The Kellen pattern
348 Words
By Friday morning, I’d developed a new, slightly alarming habit: checking my inbox with the kind of nervous anticipation usually reserved for lottery numbers.
Sure enough, there it was — another email from Kellen.
Subject: Urgent – Marketing Insight Needed
Urgent was a strong word for an email sent at 7:02 a.m. about the font choice for a social media post. But, apparently, my opinion now mattered more than that of the actual design team.
When I walked into the office, I noticed it again.
The pattern.
It started with small things:
• Sitting in on meetings I technically didn’t need to be in.
• Getting cc’d on email chains that had nothing to do with my job description.
• Being asked to “quickly” review a document… that turned out to be a full proposal for a million-dollar campaign.
“Clarke, you’ve been promoted to Chief Everything Officer,” Dev whispered as we passed each other by the coffee machine. “Congratulations.”
“Don’t start,” I muttered.
By lunch, I’d been pulled into a planning session with finance, a product brainstorming call, and a fifteen-minute “quick chat” with Kellen in the hallway that somehow lasted forty-five minutes.
It wasn’t just me noticing, either.
When I returned to my desk, Kim had left a sticky note on my monitor.
“Do you two have, like… a secret pact or something?”
I crumpled it up — partly because I didn’t want anyone seeing it, and partly because… what if there was something?
The thought made me pause. No, of course not. He was the CEO. I was just an employee. This was all… professional.
Right?
And yet, that afternoon, when I sent him my revised proposal, his reply came within minutes:
“Looks good. Let’s discuss over coffee. My treat.”
That made it four coffee “meetings” in one week.
Either I was becoming the company’s caffeine consultant… or Kellen Cross had a very specific reason for keeping me close.
I just wasn’t sure which answer I wanted it to be.
- Writer
