Forever Yours
©2025 Elder Road Books - Lynnwood WA
Chapter 18: Development
“HEY, GUYS,” Henry said when Luke and Isobel connected to the Zoom meeting the next Friday. “I’ve got you on the big screen. We’ve got a web cam set up for the interviewee. I hope we don’t scare her away, but I thought our first hire interview should be with all four of us. I can’t believe we’re interviewing to hire someone!”
“This is where it gets real, bro. Chas says this candidate is the real thing, though. It’s mostly going to be you making sure you can work with her.”
“She’ll win him over quickly,” Chastity predicted.
“Hello,” Lisa said when she came down the stairs into the living room.
“Oh, hi, Lisa. Um ... We’re on a Zoom meeting and I’m expecting a job candidate any time now,” Henry said.
“I know,” Lisa said.
“Henry, Isobel, and Luke, the candidate we’re interviewing is Lisa Hartwell. She also happens to live in the second suite here at corporate headquarters,” Chastity said. “Sorry I kept her identity from you, Henry. I was afraid you’d jump the gun and start interviewing before she even had her boxes unpacked.”
“I don’t know why I’m even surprised,” Henry said. “Welcome, Lisa. Let me introduce Chastity and my other two partners, Luke Riordan and Isobel Perez.”
“Welcome, Lisa,” the long distance partners said.
“Hi. It’s nice to meet the whole company.”
“You are our first interview, so we decided we should all at least watch,” Isobel said. “You know you’re on camera, too?”
“Yes. I can see myself on the big screen here in the corporate living room,” Lisa laughed.
“Well, Lisa, let’s get right to it. Tell us about your background and experience,” Henry said. “I already know your education experience here at the university because we’ve shared several classes and a study group. But your resume says you worked for EZ Daze Corp for four years. You started in high school?”
“Uh, yes. And I’m still doing some dev work for them,” Lisa said. “You met my father and he told you he had a small development company. It’s EZ Daze. I learned coding working on the games and did a lot of the UI development.”
“Oh! Wow! Uh ... Why do you want to work with us then?”
“I talked it over with the owner of EZ Daze,” Lisa said. “He told me he thought it would be good for me to get experience with a different type of development and interface needs. He also wants to know if he’s a good boss or a bad one by comparison.”
“What do you think?” Henry asked.
“Well, I haven’t actually worked for you, but Dad’s a good manager, in my opinion.”
“You’ve done some testing of our new app as part of the test group. What would you say is the top UI need?” Henry asked.
“Well, obviously it needs a GUI. No one is going to buy a program that runs from a command line with a dozen tokens and arguments. Especially since your target user isn’t necessarily a computer programmer. It doesn’t make a difference what platform today’s user is on, they are only familiar with graphic interfaces. So, we need to start by outlining what the options are, then wrap pretty pictures around them that will make the user comfortable with selecting them.”
“So, we just need some drop-down menus, right?” Luke asked.
“I think we probably need something more than that,” Lisa laughed. “Not only do people need access to the options, they need to know what each one is controlling. For example, the newest drop of the app has a feature called ‘Degrees of Separation.’ I saw the old movie about the con-artist who convinced people he was the son of Sidney Poitier. It was a required part of my training to be ‘on my own,’ as my father put it. But it didn’t tell me anything about what this feature is.”
“So, you think we need an explanation of the feature in the UI?” Chastity asked.
“Sort of. Henry explained it to a bunch of us a couple of weeks ago, but users might not even get the reference then. A simple picture that showed the levels of reach for the app would make it clear.”
“Can you show us?” Henry asked, handing her a tablet and stylus.
She quickly sketched a three-level flow chart that showed the top single computer as being ‘Just my machine.’ The next row of a few computers said, ‘Machines connected to mine.’ The third row of more computers said, ‘Machines on my server.’
“I skipped a couple of levels,” she said. “The concept is that the user will know how far the effect will be felt without burdening them with learning about a 1990s movie.”
The interview progressed well and all three partners chimed in with questions. They had a rather good time, even though Chastity had to quash a question by Isobel regarding whether Lisa had a boyfriend as being an unacceptable interview question.
“So, what do you see in the future with Open Cloak Design?” Henry asked.
“What I’ve seen so far is all good. I know you are concerned about computer optimization and that leads you to power conservation as well. You mentioned one of your optimization apps was licensed by a big security company. I’d see more of that. You want to use AI in creative ways. How about in protecting your system? You’re already screening for viruses. What else?”
“Interesting,” Henry said. “It’s always seemed odd to me that firewalls just protect the host, but they don’t really do anything to repel the attacker. They’re passive barriers. The hacker can continue to attack the wall, but no one is standing up there pouring boiling oil on them.”
“That’s picturesque,” Isobel said.
“Guys, do we need a further consult?” Chastity asked.
“It’s Henry’s call,” Luke said. “I’m satisfied.”
“If you can work together and not cost a fortune, I’m in,” Isobel said.
“Henry, are you ready?” Chastity asked.
“I don’t think every hire is going to be this easy,” Henry said. “Lisa, we’d like to offer you a contract position for up to ten hours a week developing User Interfaces for our products. As a contractor, we’ll still be deducting taxes, but we don’t have health benefits, accumulated vacation time, or really any other benefits, except I always keep pop in the fridge you can help yourself to.”
“I’d like to accept that offer,” Lisa said. “I think this will be both fun and educational.”
“For both of us,” Henry agreed.
“Henry! How nice to see you again!”
Henry turned at the sound of the voice in the student union on Wednesday to see Kaitlyn Lau, his former golf teammate.
“Kaitlyn, hi! It’s been a while.”
“The team could have used you this fall! We’ve got one more tournament down in Florida next week, then it’s packed up until spring. You could still join for the spring season,” Kaitlyn said.
“I’m carrying a heavy course load and just don’t have time for extracurricular activities,” Henry said. “Join me for lunch?”
“I’d love to.”
They moved through the cafeteria line and picked up food, then found a table that wasn’t too crowded.
“How’d you happen to be all the way over in this part of campus instead of near the golf course and athletic facilities?” he asked.
“I get bored over there,” she answered. “All the conversations are about sports. I like sports, but there are other things happening in the world, you know?”
“How true. It’s sometimes that way near the computer science area. It’s not unusual to hear people talking code at lunch,” Henry laughed.
“Do you hear anything from Carol?” Kaitlyn asked.
“We text back and forth occasionally. I guess not as much anymore.”
“Too bad. You two made a cute couple.”
“Thanks. Different dreams. You understand that.”
“Yes. Well, sometimes you have to wake up and take notice of what else is happening in life,” Kaitlyn said. “How’s your business going?”
“We’re getting started. Pretty slow at the moment because we’re all in school, but we made our first hire this past week, so there’s a chance we could release an actual product by spring.”
“How exciting. Are you playing any golf at all?”
“I haven’t played since school started this fall. I had to cut my hours at the club, too.”
“Let’s play a round Saturday!” she said enthusiastically.
Henry hesitated, thinking at first, she’d said ‘Let’s play around.’ Kaitlyn was certainly a pretty girl and he wouldn’t mind playing around. She’d made it clear, though, that she was only interested in husband material, and Henry didn’t fit her profile.
“That would be fun if you don’t humiliate me too badly.”
“I’ll give you four strokes,” she said.
For some reason, everything she said seemed to be loaded with double entendre. Henry blamed it on his dirty mind. It hadn’t been that long since he’d been with Chastity.
Ultimately, they agreed that Henry would pick her up at her apartment Saturday morning and they would go out to Constitution Links.
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