Justin is offered a temporary consultant mission to help a large marketing firm lower its environmental impact. It is meant to be a couple of months (bullshit) job and he has no expectation over it... Until Joshua, a former college classmate, suggests he moves into his suburban house for the time of the mission.
ONLY TEMPORARY
Chapter 4: Suit & Tie
Since Joshua went to the gym at sunrise, he left (very) early and we did not carpool to work together.
I did not get to greet him with my morning wood.
I thought we would share the ride to and from work, but it turned out that I usually ended my days at 5 p.m., while Joshua could stay at the office until 8, 9, or even 10 p.m.
I suppose that was the difference between a bullshit mission and an actual job...
Anyway, we were working in two different aisles of the company.
I worked under Sabrina Barthel in the reputation department.
Her main responsibility was to make sure that YVBM benefited from a stellar image to past, present and potential clients.
As Joshua had mentioned, she was pretty easy to work with.
That being said, she did not pretend to actually care about my mission or the environment.
She was even more straight forward than she had been on the call for the interview.
"Look, Justin, the C.E.O. wants something to show for to our most green-oriented clients, but basically, your salary is the only budget allocated to this environmental cause so nothing you might advise shall cost us any money."
I did not let that throw me.
"In fact, it's often cost effective for a company to be environmentally friendly."
She seemed shocked.
"How so?"
"Simple. Making sure the lights in the meeting rooms are off when they're not in use saves money. Limiting the printing of unnecessary documents saves paper and toner."
She made a face.
Apparently, she did not want to bother with this kind of easy fixes either.
"Well, why don't you evaluate our daily processes and make a list of everything we're doing right?"
I chuckled.
"Shouldn't I be doing the opposite thing? Pointing the issues and what can be improved?"
"Let's be real, if we can put information on the website and in the newsletter about all our current efforts to save the planet, that would be great. Actually, Bramman (the C.E.O.) will be over the moon if I say we can do that without implementing any kind of change."
"I understand where you're coming from and how change can be scary but I promise, there are some really easy things to put in place."
You see, I was really trying to be positive and solution-oriented despite the circumstances.
"Let's make a deal. You find things we can highlight without changing our processes, and once I'm happy with that list, you can use the rest of your time here to make suggestions for improvement."
I almost pushed back but she was my boss, she had recruited me and they were paying me a ton of money.
Besides, I knew there was no way I could change her mind.
"That's a deal."
"Obviously, these potential changes you might come up with during the second part of your mission cannot impact..."
"...The productivity, the profitability, or the cost-effectiveness of the company." I finished her sentence.
She smiled.
"Exactly. See, you've already got the spirit of YVBM! Now come here and let me show you around!"
After all, it made sense that a marketing company would be all about appearances and nothing about substance.
But Sabrina was not a bad person.
She made sure to introduce me to a bunch of people to facilitate my integration in the team, and she notably introduced me to the man who I would be sharing my office with.
A Cuban guy named Rafael.
Fresh out of college, he worked to maintain client relationships once a mission was completed.
His job was basically to make sure that former clients remembered the company and how well they were treated by YVBM.
Rafael was quite cute with an inviting smile and a rather fit body, pretty much on display with the tight tee-shirt he was wearing.
He was only 22 though, and that made me feel like an old man.
Trust me, when you start working with people born in 2003, you have to realize how old you are getting...
In any case, he was nice and one of the few people I met who cared about the environment, so I was happy to have him as my new office mate.
After walking around the office to greet my new co-workers, I got to my desk at 11 a.m.
And I was bored by 11:30.
I had already sent Sabrina the various documents and information I would need and the people I would like to talk to in order to do a sufficient audit.
After that, all I could do was dive into the company's portfolio to see what they were doing for their clients and how it might impact the environment.
Frankly, it was not very useful until I got actual numbers, prices, information on travel and their production methods.
Still, going through their latest campaigns gave me something entertaining to do.
The company had a huge cafeteria on the first floor and I went there for lunch, hoping to see Joshua.
He was not there, but Rafael invited me to his table with some of his friends.
Luckily, he did not just hang out with twenty-somethings.
I had worked for so many different companies over the past few years, - often staying only a few weeks or months at a time -, that I was used to that first day of high school's feeling when meeting so many people and trying to look semi-normal.
You know, the pressure to fit in.
I think that is a feeling that never truly goes away.
But in this case, aside from the utterly pointless nature of my mission, I felt quite comfortable in my new environment.
There were a lot of gay men and women working in marketing, people were pretty friendly, -- at least on a surface level -, and since the company was doing well in 2025, the general atmosphere was pretty good.
Believe me, I had seen much worse.
Though maybe I only felt that way because I had carefully avoided the people Joshua had described as toxic the night before.
Sabrina checked in on me in the afternoon and told me that I had a couple of weeks to send her an initial memo to post on her website.
Yes, that was ridiculous.
Two whole weeks to deliver a whole lot of nothing.
I did not even have to pretend to be working on anything, she really did not care.
My name was already on the YVBM website.
"Mindful of its impact on our planet and because every step counts, Your Very Best Marketing is working with Justin Yates on limiting its carbon footprint."
There was a link to my website to prove that I was legit.
It was pretty smart to put it that way.
There was no concrete detail on what they were possibly doing, it was pretty difficult to prove that they were not "mindful" since that statement did not mean much, and they did work with me, so this part was absolutely true.
I wondered if Joshua had approved of that message on the legal side.
"Man, don't sweat it. Just enjoy! You really cracked the code of capitalism."
Rafael told me with a smirk when I explained the situation.
I honestly felt bad.
"I cracked the code of being paid for contributing nothing... Yay me!"
"Exactly, that's the dream!"
I rolled my eyes but I could not complain.
It was embarrassing enough having nothing to do, I was not going to whine about it to my coworkers.
As I was about to leave the office around 5 p.m., someone knocked at the door.
Immediately, Rafael, who had been scrolling through his phone, went back to work and his cheeky smile turned into a very focused face.
That was pretty funny to witness.
"Hey, Justin, how is this first day going?"
It was Joshua, looking dapper in a very formal suit.
He had gone for the whole big-shot-lawyer look that day: light blue shirt and dark gray tie.
"Wow, Josh! I think I've never seen you with a tie on." I exclaimed.
Rafael gasped.
I realized why he had gone so serious suddenly. The general counsel of the company had just walked in our office.
Normally, that was not good news.
