Page 6 of The Grumpy Billionaire

Which it might be if I knew what a clipboard panel was. Sweat begins to trickle down my spine.

She turns to talk to somebody, and I quickly pull out my phone and Google “MS Word clipboard panel.” A diagram appears on my phone screen. I furiously commit it to memory before tucking it away, because I’m nothing if not resourceful.

When Viola’s back, I call up the clipboard panel and await my next task.

She seems surprised that I know that clipboard panel after all. She gives me another command. This one I figure out by sheer intuition, pulse racing all the while.

I feel like I’m doing an extreme sport, pretending to know way more MS Word than I do.

She tells me to do mail merge things I don’t understand. Just then, somebody comes up and distracts her with a question.

This is my chance; I go full defcon five—I reach around and loosen the connection to the mouse and keyboard to make it look like the computer froze, a trick an underling once used on me.

I start jiggling and clicking the mouse. I’m desperate. I cannot let Hugo down!

“What now?” Viola takes over the mouse. “Oh god, seriously?”

“I’ll get it back up,” I say.

She sighs.

“I’m a wiz at fixing things like this,” I add confidently. “I’m a figure-it-out girl.”

“A figure-it-out girl, huh.” Viola’s skeptical.

“Yup,” I say brightly.

This is Branding 101. If you repeat things about yourself enough times, people will come to believe those things. Being a figure-it-out girl is a great piece of branding for me on this job because it suggests that I’m competent and resourceful, even if I don’t know something right away.

She stabs a few keys. “Damn.”

“I’ll get it fired back up and ping you,” I say.

She checks her phone. “It’ll have to be after lunch.” With that she’s off.

Score!

I’ll duck out somewhere and cram mail merge tutorials. I can nail this job.

A voice from somewhere nearby: “You’re telling me you know Word? That’s what you’re telling me?”

I sit up. Is a cubicle neighbor talking to me? Making fun of me?

The voice continues, coming from the cubicle to my right. “Mail merge. Get on it!”

“Excuse me?”

The voice is behind me now. “Hey.”

I spin around and see that the voice belongs to a grinning red-haired woman. “Don’t let Viola rattle you. She expects everybody to come out of the womb knowing mail merge.” She holds out a hand. “Jane.”

“Stella.”

“Once you unfreeze that thing, pop over and I’ll quick show you. It’s not that hard.”

I reach around and restore the connection. “Unfroze it.”

Jane snorts when she sees what I did. “Youarea figure-it-out girl. A-plus.”

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