Vanessa, black 41 year old corporate executive

Vanessa Lockley had been taught to think of it as a massive chess game, combined with a kung-fu match. Only typically quite a bit more boring than either, and always with a shit ton more paperwork.

There are the pieces - the assets, the capital and human resources, and there are the players - the companies or corporations themselves. Depending on the size of the company, a single or a dozen or a thousand employees on the ground and behind the scenes can be a pawn. They control space, they move things forward, or sometimes they clutter the board, get in the way of the big moves, essential strikes and captures. And in this game, sometimes they multiply. Sometimes there are just too many. And sometimes it's hard to get them back if you lose them, or sacrifice them, and you find yourself short, without the position you want to have.

And there are bigger pieces than the pawns. A single person, with the ability to make and call in favors, with a few seemingly silly connections, and with some kind of an understanding of the great game can be that valuable. They get hired, at ridiculous salaries, not necessarily because of their incredible work ethic (though depending on the role that may come with the territory), and not necessarily because they are that brilliant that they are worth three or five or a hundred times more than other paid professionals within a company, but because it works for the companies that do so. Playmakers, known factors with reputations that can be leaned on or understood by other pieces, unknown wildcards with poise and presence and a few lofty connections, they are all vied for by those companies that succeed. Sometimes they are overvalued, and mistakes are made, or a newcomer blows the old crowd out of the water and is upgraded to a larger role, but that is all part of the game. The companies, and the pieces that move along the game for the company, need their major pieces to succeed.

The kung-fu part comes in with the timing, and when and how the pieces make the moves. If the pieces move too quickly, too aggressively, they can make the whole company become overbalanced, ****. Others have to compensate, to move into position, to cover any weaknesses. Sacrifices might have to be made, pieces removed that shouldn't be where they are in the first place because of haste. But move too sluggishly, at the wrong moment, and the company or its pieces could become overwhelmed. Maybe injured by ground lost, or at least have opportunity for gain lost and given to another rival - leaving it in a weaker position for the next match.

A constantly shifting gameboard, with pieces guarding each other, and sometimes sabotaging each other. Each piece with its own stake, its own goals, its own reputation and limits to its loyalty.

It is a game and a war, a thing of subterfuge and timing, where money is the essential ammunition and the workers are the soldiers, and they always need their guns loaded. It is all that because each company is in constant competition with at least one other and possibly many more, another that will strip all their assets and take their place given enough chance and opportunity. In a lightning flash with the smaller ones, or slowly and piece-by-piece in the case of the old behemoths.

Because Vanessa knew all this, because she had the right degrees because she had been taught by her mentor and the senior founder (now retired) Alex Harvey, and lifted to a higher circle when TelAmeriCorp was growing she was not one of the pawns. She had been part of the beginning of the rise, when TAC had moved from a struggling sales engine to also a distributor that worked to move its own sales, and now had a handle on being a manufacturer, partly responsible for creating what it distributed to others and still sold itself. For ten years she had been, if not the biggest playmaker in her circles, a respectable part of TAC's rise and a contributor to its stability as it took its place as one of the steadiest growing younger companies in the West.

And in some ways, she knew, Vanessa had been left behind at a step below where she might be, considering her part of TAC's rise. In her eyes it was largely her own fault... her own lack of flexibility, and a cooling off of her ambition. She hadn't the heart to leave what she had helped build, and she was basically satisfied, so that made her a known factor. The company had no reason to worry about her, she had shown what she could do and she continued doing it, so there was no reason to move her up unless she made some kind of play. She could have blamed the glass ceiling - being black or female in a world where machismo was often overvalued, where deals were made in a 'boys club' setting. But to her, that would be underestimating what a woman could be. She knew she could have been or done better, and she had made mistakes along the way, mistakes that could have cost her a job if she didn't have people believing in her. A woman could be as cunning or bold or ambitious as anyone, could use those talents to **** a hand like the best men - no, it was her own personality, and her own choices that kept her now-immobile despite her years of service in the upper echelons of her still-growing company, and she was happy enough to be where she was.

Except for, sometimes, all the goddamned paperwork.

"Cheryl? Would you please bring me some coffee? And then bring your laptop and stay for a moment, I want to go over a few of these items with you."