Through the week, the consultant continues to transform, but stops far short of the busting curves of the maid he encountered. As he behaves and follows the system, wears the clothes he’s given, and starts using his new name of “Mandy”, the door locks open up to his badge and give him more access to the campus and less restrictions on his meals and activities.
Unfortunately, he also finds that the more he changes, the more of a distraction he becomes for his engineer partner. Constantly wanting to stop the meeting to ask her questions about herself, chat about non-work things, or doing a poor job of hiding that he’s sneaking glances at Mandy any time she flicks her hair back or is given a cute outfit for the day.
One night, the consultant is fretting looking over his reports and his engineer’s latest analytics. If productivity keeps going down, he’s a failure and the engineer will probably also get swallowed by up the system. But maybe there’s a way to use the engineer’s awkwardness to their advantage. Mandy offers the engineer a deal. She’ll answer the engineer’s questions and engage in small talk, but only at the end of the meeting as long as they’ve gotten through all their tasks and action items. If the meeting drags on and work isn’t getting done, she’ll just sign off.
The plan works almost immediately. The pair stay on task and bring their numbers back up, eventually exceeding where they started. The consultant keeps his end of the bargain and starts building out the Mandy personae with a backstory he thinks will appeal to his partner. Soon enough, they do strike a genuine friendship. Chatting sometimes on weekends, but still confined to their opposite ends of the tech campus. Mandy is eventually invited to the corporate engineering round-up chat to celebrate as her engineer is awarded for having the most completed tasks of the quarter.
High in the penthouse above the campus labs, the HR leader relaxes on her sofa, looking over reports in front of the fireplace as she sips wine. The elevator dings and the tap of heels on the hardwood flooring announce the maid’s presence. HR motions to the bottle of wine on the counter and asks how the day went. The maid pours herself a tall glass and says that she mixed things up today. The new finance consultant thinks he’ll transform more every time he expenses something, so that should cut down on some waste. HR laughs and says they absolutely should make those bloodsucking consultants work off their meals and activities. The maid joins her on the sofa and picks up one of the reports. She motions, and speaking of? HR transfers her latest analytics to the large screen. Productivity is way up this quarter. The employees are working harder than ever, longer hours, and even on weekends. The consultants are trapped well beyond their contracts and continue to work hard out of fear. And the bad eggs are being found out and trapped in support roles around the campus to keep things running smoothly. Some are even performing engineering tasks in their downtime in an attempt to lessen their transformations and return to regular work. The duo raise a toast. To one day being free of having to pay their workers at all.
The maid puts her feet up on the table and leans back. Should they swap next month? She takes on HR’s role and HR pretends to be the maid again? HR hems and haws for a moment, she DOES love seeing her partner in that outfit. The maid laughs, but just think of the employees trying to stay calm if their HR rep had her curves bursting out of a blouse! Every time they got caught staring, they would get written up and the company would have cause to punish them. The pair laugh as they ponder the idea.