manager because she’s Gwen’s daughter, she’s highly capable.

‘Lauren, I think you may just be the saviour this park needs. Your enthusiasm, ideas and drive are what will move this place forward. It makes me wonder though, why haven’t you been able to use this talent before now?’

She shrugs. ‘I don’t know. I’ve been so bogged down in financial issues and staff issues and just trying to keep things afloat. I had to ask one of my team members to take on some additional responsibility to allow me to do this. First time I’ve been able to work on something interesting in ages.’

‘Well, that needs to change, OK?’ I give her an encouraging pat on the shoulder and she smiles in acknowledgement of this. ‘It’s a tight timeline, but if we throw everything at it, and if you can drum up the first customers, we can do this. We’ll offer the first couple of events at a discounted rate, and make improvements as we go.’

‘Fantastic. I’m so excited.’ Lauren is evidently elated by my endorsement of her pet project. ‘We’ll make it work, Jess, I promise.’

‘There’s a hell of a lot to do, but seeing all this, I have no doubt you will. Just make sure your self-assessment isn’t a turn-off.’

‘Sure. I was actually only kidding about the molluscs and the arthropods, but I’ll take another look at it.’

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