I got Christine’s last report card of the year in late June and found out she hadn’t been lying to me. She pulled almost straight A’s in all her classes. Even more shocking was that she had a boyfriend. A fact she let slip out during dinner one night. I asked her to bring him over so I could meet him and she said no. I told her to bring him to dinner and I would invite Karen and Emily so he would be safe, though I didn’t think he would be any safer or more comfortable with more women around.
Now that summer was here Kirkpatrick Advertising was looking for a summer intern. We got applications from a lot of candidates. Ira passed the stack over to me and asked me to pick three and give them to him so he and Marie could pick the final candidate. I spent all of half an hour flipping through the applications. I picked my three based on what I thought were good qualifications, put them in a folder and dropped them off on my boss’ desk. So that was how it came to be that by the end of the day Christine had a summer job working for us.
I had actually been floored that she had even applied. I hadn’t suggested it. I wouldn’t have thought she had a chance against the college students but when I saw her application I noticed that I was better put together than some of her competition. She had paid attention to the details. I didn’t want to play favorites and I didn’t. I passed on the applications of the applicants that I thought could learn the most from us while being the most helpful to us.
Christine ran around at work doing all the mundane tasks quickly and efficiently. Whenever she was done with something she would always go find someone else to give her more work. She sat in meetings with clients handing out paperwork, she worked on basic excel forms and writing letters, She even helped with the mail every once in a while. The one thing that made her extremely popular was that she brought donuts for the staff meetings.
In late July after months of working on a campaign for Horizon Chocolates we were ready to present the final product. It was a stressful time for everyone, even Christine. The day of the presentation the whole staff was dressed up as Marie had made it a requirement. Christine looked beautiful in her dress. The meeting would be attended on our side by two accounts reps, Ira, Marie, Christine and me. I would be the chief presenter, the account reps were there to answer any specific questions about the ad campaign, Ira and Marie were there to answer questions and provide information about the firm, and Christine was handing out papers, filling coffee cups and helping out as needed.
The six of us were in reception waiting for our guest at two in the afternoon. As soon as they got off the elevator I recognized three of the four people they had brought, the vice president of marketing for the company, the product manager for their new product and the vice president of sales. Their fourth person, an older gentleman, I didn’t know. I welcomed them all and they shook hands with everyone including Christine before entering the conference room.
Everything had been laid out perfectly. In front of each seat there was a pad of paper, pen, a plug for a laptop, a small plate for pastries, an empty porcelain tea cup and a bottle of water. Christine picked up a carafe and offered everyone coffee.
Marie opened up the presentation with a short introduction of everyone and then they introduced themselves. The unknown gentleman was Robert Decker, the son of the founder of their company. I didn’t even think the guy was still alive.
After Marie was done Christine passed out a packet of papers which explained what we had done for them. I started my presentation and moved through it quite well. I took visual clues on how the clients were reacting and shifted the presentation as necessary. We kept it lively yet very informative. After I was done I could see that they were very impressed with what our team had done.
“”Jake, that was great. I mean great. This campaign you and your team have cooked up is beyond anything I could have expected. I am impressed,” said their VP of marketing.
There was general agreement by all of them. Our months of diligent work had paid off. Then I noticed that the founder’s son had an odd expression on his face. Something wasn’t right. He finally spoke.
“Jake that was good but I want to know what Christine thinks about it.”
All of us turned to Christine and she looked at me briefly before answering.
“I, well, I’m just an intern. I’m just sixteen and I’m still in high school. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Christine, I understand that you’re not as well educated as everyone else sitting in this room. The thing is that the demographic for this product is boys and girls twelve to eighteen years old. You fit that category. I want you honest opinion on whether this campaign would prompt you to buy the product?”
My niece looked at me as if she wanted me to get her out of the situation. I just wasn’t able to.
“Go ahead Christine. Tell us your honest opinion. Whether you like it or not is okay,” I reassured her.
“I’ve spend about a month watching this team put together this thing. I sat in meetings, I saw how they came up with ideas and I’ve learned a lot. In my honest opinion the campaign itself moves in the right direction. I think it’s great. I just don’t think it goes far enough. The campaign as it stands now would not convince me to buy the product.”
“Okay,” I said. “Could you please let us know why not? What’s missing? What could we do better? How can we move this campaign further along so that you would buy the product?”
She sighed, took a deep breath and took us all to school. In about fifteen minutes she taught us how teenagers thought. She showed us where we had been right and where we had missed the mark altogether. She told us about other ads that had worked and what they did that might work for us here. She didn’t know most of the industry terms but we all knew exactly what she was talking about. Both of our account executives and their VP of marketing took diligent notes.
When she was done the founder’s son stood up holding the packet on papers we had handed out at the beginning of the presentation.
“Can you guys turn this into what Christine just said?” he stated as he held the papers up.
“Absolutely,” answered Marie.
“You do that and we’ll approve the project. In fact if this works the way Christine said it would, this could easily turn into a multi year, multi product deal. Now that is great advertising.”
Shortly after that our clients made their way out but not before the Mr. Decker offered Christine a letter of recommendation for when she went to college. He also jokingly told Marie that he was thinking of stealing my niece away to work at his company.
The six of us came back to the conference room and sat down. I had Christine sit next to me.
“Any thoughts?” asked Marie.
“I’m sorr—” I placed my hand on top of Christine to quiet her down. The question was not meant for her.
“Did he say multi year, multi product?” asked Ira.
“Yes, that’s exactly what he said,” answered Marie, almost laughing. “Christine since you only have about five weeks until you have to go back to school I want you to help the account team update the current campaign.”
“I thought you were going to fire me,” she said softly.
Are you kidding? Okay team, let’s get started. Jake I need to see you in my office.”
I went back to my office and dropped off all my papers. I had a couple of phone messages and various emails but those could wait. I went over to see Marie.
“What’s up, boss?”
Marie sat there smiling and nodded over to an empty seat. I took it, leaned down and rubbed my eyes.
“Can you believe that?” she asked me.
“I can’t believe she was honest even though she thought you might fire her for it. Had it been me I might just have lied.”
“Well I can’t promote her, she still just a teenager. Anybody else though would have gotten a promotion on the spot. So how do I reward her for opening up a multi million dollar door for us?
You must know what she wants. Anything come to mind?”
She wants a car, that’s why she’s working for the summer. I told her that if she could pay for half, I would pay the other half.”
“How about I’ll match whatever payment you put towards the car? She earned that Jake, at the very least.”
“Okay, she’ll appreciate that. I suppose you should tell her though. Oh, and another thing. She’s going to need a letter of recommendation from you for college. That’ll take her a lot farther than the car ever will.”