Loose Cannon

Chapter1

The good thing about having a hangover at a creative agency is that nobody can technically prove it.

As far as anyone at Loose Cannon is concerned, I am a woman with food poisoning, which I’ve contracted no less than fifteen times in the last two years from a series of highly toxic bodega sandwiches. Most of my co-workers have learned to steer clear of me on days like this, if for no other reason to avoid the dreaded bodega belch (often threatened, never deployed).

It's 9:45 on November 1st, and I’m marginally ambulatory. For the day after Halloween, I consider this a win. I’m wearing sunglasses indoors, which my coworker Tomi has been pretending not to clock for forty minutes. Tomi has been my work bestie since I started three years ago, back when I had bangs and a credit score and shaved above my knees. She has texted me three times, demanding that I drink some water.

I am drinking water. I am drinking my third cold brew, which definitely contains water.

Slack pings.

Joel: hey team!!! all-hands at 10 🥳🥳🥳

Three party-popper emojis. This is how Joel (our co-founder, along with Mira) signals that something potentially traumatic is about to happen. His last party-popper message touted a "valuable new health benefit" that turned out to be a meditation app subscription, rolled out the day before they eliminated our dental coverage.

I look up at Tomi over the top of my sunglasses. She’s wearing what I refer to as Joel face.

"What now?" I whine.

"New hire," Tomi says.

"What new hire?"

"Director of Ops."

I let out a pitiful moan. "I can’t, Tomi. I just can’t today."

I lay my cheek very gently on the desk. The desk is cool, which is nice. The desk doesn’t judge my sandwich-related illnesses, which is also nice.

The all-hands happens in our big conference room, which is just two rooms with the partition slid open. We are boutique agency, which means we have eleven employees with way too much attitude. Our offices are on the third floor of a warehouse in Dumbo, which looks like an office you’d get if you asked Canva to mock-up a modern creative workspace: interior brick, ill-chosen plants, and a pink neon LOOSE CANNON sign that Joel calls vibey.

I sit in the back near the window, hoping to avoid chit-chat. Tomi sits next to me holding a big bottle of Liquid IV. At first I thought it was for me, but I now realize that Tomi is also hungover. We fist-bump weakly.

Joel comes looking like he’s about to ruin a Monday. He’s wearing a Patagonia vest, an Apple Watch, and an expression I would like to slap off his face.

"Okay, team," he says. "I know we've been talking about scaling for a while now."

Actually, Joel has been talking about scaling. The rest of us have been talking about how to avoid scaling-related discussions.

"And with the Hartfield situation —"

The room collectively sits up straighter.

Hartfield is the holding company that’s been eyeing Loose Cannon for over a year. The situation is trauma-code for the acquisition. This is the first time the H-word has been mentioned in an all-hands. Mira and I exchange raised eyebrows.

"— we've decided it's a good time to bring in someone to help us tighten things up. Make sure we're, you know, organized and adult about things."

There’s a pause. Joel has just implied we’re not adults. While obviously true, it’s not something you say to a bunch of copywriters and designers who haven’t gotten a reimbursement check since August.

"Anyway," he says, "I'd like to introduce our new Director of Operations, Adam Whitlock."

The door opens.

The man who walks in is wearing pleated chinos.

Now, I have nothing against pleated chinos. In the right context, on the right body, executed with the right ironic eyebrow, they can be a look. But these pleated chinos are more of a commitment.

Adam Whitlock is tall — tall enough that he dips his head slightly under the doorframe, which my brain will probably replay for the rest of the week. He has the kind of face I would, under better circumstances, call handsome: straight nose, strong jaw, the mouth of a person with patience. Brown hair, freshly cut. Glasses, gold frames, thin. White oxford shirt tucked into the aforementioned chinos, sleeves rolled to the elbow with aggressive precision He’s got a grey Stanley cup in one hand and a portfolio folder in the other. He looks like he smells like clean laundry.

I bet Adam Whitlock doesn’t get hangovers.

I bet Adam Whitlock prevents hangovers in others, with a softly-worded reproof.

I lean toward Tomi.

"Tomi," I whisper. “Look."

"I'm looking."

"He is totally going to make us submit timesheets."

Tomi, watching with quite intensity, takes a long sip of her Liquid IV.

"Girl," she says. "He’s going to make us submit timesheets correctly."

I close my eyes.

"Hi everyone," Adam Whitlock says.

His voice — and I wish I could say otherwise — is annoyingly nice. It’s low and warm, the kind of voice that has done corporate trainings without sounding corporate-trained. He sets his portfolio down on the conference table with both hands and takes a small, practiced breath.

"I'm Adam. I'm joining Loose Cannon as Director of Operations. I'm really glad to be here."

He says this like he means it. Disarming. Cunning. A wolf in pleated clothing.

"My background is in operations consulting — I spent the last six years at Edelman across teams ranging from twenty to two hundred, and before that I was at a small creative agency in Philly some of you may know, called Mast." He shoots us a brief, practiced smile. "So I'm familiar with what it looks like to scale a boutique shop. I'm also familiar with what it looks like to scale one badly. My job here is to prevent that from happening.”

He is so good at this. It’s infuriating.

"Over the next couple weeks, I'm going to be meeting with each of you one-on-one. I want to understand how you work, what's working, and what's not. I’m not here to come in and rearrange your desks. I just want to make sure that when this team is great, which it already is, the systems are also great. That way you can do more of what you're good at, with fewer obstacles in the way."

Somehow, I’ve started taking him seriously. I look down at my notebook, where I have written the words ANNOYING and UNCLEAR. But he’s not annoying or unclear. He’s annoyingly clear. I scribble over it. I scribble over the scribble.

"Any questions?"

Brendan, the worst one of us, raises his hand.

"What's your stance on, like, work from home?"

Adam smiles his brief, practiced smile.

"My stance is that I trust adults to manage their time."

The room emits a small oh. Brendan is stifled. Tomi mutters, "Damn."

I write the word DAMN in my notebook. I circle it three times, with increasing pressure.

After the all-hands, Joel announces there will be coffee and pastries in the kitchen so we can "get to know" Adam. I don’t currently have the bandwidth to get to know anyone. I have just enough brain cells left to go home and lie in bed with my cat Arson, who is the only living being I trust completely.

But, since it’s 10:15 am, going home isn’t an option. Tomi takes my elbow and steers me toward the kitchen with take no s**t firmness.

"You need to be normal," Tomi says, under her breath.

"I am normal."

"You’re wearing sunglasses inside."

"It’s a style."

"Take them off."

"No."

"Nora."

I take them off. The fluorescent lights of the Loose Cannon kitchen temporarily blind me. I blink, several times, at the world.

There’s a line forming in front of the espresso machine. I move to the corner to join Priya from accounts. I do not intend to interact with Adam Whitlock. I’ll just stand here for ten, retreat to my desk, and observe my surroundings from a safe distance.

After five (I was never going to make ten) I turn to leave with my coffee at the exact moment that Adam Whitlock is turning to set his Stanley cup down on the counter. And the entire contents of my sixteen-ounce cold brew — milk, two sugars — showers over the entire front of his white oxford shirt.

There is a pause. A hefty pause.

I look up at Adam Whitlock. He looks down at his shirt. He looks up at me. I watch, in slow motion, his right eye twitch.

"Oh my god," I say. "Oh my god. Okay. Okay. We can fix this. There's a Tide pen in my desk. I think, unless I lent it to Priya.” I spin around with panicked eyes.

"I returned it," Priya says.

"You did not."

"I put it back in your second drawer!"

"That is not where it lives, Priya.” A sharp pain in traveling between my eyes, up to my hairline.

"Nora," Tomi warns.

"It's fine," says Adam Whitlock.

It is not fine. His shirt is no longer a shirt, it’s a tarp.

"It's really not fine," I say.

It’s fine,” he repeats.

I shake my head, unable to accept his charity. ”I’ll get you a new shirt. There’s a J. Crew up the street. I mean, if that’s on brand for you.” The room stills. Even I’m speechless at my own audacity.

His eyebrows lift. "Oh, are we sharing fashion notes? Where do you shop, the House of Bad Decisions?" His lips roll in, and I'm not sure if he's hiding a smile or repressing an expletive.

Tomi, my former work bestie, snorts into her hand.

And then Adam Whitlock, with his six feet of pleated irritation, looks at me cooly and says: "I’ll just go dry off. I look forward to meeting with you in our one-on-one, Nora."

I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. How did this spiral into such a disaster? And how does he know my name?

People begin to shuffle out of the kitchen, giving me a wide berth. I watch Adam walk into the bathroom at the end of the hall, the one without a working lock. I’m still standing at the counter with an empty cup in my hand.

Tomi pulls at my elbow.

"Nora," she says.

I shrug her off.

"That man is going to file a report."

I focus on my scuffed toes of my Converse and take a deep breath. When I look up, the neon LOOSE CANNON sign on the far wall flickers ominously.

I throw my empty cup in the recycling and go back to my desk. I pull up the WellNest brief, which I have not opened in eight days, and I begin to do my actual job. Somewhere down the hall, Adam Whitlock is standing in front of a mirror, blotting cold brew off a shirt that has never been so thoroughly disrespected.

I decide right then and there that I’m going to have so much fun with this man. Like the fun Napoleon had in Russia.

My phone buzzes.

wren: morning my love how was the wine bar

wren: be honest how cooked are u

wren: on a scale of "fine" to "medical emergency"

I type back: job emergency. doused a dude in coffee. send help and bagels

The three little dots appear. They do not stop appearing.

I put my sunglasses back on and wait, like I always do, for Wren.