CHAPTER 23
Arlowe hadn’t been able to fall asleep as easily as Eline had, so she’d had hours to think and worry and process before she had finally fallen asleep.
She’d also woken up early, remembering to turn off her own alarm, and then had taken a chance with Eline’s phone, expecting that she’d forgotten to disable her alarm now that she wouldn’t need it.
The password that Arlowe had tried worked because either Eline had always had the same one, or she’d changed it back to her birthday upon their reconnection, but regardless of how long that had been the case, it had made her smile, and she’d planned on letting Eline sleep in as long as she could before she had to leave for work herself.
While on her drive to the house and then to the office, all she could think about was figuring this out.
As a twenty-two-year-old, she hadn’t been able to figure out the distance between them, when everything with them had felt so epic and amazing but also impossible beyond her time in Amsterdam, but she was older and wiser now.
She needed to solve this problem and keep Eline here.
When she got to work, she immediately went to her first meeting, which Arlowe had no choice but to attend, but that didn’t mean she retained any of the information from it.
She had even presented for a few minutes, but she had no memory of that presentation after.
All she could think about was Eline and the risk of her leaving.
After that meeting had wrapped, Arlowe shook hands and forced smiles while they walked their guests out, but then, she headed to her office and started doing some research of her own.
An hour or so later, she felt tired and needed some coffee, since she’d skipped it that morning, focusing on what Eline needed more than anything she might need, so she got up and went to the kitchen to make herself a cup.
“Hey, do you have a minute?” she asked Sarai and Enya when she saw them in there.
“What’s up?” Sarai asked.
“Can we go into a conference room? I’ll grab Violet.”
“Sure. I’ll get us a room,” Enya replied. “Is everything okay, though?”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
After locating Violet, who was in her office, Arlowe met all three of her friends in the conference room by her own office, and they all sat down around the table.
“What’s going on?” Violet asked her. “You’re pale, Arlowe.”
“Eline lost her job yesterday,” she revealed.
“What?” Sarai asked.
“They were doing layoffs. I looked it up this morning on that layoffs-in-tech blog that everyone starts to pay attention to once layoffs start to pick up. GoldStash had six hundred employees, three hundred of them being in the US. They now only have two hundred and forty people. The blog said they don’t even know if the company is done firing yet.
Obviously, that doesn’t matter to Eline now, but it looks like they’re in some pretty big trouble.
Their earnings and subscriptions were already down before the massive email hack, and those numbers aren’t out yet, but they pissed a lot of customers off.
I think there could even be lawsuits; I don’t know.
It looks like they’ve decided to get ahead of it as much as they could and told Eline that they’re restructuring.
Her role was eliminated, even though she’d just got there. ”
“Shit…” Sarai said.
“Her H?1B?” Violet asked, leaning forward, seemingly realizing the problem before Enya and Sarai had.
Arlowe nodded.
“Oh. She’s on a work visa…” Sarai added.
“What happens now?” Enya asked.
“She has sixty days and a short grace period after that, but I know her: she’s not going to want to stay here through the grace period thing.
That means she’s got less than two months to find a new job that will sponsor her, or she’ll have to go back, and…
” Arlowe swallowed hard. “We just started again. She’s here, and we were working our way back to what we had before, but also making it better because of who we are now, and I could lose her again.
I… I just got her back, guys… the woman I’ve loved all along. ”
“Please tell me you wouldn’t just end it again if she has to go back, Arlowe,” Sarai said.
“No, I wouldn’t. I’m not a kid who needs to finish college and find a job anymore.
I know we can do long-distance now. I just don’t want to.
I love her. I have always loved her. And she wants to stay here, not just because of me.
I’ll go there to visit as much as I can, but she wants to stay.
And even if she didn’t, I’d do the distance thing now.
I lost her once. I’m not going through that or putting her through that again. ”
“What is she going to do? Or, I guess, what are you both going to do?” Enya asked.
Arlowe turned to Violet.
“Ah,” Violet said.
“It’s the only thing that I can think of,” Arlowe stated.
Violet leaned back and replied, “We’ve never done that before. All of our current employees are US citizens.”
“I know.”
“What’s going on?” Sarai asked.
“She wants us to hire Eline,” Violet answered.
“Oh,” Enya said.
“She needs a new work visa within sixty days, but she’s working with an attorney GoldStash gave her in her severance to maybe extend her current visa. I don’t know if that will work or for how long it could be extended, but we could use that time to hire her ourselves.”
“That process isn’t easy, Arlowe. I mean, it helps that she’s an engineer, and great engineers can be hard to find, but we don’t even have a role for her.
I think we’d have to post it online for a particular amount of time and prove that we couldn’t find someone here first. I’d have to look it up, but Cerebral has gone through it before, so I can ask Stella tonight,” Violet said of her girlfriend’s employer.
“I know she tried to hire someone from Canada for her sales team, and they didn’t let her do it because it wasn’t specialized enough.
They said she should be able to find someone here. ”
“I know it might not work and that it could take time, but I’ll take a pay cut myself if I have to.
I know this wasn’t something we’d planned.
I can’t ask you to use the positions I do have on the radar this year for my girlfriend, but I might be able to figure out how to repurpose one of those.
Honestly, our QE has been lacking and could use a direct manager.
She wouldn’t be a director, which would save some money. ”
“She’d take just a manager role after being a director?” Sarai asked.
“I think she’d take anything to stay here, but it would be her decision, obviously. It wouldn’t have to be forever, but it would get her three years, and she could apply for a green card in that time, or–” Arlowe stopped herself.
“Or?” Enya asked.
“Or, we’d be married by then.”
“Oh. Well, duh,” Sarai stated.
“Duh?”
“I mean, yeah. It would be three years from now, and we all know you’ve always wanted to marry her, so that would make sense.”
“Can we do it, Vi?” Arlowe asked. “Without hurting the company in any way? I know we’re being smart with our cash, and I don’t want us to risk anything here, but it’s the best solution that I could come up with, and I don’t have much time to come up with another one.”
“We can find the money. If we stick to our hiring plan, it would make the most sense to use one of those recs you were going to hire anyway, but my main concern is how long it can take.”
“I know.”
“I’ll talk to Stella about how her company has managed to do it a few times, and I can ask our lawyer, but we would still need to post the job first and actually interview people for it, Arlowe.
That makes me a little nervous. If we happen to find a better candidate, technically, we should hire them.
We also shouldn’t ethically make a job description that your girlfriend would be a perfect fit for and make it harder for anyone else to get the job just because it’s really for her. ”
“Come on, Vi,” Sarai said. “It’s Eline. She needs us right now.”
“I know, but we have to be careful here, Sarai. We can’t treat people unequally without risking our reputation.
Everyone puts reviews online, and if someone feels like we asked two questions in a lazy interview and treated them poorly, that could hurt the company.
I also don’t want the US government asking us any questions about why we didn’t hire a citizen or a green card holder when there were several who met the job requirements.
All I’m suggesting is that we spend a little time together thinking about how best to do this and that we vote first. Unanimous, with our two-minute lobbying rule if necessary, because this–”
“I’m in,” Sarai interrupted and raised her hand. “We’ll deal with the ethics and fairness stuff, but I’m in.”
“Me too,” Enya added, raising her hand as well. “Eline speaks Dutch, and I’m pretty sure she also knows a little of Flemish because she’s lived so close to Belgium. I can always say we’re using her as a translator, too.”
Arlowe smiled over at her friend and roommate.
“We can’t do that,” Violet explained. “Whatever job we need and what she’s done in the past is what we should try to hire her for.”
“Violet, the real question is whether or not you are in, because I’m in, Enya is in, and obviously Arlowe is in.
If you don’t want to do it, you have to say so now.
We’ll take the two minutes to lobby, and if you still say no, it’s a no, but you need to tell Arlowe that now so that she can talk to Eline and they can figure out other options,” Sarai reasoned.
Arlowe waited, her heart racing. Violet had said that she would help, but Arlowe could see the concern on her face.
“It’s a yes, obviously. Honestly, I think part of a case to USCIS could be employee happiness helping with productivity because I haven’t seen Arlowe this happy since before we left Amsterdam.”
Arlowe let out the breath she had been holding and replied, “Thank you.”
“Of course. It’s not like any of us was actually going to say no. But if Violet had, I would’ve just threatened her with something,” Sarai said.
“What? With what?” Violet asked with a little laugh.
“Telling your girlfriend that you’re acting weird because you want to propose, but you’re too much of a perfectionist to just do it already,” Sarai answered.
“You wouldn’t dare,” Violet argued, squinting at Sarai.
“Oh, I would’ve considered it. Have you gotten the ring, at least, Vi?”
“No, but I’m going shopping for it this weekend. I was going to invite you all and Jen, but I’m thinking about making that a Sarailess Saturday now.”
Sarai chuckled.
“Hey, guys, this is fun and all… Love picking on each other. But can we maybe figure out the next step for Eline?” Arlowe said.
“Get me a job description so that I can post it,” Violet told her.
“The sooner the better. And prepare to actually interview people, Arlowe. We have to do this by the book and legally. When you interview, you can’t just think that Eline is getting the job, so the person in front of you doesn’t matter.
First, that’s rude to them, but second, we need to have records that we interviewed everyone fairly, so notes in the system, the same questions for the most part, and a whole process like they’d follow for any other role on your team.
Have them also interview with Mitchell, Clay, and Enya and Gabi, but don’t tell Mitch or Clay who Eline is. That will help our cause.”
“I’ve got a description ready for a manager role already. We can use that. I won’t change it to fit her specific skill set or anything. Does that help?”
“I don’t know if they’ll even ask or check, but it doesn’t hurt,” Violet replied.
“Whatever help you need, just let us know. I’ll move anything around to help with this,” Enya added.
“Thank you,” Arlowe replied.
“Yeah, me too. I’ll tell Gabi what’s up because she already knows about you and Eline, so no need to keep it a secret from her, but don’t worry, Violet – I’ll tell her we’re doing this by the book.”
“It’s good for us, but it also gives us the best chance at getting Eline’s visa approved, so it’s win-win. I’ll post the job once I get the description, contact our lawyer, and I’ll check with Stella tonight to get any tips I can.”
“Thank you all so much. You have no idea how much this means to me. I mean it,” Arlowe replied.
“Hopefully, she won’t even need it. She could find something else on her own, right?” Violet asked.
“She could, yeah. She’s looking. And I know she’s talking to that lawyer about the extension, but it might be impossible for her to find someone who’d want to go through the whole process.
I don’t want to get her hopes up, but I’m going to tell her about this option and see what she says.
I own part of a company that might be able to help her.
I know it’s nepotism, but she’s also a great engineer.
I knew it in school, but we stayed up all night coding, and she found an issue that our own QE team might have missed.
It was an error that I had made, and she not only fixed it, but she also helped shorten the code to improve it.
So, it’s not that I’m asking us to hire someone who’s not capable. ”
“We know, Arlowe,” Enya said softly.
“Let’s get moving on this. The faster we post the role, the better,” Violet suggested. “Arlowe, just tell your team that we’ve decided to move up a rec so that they know to expect the posting.”
“Shit,” Arlowe said, remembering something.
“What?” Sarai asked.
“We have to post it internally first. We said we’re a promote-from-within company.”
“You’re right. Our policy is five days before we post externally. Do you have any people in-house who will apply?”
“Yeah, but none of them are ready for it. Most of them are new hires.”
“Well, we have the six-months-in-existing-role policy, so that might rule some of them out,” Violet added.
“I can see maybe three people applying, but only one of them has been in his role for more than six months, and he’s not great at his current role. He’s also only a junior engineer, so the next level up for him won’t be manager.”
“That helps. Let’s get the role posted today, and we’ll go external next Wednesday. I’ll check on the timeline with the lawyer.”
“Okay,” Arlowe said. “I’ll go send the description, but then I’m going to head out.
I need to go home and get some stuff before I pick up dinner and go to Eline’s.
I was picking Enya up this morning and changing so that I wouldn’t be late for a meeting, but I’m going to pack a bag and stay at Eline’s tonight.
I might work from there tomorrow. I don’t know.
If I need to be here to help this along, though, I will be. ”
“Hey,” Sarai began. “It’s all going to be okay, you know? We’re four very smart people, and Eline makes five. We’re going to figure this out.”
Arlowe nodded.