"No! In fact let me rephrase that, hell fucking no!" Kathryn stated, figuratively and literally putting her foot down behind her modern desk.
"It's a good idea. You have a whirlwind of bad publicity heading your way and this would be a good way to head it off at the pass." A young and swish PR man argued, his smile barely fading at the onslaught of abuse heading his way.
"So that's it, nevermind the new revenue streams, the increased profitability and the prospect of a heavy return on investment when we sell next year, some paper gets ahold of me calling our employees whores, which they are by the way..."
"We're sticking with adult entertainers." The PR man interrupted.
"Oh there's plenty of sticking on a porn set." Kathryn yelled. "Despite everything the board wants to remove me because of some bad PR. They put me in charge of a porn website empire, how worried about my reputation can they be?"
Kathryn was on the cusp of a dream, she had worked consultancy gig after consultancy gig before landing her dream job as a wandering CEO with an investment group. Basic business plan would be that they would buy a company, make it worth more over a five year period and then sell it off to keep investment dividends high. Kathryn's first installment was as a CEO for a tech company that owned a clutch of different porn websites.
At first Kathryn was happy, a round of layoffs, a smooth business model and some cunning employment decisions had her on course for her first assignment being a roaring success, if she made this gig stick, a six figure salary (at least) would be a given for the rest of her life.
But one day a member of the press managed to catch Kathryn in an unguarded moment at a bar, summarising her job as a "white collar pimp, laying off whores and selling the memories of their cunts." It wasn't front page news but it was going to be a scandal and when the employees found out they would make life very difficult for her, which is why the board sent her a PR guru to head it off at the pass.
"I just think this proposal is your best option." The PR guru restated.
"Undercover boss? That's your plan. In case you haven't noticed this isn't some ditzy restaurant chain where I can show up, wear a hairnet for a couple of days, cry on cue, then tell the camera how much I learned before leaving to shower off the smell of poverty. We are running a porn empire, undercover boss means me tying my hair in pigtails and pretending to be 20 years younger while someone shoves a cock up my ass!" The PR guru had to admit she had a certain way with words.
"You wouldn't need to be in front of a camera, we were thinking, lighting, filming, maybe some hair and makeup..."
"Suppose I could be a fluffer while I'm at it?" Kathryn spat, collapsing into her chair, there was an awkward silence broken by the phone ringing.
"Hello?" Kathryn answered.
"Hello Kathryn, how's my favourite money-spinner?" Came the friendly and undoubtedly posh voice of the board representative.
"Not great, this PR guru you sent wants to pimp me out." Kathryn answered.
"I'm sure there's more to it than that, you need to be on board with Wesley, he knows what he is doing and the board trusts his judgement. Put me on speakerphone." The posh voice ordered. "Wesley you honey-dripper what's this I hear about you wanting Kathryn on a street corner?"
"Nothing so vulgar, I managed to get legal on delaying the publication but they won't have long, so I reached out to some friends who run an undercover boss program and they think we could do some good work making Kathryn relatable. She wouldn't be staring in the movies just helping on set." Wesley explained.
"Hmm, sounds pretty reasonable to me, what's wrong with that Kathryn?"
"It's just not very..." Kathryn began, trying to find a politeness she had not expressed since before she was married.
"OK, I know what you mean, and you are free to make your own decisions, but the board sent Wesley, he has high stock whereas you are fighting termination. It would not look very good for you to be fighting his recommendations." Wesley gave a supportive smile while Kathryn tried to think of a way to kill him and get away with it.
...
"So that's the situation, tomorrow I will be on a film set, helping get the lighting right on a hairy man's ass bobbing in front of a camera." Kathryn explained, climbing into bed.
"Sounds horrible." Her husband Gerald agreed, barely looking up from his book on world war two history.
"It was, one word from the boss and I had to spend the next hour getting niceness pointers from someone who looks like they breastfed right through university." Kathryn used her fingers to make pretend glasses on her face, even though Wesley didn't wear glasses, and put on a mousy voice nowhere near Wesley's "remember to be humble, if you're rude to poor people it won't resonate. You are undercover so act like you need the job, if you get fired it would be disastrous so just let everyone walk all over you"
"I'm sure they won't take the piss, you are a formidable woman." Gerald distractedly opined.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" Kathryn snapped.