Breene, K F - Growing Pains 01 by Lost (and) Found (v5.0) Page A

with
salt-and-pepper hair and a suit jacket that didn’t quite fit.
    Fat man in a little coat…
    Krista smiled animatedly to hide
the anger and borderline humiliation at the looks from Sean and the other
creepy sales guy, who was taking this opportunity to molest her with his eyes.
    Luckily, instead of acting like the
two guys who were supposed to be on the same team as Krista, the clients all
wore respectful expressions, each looking her in the eyes. Slightly relieved,
she breathed out a smile-encrusted sigh and let her mannerisms relax as she
started her lecture on numbers, figures, and all things boring in the marketing
world.
    Throughout the slides she paid each
man equal attention, choosing her own pace to match their interest level. She
rarely had to speed up, because their attention never wavered. They were
focused and interested, nodding politely with each point she made and returning
her smile when she gave one. Well, two of them did. The third was
straight-faced, but still maintaining focus. He looked back and forth between
her and the slides, occasionally writing something down.
    At the end of her lecture she
paused and asked for questions. The man who hadn’t smiled, Mr. Comb-over,
asked, “I noticed all your figures rotate around a demographic slightly older.
Do you have anything that hits a little closer to what we’re going for?”
    Good question.
    She had no idea.
    She looked at Sean, expecting him
to jump in. On average, her company didn’t go after a younger crowd. From what
she’d seen while looking through historical information in their giant
database, the company didn’t have as much experience marketing to that
demographic. Based on the fact that this younger crowd was Sean’s idea, and
because he didn’t tell her anything about it, she had absolutely no idea how he
hoped to succeed.
    And apparently he wasn’t planning
on enlightening her or the clients, because he stood there, staring at her. No
change in posture except for being slightly more rigid. Not very helpful.
    Fine, if he wants me to do his job,
he can eat the repercussions.
    She put on a confident expression
that she had perfected in college in order to hide the complete bullshit she
spewed at a professor, and lied. “To date, with this type of product, we’ve
been working mostly in the twenty-five to thirty-five demographic.” She used a
cool, level voice. She was desperately trying to hide the crippling lack of
knowledge. “Now, however, that market has changed, and we’ll be using our
cutting edge approach to graphics, advertising niches, and already established
connections in the sports world to aim lower. Aim for a younger crowd. We already
do this with a number of our other products, so it is just a matter of tweaking
our system, integrating your product, revamping the look, and inundating all
those impressionable young minds with our message.” She smiled brightly as she
said the last few words, aiming for humor to cover the tide of rabble that fell
in clumps out of her mouth.
    The man nodded once and looked
toward Sean. The other two men were still gazing at her. So was Creep-O
salesman. She was starting to feel a little self-conscious about the whole
situation.
    “Great,” Sean said, pushing away
from the wall. The other sales guy stood up and conferred with Sean for a
second before Sean sprang into action, no longer sparing her a glance.
    Krista figured her time was up, and
that she should exit the podium, when Sean introduced the art guy. With a
ragged sigh, she grabbed her computer and headed toward the table where the
rest of her team waited. Before she made it, she was intercepted by Creep-O.
Confusedly, she let him usher her out of the room, making sure he didn’t touch
any part of her person.
    Once outside, the guy said, “Great
work Kristie. Really good stuff. You’re excused.” He turned to go back inside.
    Kristie? “But… what if they have
questions?”
    He closed the door again. “We’ll
handle