Seamus Malone, a 40-year old married engineer

Seamus tiredly logged out of his computer, removed his glasses, and vigorously wiped his face with his hands. Leaning forward, he repeatedly bumped his forehead against the desk: "What bloody morons!"

Sighing, he straightened back up, picked up his coffee cup, polished off the rest of the drink and then after touching the picture of his wife and son on the desk with a smile, he stood up, grabbed his suit coat from the back of the chair and donned it.

His watch chirped at him. "Hmm?" Frowning, he looked down: "I swear, if you guys in the yard think I'm going to answer yet another question about if some other fastener meets spec because y'all failed to purchase the ones I told you to get on time, at the last minute, just before I have to go home...", he tapped the clock symbol on the watch and frowned harder.

Rotating his head and cracking his neck, he cracked his knuckles, and sat back down at the computer. "All right, what's so important that it can't wait 16 hours?" He tapped on the messages notice, saw who it was and grimaced. "PMO, yup, not going to make it home on time today."

While he was firing up his computer, he used his watch to call home. "Honey, I'm sorry, PMO messaged last minute...". Wincing at the stream of disappointed sounding words coming from the speaker, he continued: "Mind calling your Mom and asking if she can take Sean to jujitsu today, please?"

Pulling out his access card, he inserted it into the computer and scanned his thumbprint to login. "I know, Jill sucks, but she just got the job and she's trying to make her mark on the program." Scanning through the latest request for deviation, Seamus quickly worked through the downstream effects of switching materials from 316L to 303 steel and determined that, of course not, this would not be an acceptable replacement! "I know honey, I know. Thankfully, this issue seems like it should be able to be resolved quickly."

Sighing, Seamus started filling out the rejection paperwork, explaining the serious lack of corrosion resistance, blah, blah, blah. "What was that? Oh, thank you honey. I'm glad she's able to take him." He clicked send, and was about to log off and shut down when he got an immediate response to his rejection notice. "Ah, honey? I gotta go, PMO needs to talk. I know, I know. She's a you-know-what. I love you too."

Smoothing his face, Seamus clicked on the accept incoming call and came face to face with the twenty-five-year-old brand new PMO, Jill. Red hair, green-eyed, cute freckles, she had a fiery temper and tendency to steam roll anyone and everyone to get what she wanted. She was the boss's daughter, but she had most of the smarts to handle the job of a Program Manager, but not nearly enough experience. The problem was, everyone knew she didn't have the experience, including her, and that gave her a massive chip on the shoulder. "Hello Jill."

"Seamus, who the hell do you think you are rejecting this change proposal? Don't you know how much money this can save the program?" Jill was looking extraordinarily furious today, far angrier than the situation seemed to call for.

"I realize that it can save over ten thousand dollars in material costs, but the long term issues means that the company will be eating those savings when the client contacts us for replacements during the warranty period." Seamus replied calmly, neglecting to remind her that the client had specifically demanded that particular grade steel, knowing the reminder would just piss her off. Not that Seamus disagreed with the client, it was the right material for the application, it just happened to cost more.

"I know that! Why are you telling me things I already know? I need you to find a way to make this work. We can use lacquer, or paint, or protective enamels! You should have examined those possibilities instead of rejecting the idea out of spite!" Jill spat at him.

Quizzically, Seamus looked at her, "Spite? What do you mean? I rejected it because the contract..."

"Don't talk to me about the contract! I tell you what I need, you tell me how I can get it!" Jill ground out, her eyes flashing dangerously.

"I rejected it because the suggested material replacement doesn't work. There are more issues than just corrosion with the suggestion, but that is the primary problem, and the other issues cannot be resolved with coatings. You're not going to save money on this one, Jill." Seamus looked at his watch, "Now, is there anything I can do for you tonight other than this fastener?"

“Make the fastener change work.” Jill insisted.

Seamus blinked. “It won’t, there isn’t a way to make it work within the bounds of the contract.”

Jill leaned forward: “Stop obstructing me on this.”

“I’m not, I’m avoiding a liability issue.” Seamus replied steadily, his chair arm creaking as his hand squeezed tight in contained frustration.

"If you don't approve this fastener change, you can find yourself a new job!" Jill declared.

Stilling, Seamus looked at her in abject shock, "Are you kidding me?! Over an issue that is a safety and a legal problem, and one that Mr. Goodford would back me up 100% of the time on?"

Jill glared at him: "Goodford no longer works here, he retired, remember? You don't have him to protect you anymore." Jill leaned forward, "you have until the morning. If you fail to approve this, don't bother coming to work tomorrow." The screen went black.

His face white, Seamus sat back in shock. Close to twenty years. Twenty bloody years with this company and this uptight...tart comes into this company, back-stabs me to get my promotion, and she’s threatening to fire me because I want the company to succeed‽ What is going on with her?

His watch chirped at him again. Sniffling just a little, he angrily wiped his eyes of the hot moisture gathering there and looked at his watch again.

It read: 'Your new app: Custom Girls, has finished installing. Congratulations on your new Custom Girl: Jillian Hargrove!'

Confused and reeling from the after-effects of the call, he opened the new app on the watch and was even more perplexed when he saw a full-body holographic image of his PM appear above the watch. A rather detailed, down to the exact top she had been wearing full-body holographic image.

His confusion was very understandable, made worse by the fact that his watch had no holographic technology built into it. And, how could his watch have this much data on her? He didn't have her date of birth or what her mother's name in his contact data, and he’d rarely talked to the owner of the company, even less had discussions about his daughter.

An icon was blinking next to the image of her head and so not even consciously thinking about the fact he was tapping on air, he tried to tap where the icon was blinking and strangely it worked. The image zoomed in on her head. Three options appeared for him to select from next to her.

1. OBSESSION: Custom Girl will find excuses to keep you around and/or be near you (Hint: she can't fire you). Cost: 3 gems

2. Forgetfulness: Hot Key: Custom Girl will forget one specific conversation with you lasting thirty minutes or less that happened in the last two days (Hint: she won't want to admit she can't remember the conversation so she won't fire you). Cost: 5 gems

3. Ignoring: Hot Key: Custom Girl will completely forget you exist and utterly ignore you unless and only as long as you intentionally remind her you exist (Hint: she can't fire you if she doesn't even know who you are). Cost: 7 gems.

Flabbergasted, Seamus looked at the options, and somehow instinctively knew it wasn't a joke. He also saw that he currently had twenty-five gems available to spend, so he could obviously pick all three if he wanted, or just one.