#my boss wrote us an email this morning that there will be ‘client related changes to our department’

[heyyyharry]

Valentine’s Day Special: Roses Are Red… 

(from the ‘Couple in Flat 102’ Series)

…in which Y/N and Harry spend Valentine’s Day with different people.

In this chapter: 10k words 😱, probably plenty of unedited mistakes, fluff, mostly fluff, a bit of smut at the end, Harry being soft and extra as always, cute flashbacks from their time as flatmates 🤷‍♀️ 

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"Which color of these wedding dress would look good on me?"

Nam shifted closer to the bride-to-be so he can have a better look at the pictures in the wedding catalogue she was holding.

"Aren't these all white?"

His question and the perplexity on his face stole Y/N's and Layla's attention away from the glamour of these wedding shots. Layla immediately turned to Ben, who was sitting next to her on the couch as she scoffed. "Why did you get so offended when I said your ivory shirt was white, when the person you're dating is practically colorblind?"

"First of all." Ben raised one finger, obviously unamused by the girl's remark. "That shirt was obviously ivory, even someone like Harry could tell it was ivory."

Y/N couldn't help but snort when her fiancé's name was brought up because she knew it was true, if Harry had been there he would've been just as confused as Nam was right now.

"Second of all, Nam and I may be Treasure's godparents but we aren't dating, two gay people can be friends okay?"

Ben's clarification caused Nam to widen his eyes and release a slight laugh. "I expected at least one of those two statements was to defend me."

"Sorry, sweetie, I can't defend someone who doesn't know there are different shades of white."

Y/N and Layla exchanged looks, neither was convinced that there was nothing going on between their two gay friends. Y/N knew that they'd been spending a lot time together and not just to babysit her cat. But after having been cheated on twice, Ben was probably just being careful before letting himself fall head over heels for someone else. She couldn't really relate considering how happily in love she was, yet Y/N still somewhat understood why he didn't want to rush into another relationship, even though Nam was clearly a sweet guy.

"Questions!" Ben quickly raised a hand as if he was in a class and needed permission to speak his mind. "Shouldn't you discuss these things with Harry before consulting us? I'm surprised we're also choosing the wedding venue, what if he doesn't like it?"

"Harry and I share the work," Y/N cheerfully answered. "So he lets me decide the wedding date, venue, theme, decorations, food..."

"So the whole wedding then?"

Layla's cheeky comment made Y/N roll her eyes, still she went on, "...and he'll be in charge of the guest list, because, you know, he knows more people than I do."

"Sounds like the Harold I know." Layla gave her best friend a shrug. "He's always hated weddings, he only likes it for you."

"That's my man." Y/N sighed in contentment and a subconscious smile spread across her face. She always started grinning like a Cheshire Cat whenever she talked about him, and vice versa. Having been together for that long and now getting married, nobody knew how they could still be so in love with each other. But they were.

"I'm trying to have a few options for the wedding venue picked out today so we can have a carefree Valentine's Day tomorrow."

That year's Valentine's Day, Harry and Y/N had decided not to get each other anything and were just gonna spend time together, doing the things they enjoyed.

"Speaking of Valentine's Day..." Nam exchanged looks with Ben and Layla, not sure if he should tell Y/N this, but because she was his friend and he loved her so he ended up saying it anyway. "Shouldn't you be concerned that your future husband is hanging out with another girl the day before V-Day? Girl, I wouldn't be as chill if I were you, especially when that girl was obvious about her crush on my man."

Ben gasped as he heard what Nam had just said, his eyes broadened instantly. "Wait, he's with that Rose girl at the moment?"

"Yeah." Y/N nodded, her unusual composure was certainly not the reaction her friends were expecting to see. "They're not really hanging out. Her car broke down and the poor girl didn't have any friend so she called H to pick her up from her campus."

"You're telling me that little rich bitch couldn't call one of her fifteen personal drivers to come pick her up?" Layla scoffed, squinting her eyes in doubt at her best friend, who for some reasons still appeared pretty unbothered.

"I trust Harry completely, okay? You don't have to worry, because I don't. He's the most loyal man I know," Y/N said, as she gave her friend a reassuring smile.

The discussion about her fiancé and his twenty-year-old admirer was cut short when her phone lights up, notifying a new text message. This was probably the fifth one she'd got ever since they sat down on this couch. And judging by how annoyed she seemed when reading it, Ben just had to ask her who it was that'd been calling and texting her the entire morning.

"My new boss' being annoying again. I'm gonna call him back later."

She put the phone back down on the table without bothering to reply to those texts. After all, it was the weekend, and she'd got a wedding to plan which was way more important than anything else. Besides, she'd been working with that man for a couple weeks now, and she could bet there was nothing urgent at all, he just really enjoyed troubling her, even on her days off. But she didn't want to talk about or think about him at the moment, so she put her phone on airplane mode and assumed it would solve the problem.

Well, she was wrong.

It actually brought the problem to her front door.

The sound of door bell pulled everyone's attention away from their unfinished wedding planning business. Y/N didn't expect any guest at the moment, and it couldn't be Harry since she'd made sure to put the key in his pocket herself before he left the flat this morning, knowing how often he forgot his key.

Who else can it be?

The answer really shocked the girl when she came to open the door.

"What are you doing here?" Y/N exclaimed, eyebrows furrowed at the man standing in front of her.

Her unwelcoming attitude didn't offend her twenty-seven year old manager, in fact, it amused him. The attractive young man looked past her shoulder into her living room, smirking as he waved at Layla, Nam, and Ben, who were not even being subtle while checking him out. He didn't seem uncomfortable with all this attention he was receiving, so Y/N assumed that happened to him very often.

"You're having guests I see. Bad time?"

Y/N ignored his question and shut the door behind her so her friends couldn't listen to their conversation.

"What are you doing here, Jack?!" She asked again, more assertive this time because apparently making her life at the office a living hell wasn't enough for him.

"You didn't answer my calls."

"I was busy and it's Saturday!"

"The clients don't care if it's the weekend," Jack spoke calmly, pulling out his phone as he showed her an email he'd just received. "They've changed their mind about the entire plan for the opening event. They don't like it anymore and want to meet us tomorrow to discuss the changes."

"Us?!" She dropped her jaw, pointing to her face. "Why do I have to go? You're the VP!"

"You were the one who wrote and presented the plan. Now they want to change it so you're coming with me."

Y/N heaved a sigh, looking slightly worried.

"But tomorrow is..." Valentine's Day!!! "...Sunday."

"So? Told you the clients didn't care if it's the weekend." He gave her a shrug like it was no big deal.

Y/N swore that was the first time she'd met someone who was more obsessed with their job than she was, and also a conceited asshole who'd been breathing down her neck ever since he replaced her lovely old vice president. She had never hated anyone that much since...well, Harry.

Gosh, why am I comparing this douchebag to my future husband?! She thinks, Harry was lowkey a sweetheart; Jack, on the other hand, probably has a heart made of ice.

"Tomorrow, 10AM," said the man as he put his phone back into his jacket and pointed a finger to her. "I'll text you the address, and I don't want to hear any excuse for being late, not even a minute."

"Seriously?! Why do you hate me?!!!" She shouted after him when he walked off. But Jack didn't say anything else, he simply shot her a teasing smirk, and just like that, disappeared into the lift.

When Y/N returned inside, all six eyes were fixed on her, staring at her like she'd committed an awful crime, or wearing the most ridiculous outfit of all time.

"What?"

"Who's that?" Layla asked with a smirk.

"My boss."

"Does Harry know your new boss is hot?" The next question from Ben got Y/N to laugh as she shook her head fast.

"He only knows my new boss is an asshole, which is more correct by the way."

"But he is hot," Nam joined in. "Maybe he's got a thing for you, I mean, he showed up at your door literally five minutes after you didn't answer his text."

"He was here to talk about work." Y/N gave her friend a funny look because the idea of Jack being attracted to her, even a tiny bit, was absolutely absurd. "It's strictly business, guys. And Jack doesn't have human feelings anyway so...But don't say anything to H, he'll freak if he thinks my boss is into me."

"Is his name really Jack?" Ben seemed weirdly excited about the name and Y/N didn't know why so she just nodded her head, looking at him funny.

"Oooh, I have the perfect wedding theme for ya!" He exclaimed with a massive grin as she sat back down. "How about Titanic? Get it? Jack and Rose?"

Despite how thrilled he was to have discovered that coincidence, everyone else just stared at him with a straight face.

"That was a terrible joke, wasn't it?" He asked and Nam patted him on the back for encouragement, whereas Layla just saw that as an opportunity to tease Ben.

"Congrats, you can now be Harry's new BFF!"

Layla and Y/N fist-bumped in reaction to how offended Ben looked after being compared to Harry. Despite having a good laugh about the situation, subconsciously, Y/N hoped her friends weren't right, and that the Titanic duo wouldn't ruin her Valentine's Day.

As Y/N got back to the planning, Harry just arrived at Rose's university campus. He found the poor girl waiting for him in the parking lot, hair tied up in a high ponytail and the wet paint stains on her clothes, arms and hair had him confused.

"Is everything alright?" He asked immediately as he stepped out of his car and approached her.

With a tired smile, she told him, "my car broke down."

"No I mean, why are you covered in paint?" He eyed her from head to toes and exhaled a laugh.

Rose knew she probably looked like a silly mess right now, yet when she saw those dimples on his face, she felt like the happiest girl alive. So she enthusiastically answered, "I was building my own booth for the students' flea market tomorrow."

"Cool. What are you selling?"

"Myself."

His eyes grew wide in reaction to her unexpected answer.

"Sorry, bad joke." Rose giggled, shaking her head. "I'm gonna do a kissing booth, because, you know, it's Valentine's Day tomorrow."

"A kissing booth? Nice! Reminds me of my student years."

"You did a kissing booth as well?" She seemed pretty amused, eyes squinting at the man. "I bet you earned plenty from it."

"No, no, not me, my missus' book club did a kissing booth to raise a fund for charity, I showed up thinking she was gonna be at the booth, but she wasn't, and I was very disappointed, didn't get to kiss her that night."

The way Harry started smiling as soon as he mentioned his 'missus' absolutely shattered Rose, still she faked a smile and spoke like nothing was wrong, "wow, you two have been together for that long? That's very admirable."

"Yeah, we were flatmates then," he answered with a vibrant beam on his face. "It's a long story, I'll tell you another time."

"Oh, okay...I assume you're gonna be busy tomorrow night then?"

"Yeah, I'm spending the whole day with Y/N."

Despite already knowing his answer, Rose still got disappointed, but the frown on her face didn't get to stay for too long because afterward he told her, "maybe we'll stop by and say hello."

'We'

Rose didn't like the sound of that, and the thought of meeting his wife-to-be was already heart-wrenching. However, Rose was still curious about the girl he was in love with, she wanted to know what she was like, so while grinning from ear to ear, she clapped her hands and told him she couldn't wait to finally meet Y/N.

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"What are you doing tomorrow night?"

Y/N's eyes nearly popped out of the sockets when she received that question from her flatmate. It was February 14 tomorrow, and she expected Harry to already have his own plans; considering how popular he was, girls would be lining up to be his Valentine. What she didn't expect was him to come into her room as she was getting ready for bed, and ask her that question.

Did he want to spend time with her on Valentine's Day? Or was he just checking if she was gonna leave the flat, so he could bring someone over?

No, Y/N, you need to calm down.

"Why?" She asked him cautiously, and that look on her face put a smile on his.

"Since neither of us has a Valentine, I was uhm...thinking...maybe we could do something...together."

"Yeah, like what?" She tried to hold back the exhilaration from showing only to fail miserably. Though there was nothing official about their relationship, or even friendship, she knew he had a soft spot for her as she did for him. And it made her so happy that he wanted to hang out with her on Valentine's Day.

"Like...well...we can...uhm..." Harry stuttered for a few seconds since this was all new to him, the struggling was etched on his face. "What...what would you like to do?"

Ooooh, Y/N was glad he'd asked, because she had a lot of suggestions for their 'non-official' date. She opened her mouth, just about to start ranting about the things she'd always wanted to do and places to go, but all of a sudden, she remembered something that crashed her entire vision of a romantic night out with Harry.

"Oh no, I've got plans tomorrow night."

Her announcement turned him to stone right on the spot. He shifted a little bit on the edge of her bed and cleared his throat, trying to remain cool.

"What? With whom?" He asked, breathing out a nervous chuckle.

"With the people at my book club." Her answer made him sigh in relief, well, not literally. "We're doing a kissing booth."

"Shit, really?"

"You can come if you'd like, all the money will go to charity."

Harry didn't know what to say. Was she seriously asking him to come and see her kiss other people? But on second thought, if she was gonna kiss random people on Valentine's Day, he should show up as well.

"Okay, I'll take my friends there, charity is...important." He smiled nervously and his heart nearly burst from joy for how elated she looked as she thanked him.

The truth was, Harry'd never really spent Valentine's Day with a girl before. In fact, he hated Valentine's Day. When he was in high school, girls usually snuck flowers and cards and little gifts into his locker, hoping they'd get his attention, but he didn't care, sappy stuff like those only annoyed him. So of course, he had never done the same for any girl.

That year, however, things had certainly changed for Harry. He'd got a girl to care about and even though she didn't know it yet, she was his Valentine. He wanted to do something special. He didn't know how to do it without being too extra and obvious about his feelings for her, even though it was already pretty obvious. He wasn't sure where they stood, or what they wanted themselves to be to each other. Sure they'd been heavily flirting ever since Christmas when she gave him a kiss on the cheek, but they'd never once said how they felt about each other. He wanted to know how she felt about him, but at the same time, afraid of the answer, and of admitting how he felt about her.

So he sought for advice from Niall, not because his best friend was 'the expert of love' or anything, just because he'd got no better choice.

"Give her flowers."

"That's the lamest thing ever!" Harry snorted at his friend's suggestion. He didn't expect much from Niall, but flowers? Really? "What did you get your previous girlfriend?"

"Nothing. I forgot it was Valentine's Day, that was why we broke up."

Harry rolled his eyes and patiently asked again, "how about the one before that?"

"I got her flowers."

"Why are you even my friend?" Harry buried his face into his palm as he sat down on his best friend's bed. Niall, who was now sitting at the desk facing Harry, gave him a little shrug while tapping the pen on the pile of books in front of him, trying to come up with a better solution.

"I can ask Layla for you if you want."

"No! I don't want Layla to think I'm in love with Y/N!"

"Dude, everyone knows you're in love with Y/N!"

"Admitting it is a different thing!" Harry scoffed, hands tangled in his own hair. "Okay, so I know there are at least two people who are into Y/N."

"How the fuck do you know that?" Niall cracked up. "Have you been stalking her? Reading her diary?"

"Fuck no! She told me! She just wasn't interested, but I'm afraid if those guys do something for her on Valentine's Day, she'll fall for one of them."

"No she won't, Y/N likes you, we all know that."

"No we don't, not...for sure at least." Harry slowly shook his head, eyes fell to the floor. "I don't want to lose her..."

"Then tell her how you feel," Niall said it casually, like it was easy when Harry knew better that it was not.

"If I could just tell her then I wouldn't even need to ask you what to do."

"What's stopping you then?"

He didn't answer that question. If he started listing out the things that keep him from confessing his feelings for his flatmate, the list would be endless. He could give a thousand reasons to just give up on Y/N and try to move on, one of it being...she was Y/N, sweet, innocent Y/N who was way too good for someone like him, and him hurting her would be much worse than his own heartbreak. But he only needed one reason to keep on loving her, and it was also because...she was Y/N, sweet, innocent Y/N who was way too good for someone like him.

"Don't worry mate, you'll come up with something," Niall said, giving his friend an encouraging smile. And Harry really hoped that he would.

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Y/N had decided to tell Harry about Jack, everything, from him showing up at their door to him giving her no choice but to be at work on Valentine's Day. At first she'd thought it would just be a meeting, lasting about one or two hours top, but turned out, they were gonna have to spend the entire day monitoring the organizing process and coming up with solutions for the new adjustments in the original plan, because apparently, the clients changed their mind like the weather.

"I feel so bad now that I can't spend Valentine's Day with you...I'm so so sorry, baby..." She sighed, holding his head close to her chest while they were cuddling on the bed with their cat, who was sleeping soundly on Y/N's stomach right now.

"It's okay love, I can't say I'm not disappointed but it's not like you have a choice." He looked up to meet her eyes and showed her a smile. "Your boss really is a dick."

"He's still my boss."

"Yeah." He nodded, furrowing his eyebrows. "Don't worry, babe, one day you're gonna be your own boss."

The corners of her lips curved into a smile when she heard him. "Until that day, I'm gonna have to tolerate people like Jack. Ugh... don't know why he hates me so much."

"You told me you disagreed with him once at his first meeting."

Now that she was reminded about that argument she'd had with her boss in front of the other employees, Y/N got all riled up again. "Well, maybe if he hadn't said such bullshit and forced everyone to think his way! I mean, it's the twenty-first century now and women are allowed to have their own opinions!"

Her annoyance amused Harry somehow as he chuckled and reached up to gently comb a few strands of hair out of her face.

"I'm in love with a feminist, hmm?" His remark made her giggle. She was so glad to have him around and make everything better.

Harry carefully sat up, trying not to cause too much movement that might wake up their sleeping cat. Then he laid soft kisses across her neck and smirked when she released a soft moan in response.

"You do your thing and I'll pick you up when you're done," he whispered into her ear while nibbling on it. "Then we'll have a quiet dinner, just the two of us at home, yeah? I'm gonna make dinner."

"You? Making dinner?" She raised both eyebrows, turning to the side a bit to rest her forehead against his, holding his face with one hand. Her teasing caused him to laugh and scrunch up his nose.

"Shut up, I'm still learning," he said.

"Could everyday be Valentine's Day please?" She giggled before kissing his cheek.

Obviously, Y/N didn't think much when she made that wish. It was not until now, on Valentine's morning, when she was standing in front of her client's representative and listening to this woman dissing all the ideas she'd spent many sleepless nights working on, that she realized she didn't want everyday of her life to be like today. She'd never hated her job more than this moment.

Jack wasn't there yet. It was ironic that he'd been the one who'd warned her not to show up late, not even a minute, when now it'd been over half an hour and he was still nowhere to be seen. And because he wasn't there, she had to take all the rage from their angry client.

The woman looked around the venue in distress as she paused her rambling to release a long heavy sigh.

"This place can't even fit 300 guests, and it certainly doesn't look like a fashion event if it's held here."

"300? How has the number gone up to 300?" Y/N was in shock, but the woman from the other firm turned her nose up at the poor girl.

"We've expanded the guest list, no big deal," she said, sticking out her bottom lip like the opening event of her firm is a children's playdate, and it drove Y/N up the wall.

"Adding 100 more people is a big deal!"

"You've got nearly a week to figure it out."

Those words really made Y/N's blood boil. She opened her mouth, about to tell this woman off, when a familiar voice interrupted her all at once.

"Sorry I'm late," said Jack as he calmly approached the two ladies. Y/N had never been happier to see him, well, she'd never been happy to see him until now.

"Nearly 40 minutes late," she whispered to him when he stood by her side, resulting in a smirk on his face.

"Sorry, went back to get something," he told Y/N under his breath before turning to the other woman and instantly putting on the most charming smile he could fake to ease her anger. It did work, it'd always worked.

"Mr. Coleman, lovely to see you again!"

Y/N couldn't say she wasn't offended by this tremendous attitude change from the lady right here. She supposed some people can get really blind in presence of a good-looking human being. She couldn't blame her though, Jack knew his ways around people, that charming public persona could win over even the grumpiest ones. Wait, but now that she really thought about it, she couldn't recall ever seeing Jack being mean to any other person, only her. Okay now, she was even more offended!

"I guess there's a bit of a problem here, Ms. Flores?"

"Oh, call me May." She waved her hand and giggled like a teenager. Is this woman for real? Thought Y/N, yet she stayed quiet and lets Jack do the talking. "So this venue is too small for our guest list, we've recently decided to boost the number to 300 guests."

"300?" Jack also seemed stunned. "That's 100 more!"

"See I was trying to—"

Jack immediately nudged Y/N and signaled her to let him handle this.

"You should've thought of a backup plan in case your clients wanted to change the guest list, how unprofessional!" The woman glared at Y/N, who looked at Jack, waiting for him to back her up. And surprisingly, he did.

"It's not her fault."

Those words that'd come out from his own mouth left a huge shock look on Y/N's face, her mouth was agape as she stared at him wide-eyed. "I was the one who proposed the idea of having the event here and I didn't consider the possible changes in the plan, so I apologize for all this inconvenience. It's not Ms. Y/L/N's fault as she was just presenting my proposal."

"Oh...Okay, so how are you gonna fix this?" Asked the lady, now that she was convinced it was really Jack's mistake, she seemed to be more at ease, which slightly upsetted Y/N. But she was just glad Jack'd rescued her when he could've just pin all the blame on an employee like her to save his face.

After a long negotiation, Jack managed to have their clients reduce the number of guests back down to a hundred and they didn't have to change the venue at the last minute.

"Wow, who would've known organizing an event could be this hard!" Said Y/N as she was watching people putting up the lights and getting the sound system ready, already thinking about how hard it was gonna be for her to finish planning her wedding.

Jack was standing next to her, his eyes were fixed on the girl, and not what he was supposed to be paying attention to. A big smile displayed on his lips as he questioned her, "your first time being in charge of a project?"

"Yeah, since I was new they didn't actually let me do anything on my own," she replied, turning to look at him. "But I fucked up this time so I get why they doubted my abilities."

"You didn't fuck up." He smirked, slightly amused by hearing her curse because he didn't take her as a person who would ever say a bad word. "You did a great job."

"I did?"

"Yeah." He nodded then leaned in closer to whisper to her, "that woman was pretty annoying by the way."

His comment made her laugh. It was actually the first time she'd laughed at anything he'd ever said.

"I'm sorry you had to take the blame for me though, I feel very guilty."

Jack gave her a shrug with his hands shoved in the pockets of his trousers. "Don't be. That's what bosses do, take responsibilities for their employees. And I did ask you to work on the plan, you did it on your own, put hard work in it, and you did well. The clients can be mean sometimes, but you're not allowed to disagree with them. Take my advice, let them think they're right and try to maneuver the plan back to how you think works best by negotiating."

"I'm just not good at..." she paused and heaved a sigh "...dealing with people."

"I know, that's what I like about you."

She immediately dropped her jaw and shot her head up to stare at him, unable to believe he'd just said those words. Jack pretended like he didn't see that dumbfounded look on her face, he tilted his head and told her to follow him.

"Come. I'll show you the PR clip and you can tell me what you think."

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"Oh my God, why are we here?!" Layla complained, again. In fact, that was all she'd been doing since she got out of the car. "Let's just go to Ruth's party instead, where the cool people are!"

Liam didn't even hesitate to jump on board with the girl. "I agree with Layla, why are we at a flea market?"

To be honest, Harry hadn't even known there was a flea market on campus tonight until Y/N told him so. He wasn't interested in any activities by the student clubs of the university, but since Y/N was a member of a few so maybe he'd changed his mind a bit and stopped assuming that if you were in a club then you were all lame.

"Because Harold promised Y/N he would come," Niall spoke for Harry, who immediately glared at his best friend for saying that out loud for everyone to hear. However, nobody seemed to be surprised.

"I personally think this is fun!" Said Louis who threw an arm over Harry's shoulders and the other in the air. "They're selling beer over there, that's all I care about."

"And Y/N's club has a kissing booth!"

Niall, once again, received dead eyes from Harry.

"A kissing booth? Wow, where?" Trix, who had to hurry up to catch up with the group, finally spoke up. She'd been so distracted by all of those heart balloons they had just walked past until she heard the keywords that got her attention.

"Booth number 27 she told me," said Harry as he awkward scratched the back of his head.

"Is she gonna be at the booth?"

"Of course, Harold's expecting a kiss on Valentine's Day!" Niall answered Liam's question before Harry could even open his mouth, and this time Harry didn't even bother to try and stop his best friend anymore. All the beans had been spilt.

"So you're paying money to get a kiss from your crush? That's sad."

Layla only wanted to tease Harry, it was a harmless joke, but it really hurt his feelings, because she was right. Receiving a kiss from her at the booth wouldn't make him special, he was gonna be like all the other guys who got to kiss her.

Fortunately, luck was smiling at Harry on this lovers' night, because Y/N wasn't gonna be giving out kisses to random people. She was actually selling tickets, and when he saw her talking to the people waiting in line with a bright smile on her face, he felt his heart skip a beat.

"Oh man, so this means I won't get to kiss Y/N?" Louis joked and Harry slightly pushed him by the shoulder then told him to shut up.

Layla rolled her eyes as she looked at everyone, seemingly unimpressed. "Are we gonna go somewhere else now, or...?"

"No way, I'm gonna be in line, that girl in the booth is hot!" Liam said quickly then joins the other people who were waiting for their turns and Louis soon followed him for the same reason. Layla then turned to Niall, who still looked so uncertain whether he should go with them or stay.

"You can go if you want," she told him with a straight face then walked off without saying another word. And Niall took it as a cue to follow her, waving goodbye at Harry before he was gone.

Here goes nothing, Harry thought to himself then made his way towards his flatmate, who had just spotted him and now was waving her hand to get his attention.

"Hey, don't cut the line, moron!" Someone shouted at him when he went the the head of the line. Harry meant to turn around and shout back at them, but Y/N already had it all handled.

"He's only here to talk to me, you're not getting a kiss with that attitude!" She told the guy, making Harry laugh.

"You shout at people now? Who are you?" He gave her a cheeky grin, receiving one back.

"Try standing here for two hours and you'd understand why I get irritated by mostly anything!" She breathed and handed the tickets back to a girl next to her as she asked her to take her place so she could go talk to Harry a bit.

"So..." Y/N took a deep breath as they walked together away from her kissing booth. Harry was trying his best not to hold her hand right now. It was right there, brushing against his several times by accident, and it was so hard not to grab it. Oh the things she does to him. "...where are your friends?"

"Liam and Louis are waiting in line at your booth, we kind of lost Trix, and Niall followed Layla, I don't know where they are now."

"Thank you for bringing your friends here," she told him with a shy smile. "I mean, I heard about the party at Ruth's, you could be there, but you're here so..."

"Ruth throws party every weekend, it's not fun anymore," he lied to her. That wasn't why he'd decided not to go, obviously.

"Have you received any special gift from someone yet?" He asked after letting the silence take over for a couple seconds. He didn't want to know what the other guys had done for her, but at the same time, needs to know so he could step up his games.

"Well, yeah, the two guys I told you about..."

"Yeah?"

"One gave me a sloppy handwritten card with only three words 'Happy Valentine's Day', and the other gave me balloons and a box of chocolate, along with a sappy two-page love letter," she said, rolling her eyes and that was the reaction he'd been hoping to see. She wasn't interested in either of them, one barely put in effort while the other was too extra. Harry was now pretty proud of his little gift for her because he was in the safe zone.

"How about you, Harry? Probably got plenty?"

Some girls had come up to him this morning after some of his classes to ask him out tonight, but he'd turned them all down, for her. He wasn't sure he could tell her that though.

"Nope, you know how I feel about romance and shit."

"Don't have to tell me twice." She snorted, when suddenly her phone notified her of a new text.

"What is it?" He asked when he saw the look on her face.

"They want me back at the booth, that girl I asked to take my place left the spot without telling anyone, and now no one's there to sell tickets," she told him with an unpleasant grimace.

"It's okay, I'll walk you back," he said and they turned around to return to her friends. Suddenly, he remembered something and stopped halfway, pulling out his wallet from the pocket of his jacket.

"Here," he handed out some money, leaving her a bit confused. "Uhm...I want to contribute something to your charity fund, but I don't want to kiss anyone." Anyone that's not you.

"I can't accept this, silly, put it back." She scoffed, pushing his hand away, but he refused to comply.

"Just take it." He shoved the money in her hand with a smirk. "It's not like the money is for you anyway, silly."

The way he mimicked her voice made her laugh. So Y/N thanked him and watched him put his wallet away. He had his cute little dimples on and was humming a familiar tune she couldn't recall what song it was from, all she knew was that he looked so adorable, and his good intention really won her over.

"Wait."

He raised an eyebrow at her when she grabbed his arm."You're not giving me back the money now. I already put my wallet away."

"Not that!"

"Then what?"

She parted her lips with the intention of saying something else, but then she changed her mind, keeping the words to herself, and tiptoed to kiss him on the cheek, again, like she had on Christmas' Eve under the mistletoe.

Harry was absolutely shocked. When she pulled away, he gently put his hands to where her lips had been and his mouth fell opened but no words escaped. Y/N thought that look was just priceless.

"Just to be fair, you're still getting a kiss, and we're getting money." She waved the valuable piece of paper in front of his face and Harry swore he had to use all of his inner strength not to pull her in for a real kiss. A simple peck on the cheek could get all the butterflies in his stomach to come alive and go insane, so now he wondered what would happen if they had kissed. He would've probably burst into flame.

"Harry!" Her voice pulled him back to reality and he had to blink a few times to realize where he was. "Why are you standing there? Hurry up, I must get back now!"

Without waiting for a reply, she just took his hand without warning, and didn't let it go until they were finally back at the booth.

.

.

.

"Flea market! Ahhh memories!" Layla excitedly exclaimed as she threw her arms in the air and received worrying looks from Niall and Harry.

"Why are you two here?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow. He only remembered telling Niall about going to stop by and say hello to Rose before going to pick Y/N up, he didn't remember asking Niall to come along, bringing Layla with him.

"The question is, why are you here?" Layla asked, pointing a finger to his chest and Niall just seemed so done he didn't even try to intervene.

"Chill, Y/N knows I'm here."

"So?"

"So, I'm only here because I promised Rose I'd stop by, and then I'm going straight to pick up my girl." Harry scoffed, thinking Layla was absolutely ridiculous. He just felt bad that Rose didn't actually have a friend and he appreciated that she considered him as one. "Don't you guys trust me? I'm not gonna cheat on Y/N."

"I trust you, not that little girl," Layla said, hands on her hips, eyes narrowing at Harry. "I'd like to meet her to see how thick her skin is. A normal person won't go this far to pursue someone who's already engaged."

Harry gave Niall a questioning look, and Niall raised two hands in the air to defend himself, saying he had nothing to do with this and was only there because he had to.

"Okay fine," Harry said at last. "If you two want me to be your thirdwheel, then stay."

"Great!" Layla cheered, grabbing Niall's arm and pulling him along as they both followed Harry to find Rose's booth.

When they arrived, they saw a long line waiting. At first Layla and Niall were very curious, but as soon as they saw what Rose looked like, they kind of understood why there were so many desperate people gathering there at her kissing booth.

"She is pretty."

"What did you just say, Niall?"

"Nothing, love."

Layla huffed then turned to Harry, who, instead of looking at Rose like the other males here, was on his phone, texting Y/N, and the crinkles between Layla's brows eased at once.

"So which one of us is gonna kiss her when it's our turn?" Niall asked, chuckling at his own joke, but he instantly regretted it when he saw the look on Layla's face.

"No one!" She groaned, switching her eyes between the two guys. "Why are we lining up anyway?"

"Because it's a polite thing to do?"

"Well, thanks Niall, if we're gonna be polite, we're gonna wait until tomorrow, look at this long ass line!" Layla said in annoyance as she grabbed both Niall's and Harry's hand then dragged them with her to the front of the line, ignoring people shouting at them not to cut in.

Once Rose saw Harry's face, she quickly ran out of the booth, making plenty of people upset, but she didn't seem to care. She told them that she was taking a break before pulling Harry in for a hug, probably would stay glued to him if Layla didn't interfere by pulling him back.

"Oh, this is..." Rose looked at her, not knowing why this girl she had never met before in her life seemed so hostile. Y/N had been to Harry's office before so Rose knew that wasn't her.

"These are my friends, Layla and Niall," Harry said, smiling at the girl, who exhaled a laugh, shaking her head and said hello to them with enthusiasm.

"Where's Y/N?" She asked, looking behind him, expecting to see the girl he was gonna marry, but just like last time at the party, Y/N didn't show up.

"She got stuck at work," replied Harry.

"But it's Sunday, how obsessed is she with her job? Jesus!"

"Honey, when you finally grow up, graduate and actually have to work, you'll understand."

"Layla!" Niall stopped his girlfriend by grabbing her by the hand and pulled her with him. "Let's go over there, okay? I'll buy you some flowers."

Layla agreed to come along, but before she left, she didn't forget to give Rose a warning death glare just to remind the girl where she actually stood.

"Do you think your friends hate me? I wasn't trying to be mean, I was only kidding," Rose said, putting both hands on her chest and shaking her head apologetically.

"Don't worry, Layla acts like that with everyone, it's alright," Harry assured her and pressed his lips into a smile. "Do you sell anything here? I'll buy one to support you."

"Only my kisses!" She answered with a huge grin then noticed how awkward he seemed so she tried to fix it. "Not that you can buy one anyway, but you don't have to support me, I've made enough money today."

Harry nodded. Rose assumed that beam on his face was for her, but it was actually him remembering the little kiss Y/N had give  him for a kissing booth on that same day a few years ago.

"What do you need this money for?" He asked her suddenly. "If you don't mind that I ask."

"Well, I want to buy new stuff for my design studio but I don't want to ask for daddy's money," she told him with a slight shrug. "People just assume I live on his money and I don't like that."

"I've never thought so, you seem very independent."

"You think so?"

"Yeah."

By saying that, he'd made her day even though she didn't tell him that. Rose intertwined her hands and told him she should get back inside before those people went insane and demanded a refund.

"Have a fun night!" He said, waving at her.

"You too," she replied, and this time, the lack of her usual positive energy was quite obvious. She wished him a happy Valentine's Day, didn't sound like she meant it, but as she watched him walking away towards Layla and Niall, she knew he didn't notice anyway.

.

.

.

Harry and Y/N stumbled out of the lift into the hallway, nearly tripping on their feet as they were drowning in laughter on their way back to their shared flat.

"Good evening, kids!" Ben greeted the two young people as he locked his front door and Y/N broke into a smile, waving at her neighbor.

"Hey, Ben! Going out on a date?"

"Yeah, I'm picking Mark up from his workplace and we're going to this restaurant. You two wanna join us? Like a double date!"

Harry and Y/N dropped the beam on their faces instantly as they exchanged looks by accident before shifting their eyes away from each other real quick to avoid the awkwardness.

"I'll take that as a no then..." Ben squinted his eyes at them, sensing something weird but didn't want to say it out loud. "Happy Valentine's Day, you two."

"Happy Valentine's Day!" Harry shouted after Ben and lingered there for a little while to watch Ben go, even though Y/N had entered their flat.

The neighbor was seemingly in a hurry as he headed straight to the lift, wearing a nonchalant smile because he was so excited to see his fiancé. Harry thought, maybe one day, when things had changed, that was gonna be him.

"Harry, why are you still out there?!"

"Uh...Coming!"

Harry walked into the flat then straight off told Y/N he was gonna take a shower before dinner. She didn't suspect a thing and didn't expect anything because even though it was Valentine's Day, they were only just friends. But when she went back to her room after he'd gone to his and turned on the light, on the bed she found a small teddy bear facing the door, wearing a cute little hat and a red ribbon as a bowtie, next to it lied a little card, on which written two lines in Harry's all too familiar hand-writing.

Roses are red, violets are blue,

I suck at poems, this is the best I can do. H. :)

"Harry! Harry! Harry!"

When Y/N rushed into Harry's room, all out of breath, he was grabbing his clothes from the closet and just about to head to the shower. He saw the look on her face and the bear she was holding and instantly started beaming at her.

"You like it?" He asked before she could say a word. "I didn't know what to get you, Niall suggested me to buy flowers but...flowers die so..."

Y/N thinks she was going to cry, but she was glad she didn't. She'd just received gifts today, so why did she get so emotional over a teddy bear? Maybe because it was  from Harry, who couldn't shut up about how much he hated Valentine's Day and 'romance and shit', maybe because she loved him so much, she didn't think he could ever tell. Whatever the reason, she was now over the moon.

"Why did you think you should get me anything though?" She asked, taking a couple steps towards him and she could feel how nervous he was through the look he was giving her and the way his lips were quivering.

"Well, because you're my..." He sucked in a breath when she stopped in front of him. "...best friend."

"I am?" She raised a grin.

He nodded his head and teasingly patted the top of her head like she was a little kid. "Congratulations, you can now go tell everyone."

Y/N breathed out a laugh as she brushes his hand away. She then surprised him for the second time that night by throwing her arms around his neck, pulling him into a tight hug. It took Harry quite a moment to get grip on reality and finally held her back, hoping she couldn't feel his heart thumping like a drum.

"You're my best friend too, H. Happy Valentine's Day!" She whispered into his ears, and those simple words had given this day a lot more meaning.

So, "Happy Valentine's Day, love," Harry said back as he made sure to leave out the most important three words, which remained a secret between him and his heart only.

.

.

.

When Jack walked Y/N out of the building to his car parked out front, it was already dark outside. The many pedestrians walking past them were either couples holding hands or lonely people heading home to spend the night alone. Strangely, Y/N began to wonder whether her boss was the first type or the latter. After today, she thought everything she'd thought she'd known about him was all incorrect.

"Thanks for spending today working with me," he said at last, inhaling the cool February air as he looked around, everywhere but her. "I know it was harsh to ask you to spend Sunday at the office."

"It's fine. I'm glad it's over now." She pretended to wipe off her sweat and blew up her cheeks, the gesture put a smile on his face.

Jack nodded his head towards his car and asks her if she wanted a ride home, that was when she knew he was the latter type since he didn't seem to be in a rush to go see a special someone. She thanked him for the offer, but explained that her fiancé was already on his way to pick her up, the news came as a surprise to Jack apparently.

"You're engaged?" He almost looked like he didn't believe her. So she showed him the ring on her hand and another smile. "Wow, didn't notice the ring. Congratulations."

"Thank you."

"He's not upset that I stole you from him on Valentine's Day, is he?"

"He is, very." Y/N furrowed her eyebrows and Jack cracked a beam.

"Well, shit. Am I in trouble?"

"Hope not."

Jack noticed that Y/N was cold and offered her his coat, to which she refused at first, but he insisted her on taking it anyway. He threw it over her shoulders, then told her to wait as he went get something from his car. She expected it to be some files for her to prepare at home because it was Monday tomorrow, but it turned out to be the last thing she would think of, a box of chocolate.

"This is for you."

"For me?" She looked at him like he was joking, at least hoping that he was.

"Yes. I felt guilty for ruining your day off so I got you a Valentine's gift...not that you need one from me anyway." She didn't get what he actually meant by that, yet she didn't ask. "I almost forgot it at home this morning."

"You came back to get this?" She broadened her eyes at the man. "Was this why you were late?"

"Yeah. Pretty much."

"Well...thank you." She didn't know what else to say so she stayed quiet, and so did he.

Five minutes passed by, Y/N had no clue why he was still there when he could've just gone home because someone was coming for her anyway. As if he knew what she was thinking, Jack immediately answered the inquiry in her head, "it's not safe for you to stand here alone. I'll wait with you."

But as soon as he finished that sentence, two headlights approached them and Harry's car pulled over by the pavement. He stepped out, perplexed to see his girl standing with another man while wrapped in his coat. Y/N could read that expression so she quickly introduced the two of them to each other.

"Harry, this is Jack, my boss. Jack, my fiancé, Harry."

The two men shook hands, but oddly didn't exchange a single word, not even a 'hello'. They just stared at each other and would definitely continue to do so if Y/N didn't break the awkward silence.

"Thank you for this," she said, handing Jack back his coat. "And for the chocolate. Have a good night."

"You too, Y/N. See you tomorrow."

Jack waved his hand and watched the girl hold onto Harry's as they walked to his car, smiling at each other, being so in love like an engaged couple should be. Harry gave her a kiss on the forehead and asked how her day had been and if she was tired, to which she answered by saying she'd had an interesting day and was not tired anymore now that she saw him. Neither of them paid attention to Jack enough to wonder what was really on his mind, but he did leave very quickly, as soon as Harry opened the car door for Y/N, he was already driving away.

Harry, being Harry, kept asking Y/N about Jack on the drive back home. He wasn't being mean about it, he was just curious and a bit uneasy because, why on earth would a decent man gives an engaged woman chocolate on Valentine's Day?!

"That bloke is into you, I know it!" Harry snorted as he held the door for her to enter their building. "I'm gonna eat all of his chocolate!"

"That's a very big box, H." She laughed, shaking her head, but he didn't seem to mind.

"I don't care if I get diabetes, not gonna let you eat another man's affection."

Y/N cracked up when he tickled her side then wrapped his arms around her waist to pull her close to his chest. They walked past the front desk, cheerfully saying hello to their doorman Nam before heading straight to the lift, but Y/N's eyes were quick to spot the huge bouquet of roses in front of Nam. She stopped and came back to him immediately, pulling Harry alongside her.

"Well, well, well, I wonder who these are from?" Y/N put her forefinger to her lips, pretending to not have an idea as she turned to look at Harry. "Any guesses, love?"

"Hmm, maybe they're from another friend of ours?" He knitted his eyebrows together, playing along as he gave Nam a fake look of doubt. "I could be wrong but..."

"Oh my God, you two are the most ridiculous couple ever!" Nam tossed his head back and laughed. "Yes, they're from Ben, happy?"

"Pretty sure you said you two weren't dating."

"We aren't," the doorman told Y/N, smiling from ear to ear. "Not yet, but..."

"Aww, we're very happy for you!" Y/N clasped her hands together, beaming brightly. Harry, on the other hand, was getting pretty impatient.

"Yes we are very very happy for you," he said then hugged Y/N from behind and kissed her cheek. "But I need some alone time with my girl now so excuse us, good night."

"Eww, leave, you two are gross!" Nam sticked out his tongue as he laughed, then watched the couple hurry their way to the lift, hand in hand, releasing a sigh. He did hope that he was gonna be happy as they were now, one day.

Y/N and Harry stumbled into their flat, without bothering to switch on the light. Harry had already made dinner in the kitchen but it was the last thing on their mind right now since their mouths were attached and he kicked the front door closed while holding her up with her legs wrapped around his waist, struggling to lock the door without dropping his girl or falling over.

Harry had no idea what'd gotten him so worked up, maybe he'd got provoked by seeing Y/N's good-looking boss giving her so much attention after spending the entire day with her, maybe his trip to the flea market and Rose's kissing booth brought back a lot of loving memories of him and Y/N when they were still flatmates. He didn't know why, all he knew was that he wanted to show her how much he loved her.

They ended up riding out their first orgasm before they could even reach their bed, sprawling across the floor with her ontop of him, chest to chest, clothes lying all over the place. It was wild. But after that, it was full love-making. He weny down on her, sending her to her second climax before diving into that all too familiar spot that left him grunting every single time he entered because he could never get used to how good she felt wrapped around him. This time he went slow, wanting to feel all of her and give her all of his. He'd lost count of how many times he'd told her he loves her, just mumbling the same three words against her lips until she cummed for the third time and he followed, giving her all he'd got. As he collapsed ontop of her, head buried in her neck with her body still keeping him warm, he repeated once again those three words, and Y/N thought she'd never get tired of hearing it, ever.

"I love you a lot too, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me," she told him with a tired smile, wiping away the beads of sweat running down his handsome face. "No matter how much I tell you I love you, please know I always love you more than that."

"Fuck...You made me the happiest man alive, love."

They shared another kiss, and when Y/N saw how Harry's eyelids started to flutter she burst into laughter. "Ey, don't fall asleep, we're still gonna eat the dinner you cooked for me!"

"Okay but stay here a few minutes more. I missed you today," he muttered, brushing his nose against her collarbone, pulling her closer, and Y/N couldn't say no to that.

They cuddled for a little while and then got off the bed to go clean up only to end up having sex again in the shower because, Harry's reason, it's Valentine's Day.

When they returned from the bathroom, he finally remembered what he'd thought about on his way to pick her up. When he saw Jack with her it completely slipped from his mind.

"Do you remember the bear I got you on our first Valentine's?" Harry asked, pressing his lips into a soft smile as he held her by the hips while sitting on the edge of the bed and she was standing in front of him, drying his hair with a towel.

"Before we got together?" The memories turned into a beam on her face. "Yeah, I still have it in that drawer over there. Why?"

"I just thought of it today, not sure if you know this yet, probably not, but have you ever discovered something odd about that bear?"

"No." She stopped and dropped the towel down on the bed so he could pull her onto his lap and have her sit with her arms wrapped around his neck, his around her waist. "Oh no, Harry, what are you hiding from me?"

With a cheeky smile on his face, he looked at the ceiling and said, "well, if you take off the ribbon around the bear's neck, you'll find a zipper."

"Wha—No way!" She laughed, mouth opened wide as she stared at him in shock. "You sneaky bastard!"

It didn't take no time for her to remove herself from his lap and rush to their closet to search for the stuffed animal. When she'd found it, she did as he'd said. And he wasn't kidding. There was a zipper hidden under the cute little bowtie. She furrowed her eyebrows at him, and he told her to go ahead and check what's inside.

"I should've known you wouldn't have just given me an ordinary bear!"

Harry gave her a shrug for he knew it was the truth. He'd always been so extra when it came to her, he'd nearly hired a freaking band for her birthday, for crying out loud!

Y/N pulled out a piece of paper from the bear's neck. She couldn't believe it'd been there for years and she didn't know about its existence until today. So she didn't hesitate to unfold it, and read the words out loud for both her and Harry to hear.

"Roses are red, violets are blue...I like you a lot..." she paused to look at him "...if only you knew."

"I was pretty cheesy back then." He pressed his lips together. But Y/N thought that was actually one of the sweetest things he'd ever done for her. "I took the risk, put that note inside the bear, thinking to myself if you found out I would confess to having feelings for you, but you never did."

"Why didn't you say anything?" She put the bear down on the table nearby, along with the note, to return and sit on his lap, holding his face between her hands. "How on earth would I know there was a freaking note hidden inside the bear? I'm not Sherlock Holmes!"

"Maybe a part of me didn't want you to see the note, I was still scared," he replied. "But the next morning when I saw you in the kitchen, you seemed pretty normal so I knew you didn't see it, and the other part of me got disappointed."

"Dumbass," she whispered, nose brushing against his. "We would've ended up together sooner, had you just hand me the note like a normal person!"

"If you want, we can tell our kids the bear story instead of how I actually confessed my feelings while being drunk off my ass."

Y/N laughed as she heard him, but then shook her head no. "I still prefer how it actually happened. The waiting was torturing, but it was worth it."

The Harry who'd written that note on Valentine's Day a few years ago never would've seen this day coming. They were getting married soon and were happier now than ever. So Harry guessed Y/N was right after all. All the bad and good things they'd gone through, it was all worth it.

#i wanted to include them planning for the wedding but since this is already too long i'm saving it for the next chapter #flatmate!harry #boyfriend!harry #bestfriend!harry #harry styles #harry styles angst #harry styles smut #harry styles fluff #harry styles writing #harry styles series #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #harry styles imagines #harry styles fanfics #harry styles fanfictions

[deniscollins]

Why Are Young People Pretending to Love Work?

Former CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, spoke about working 130 hours a week. Elon Musk noted that employees should work 80 hours a week, and peak at 100 at times. Bernie Klinder, a consultant for a large tech company, said he tried to limit himself to five 11-hour days per week, which adds up to an extra day of productivity. If you were a CEO of a high tech company would  you encourage employees to work: (1) 55 hours a week, (2) 80 a week, (3) 100 a week? Why? What are the ethics underlying  your decision?

Never once at the start of my workweek — not in my morning coffee shop line; not in my crowded subway commute; not as I begin my bottomless inbox slog — have I paused, looked to the heavens and whispered: #ThankGodIt’sMonday.

Apparently, that makes me a traitor to my generation. I learned this during a series of recent visits to WeWork locations in New York, where the throw pillows implore busy tenants to “Do what you love.” Neon signs demand they “Hustle harder,” and murals spread the gospel of T.G.I.M. Even the cucumbers in WeWork’s water coolers have an agenda. “Don’t stop when you’re tired,” someone recently carved into the floating vegetables’ flesh. “Stop when you are done.” Kool-Aid drinking metaphors are rarely this literal.

Welcome to hustle culture. It is obsessed with striving, relentlessly positive, devoid of humor, and — once you notice it — impossible to escape. “Rise and Grind” is both the theme of a Nike ad campaign and the title of a book by a “Shark Tank” shark. New media upstarts like the Hustle, which produces a popular business newsletter and conference series, and One37pm, a content company created by the patron saint of hustling, Gary Vaynerchuk, glorify ambition not as a means to an end, but as a lifestyle.

“The current state of entrepreneurship is bigger than career,” reads the One37pm “About Us” page. “It’s ambition, grit and hustle. It’s a live performance that lights up your creativity … a sweat session that sends your endorphins coursing ... a visionary who expands your way of thinking.” From this point of view, not only does one never stop hustling — one never exits a kind of work rapture, in which the chief purpose of exercising or attending a concert is to get inspiration that leads back to the desk.

Ryan Harwood, the chief executive of One37pm’s parent company, told me that the site’s content is aimed at a younger generation of people who are seeking permission to follow their dreams. “They want to know how to own their moment, at any given moment,” he said.

“Owning one’s moment” is a clever way to rebrand “surviving the rat race.” In the new work culture, enduring or even merely liking one’s job is not enough. Workers should love what they do, and then promote that love on social media, thus fusing their identities to that of their employers. Why else would LinkedIn build its own version of Snapchat Stories?

This is toil glamour, and it is going mainstream. Most visibly, WeWork — which investors recently valued at $47 billion — is on its way to becoming the Starbucks of office culture. It has exported its brand of performative workaholism to 27 countries, with 400,000 tenants, including workers from 30 percent of the Global Fortune 500.

In January, WeWork’s founder, Adam Neumann, announced that his start-up was rebranding itself as the We Company, to reflect an expansion into residential real estate and education. Describing the shift, Fast Company wrote: “Rather than just renting desks, the company aims to encompass all aspects of people’s lives, in both physical and digital worlds.” The ideal client, one imagines, is someone so enamored of the WeWork office aesthetic — whip-cracking cucumbers and all — that she sleeps in a WeLive apartment, works out at a Rise by We gym, and sends her children to a WeGrow school.

From this vantage, “Office Space,” the Gen-X slacker paean that came out 20 years ago next month, feels like science fiction from a distant realm. It’s almost impossible to imagine a start-up worker bee of today confessing, as protagonist Peter Gibbons does, “It’s not that I’m lazy. It’s that I just don’t care.” Workplace indifference just doesn’t have a socially acceptable hashtag.

‘It’s grim and exploitative’

It’s not difficult to view hustle culture as a swindle. After all, convincing a generation of workers to beaver away is convenient for those at the top.

“The vast majority of people beating the drums of hustle-mania are not the people doing the actual work. They’re the managers, financiers and owners,” said David Heinemeier Hansson, the co-founder of Basecamp, a software company. We spoke in October, as he was promoting his new book, “It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work,” about creating healthy company cultures.

Mr. Heinemeier Hansson said that despite data showing long hours improve neither productivity nor creativity, myths about overwork persist because they justify the extreme wealth created for a small group of elite techies. “It’s grim and exploitative,” he said.

Elon Musk, who stands to reap stock compensation upward of $50 billion if his company, Tesla, meets certain performance levels, is a prime example of extolling work by the many that will primarily benefit him. He tweeted in November that there are easier places to work than Tesla, “but nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week.” The correct number of hours “varies per person,” he continued, but is “about 80 sustained, peaking about 100 at times. Pain level increases exponentially above 80.”

Mr. Musk, who has more than 24 million Twitter followers, further noted that if you love what you do, “it (mostly) doesn’t feel like work.” Even he had to soften the lie of T.G.I.M. with a parenthetical.

Arguably, the technology industry started this culture of work zeal sometime around the turn of the millennium, when the likes of Google started to feed, massage and even play doctor to its employees. The perks were meant to help companies attract the best talent — and keep employees at their desks longer. It seemed enviable enough: Who wouldn’t want an employer that literally took care of your dirty laundry?

But today, as tech culture infiltrates every corner of the business world, its hymns to the virtues of relentless work remind me of nothing so much as Soviet-era propaganda, which promoted impossible-seeming feats of worker productivity to motivate the labor force. One obvious difference, of course, is that those Stakhanovite posters had an anticapitalist bent, criticizing the fat cats profiting from free enterprise. Today’s messages glorify personal profit, even if bosses and investors — not workers — are the ones capturing most of the gains. Wage growth has been essentially stagnant for years.

Perhaps we’ve all gotten a little hungry for meaning. Participation in organized religion is falling, especially among American millennials. In San Francisco, where I live, I’ve noticed that the concept of productivity has taken on an almost spiritual dimension. Techies here have internalized the idea — rooted in the Protestant work ethic — that work is not something you do to get what you want; the work itself is all. Therefore any life hack or company perk that optimizes their day, allowing them to fit in even more work, is not just desirable but inherently good.

Aidan Harper, who created a European workweek-shrinkage campaign called 4 Day Week, argues that this is dehumanizing and toxic. “It creates the assumption that the only value we have as human beings is our productivity capability — our ability to work, rather than our humanity,” he told me.

It’s cultist, Mr. Harper added, to convince workers to buy into their own exploitation with a change-the-world message. “It’s creating the idea that Elon Musk is your high priest,” he said. “You’re going into your church every day and worshiping at the altar of work.”

For congregants of the Cathedral of Perpetual Hustle, spending time on anything that’s nonwork related has become a reason to feel guilty. Jonathan Crawford, a San Francisco-based entrepreneur, told me that he sacrificed his relationships and gained more than 40 pounds while working on Storenvy, his e-commerce start-up. If he socialized, it was at a networking event. If he read, it was a business book. He rarely did anything that didn’t have a “direct R.O.I.,” or return on investment, for his company.

Mr. Crawford changed his lifestyle after he realized it made him miserable. Now, as an entrepreneur-in-residence at 500 Start-ups, an investment firm, he tells fellow founders to seek out nonwork-related activities like reading fiction, watching movies or playing games. Somehow this comes off as radical advice. “It’s oddly eye-opening to them because they didn’t realize they saw themselves as a resource to be expended,” Mr. Crawford said.

It’s easy to become addicted to the pace and stress of work in 2019. Bernie Klinder, a consultant for a large tech company, said he tried to limit himself to five 11-hour days per week, which adds up to an extra day of productivity. “If your peers are competitive, working a ‘normal workweek’ will make you look like a slacker,” he wrote in an email.

Still, he’s realistic about his place in the rat race. “I try to keep in mind that if I dropped dead tomorrow, all of my acrylic workplace awards would be in the trash the next day,” he wrote, “and my job would be posted in the paper before my obituary.”

Lusty for Monday mornings

The logical endpoint of excessively avid work, of course, is burnout. That is the subject of a recent viral essay by the BuzzFeed cultural critic Anne Helen Petersen, which thoughtfully addresses one of the incongruities of hustle-mania in the young. Namely: If Millennials are supposedly lazy and entitled, how can they also be obsessed with killing it at their jobs?

Millennials, Ms. Petersen argues, are just desperately striving to meet their own high expectations. An entire generation was raised to expect that good grades and extracurricular overachievement would reward them with fulfilling jobs that feed their passions. Instead, they wound up with precarious, meaningless work and a mountain of student loan debt. And so posing as a rise-and-grinder, lusty for Monday mornings, starts to make sense as a defense mechanism.

Most jobs — even most good jobs! — are full of pointless drudgery. Most corporations let us down in some way. And yet years after the HBO satire “Silicon Valley” made the vacuous mission statement “making the world a better place” a recurring punch line, many companies still cheerlead the virtues of work with high-minded messaging. For example, Spotify, a company that lets you listen to music, says that its mission is “to unlock the potential of human creativity.” Dropbox, which lets you upload files and stuff, says its purpose is “to unleash the world’s creative energy by designing a more enlightened way of working.”

David Spencer, a professor of economics at Leeds University Business School, says that such posturing by companies, economists and politicians dates at least to the rise of mercantilism in 16th-century Europe. “There has been an ongoing struggle by employers to venerate work in ways that distract from its unappealing features,” he said. But such propaganda can backfire. In 17th-century England, work was lauded as a cure for vice, Mr. Spencer said, but the unrewarding truth just drove workers to drink more.

Internet companies may have miscalculated in encouraging employees to equate their work with their intrinsic value as human beings. After a long era of basking in positive esteem, the tech industry is experiencing a backlash both broad and fierce, on subjects from monopolistic behavior to spreading disinformation and inciting racial violence. And workers are discovering how much power they wield. In November, some 20,000 Googlers participated in a walkout protesting the company’s handling of sexual abusers. Other company employees shut down an artificial intelligence contract with the Pentagon that could have helped military drones become more lethal.

Mr. Heinemeier Hansson cited the employee protests as evidence that millennial workers would eventually revolt against the culture of overwork. “People aren’t going to stand for this,” he said, using an expletive, “or buy the propaganda that eternal bliss lies at monitoring your own bathroom breaks.” He was referring to an interview that the former chief executive of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, gave in 2016, in which she said that working 130 hours a week was possible “if you’re strategic about when you sleep, when you shower, and how often you go to the bathroom.”

Ultimately, workers must decide if they admire or reject this level of devotion. Ms. Mayer’s comments were widely panned on social media when the interview ran, but since then, Quora users have eagerly shared their own strategies for mimicking her schedule. Likewise, Mr. Musk’s “pain level” tweets drew plenty of critical takes, but they also garnered just as many accolades and requests for jobs.

The grim reality of 2019 is that begging a billionaire for employment via Twitter is not considered embarrassing, but a perfectly plausible way to get ahead. On some level, you have to respect the hustlers who see a dismal system and understand that success in it requires total, shameless buy-in. If we’re doomed to toil away until we die, we may as well pretend to like it. Even on Mondays.

#Work Hours

[brucebai]

Google Uses Search Dominance to Squash News Stories It Doesn’t Like

Google Uses Search Dominance to Squash News Stories It Doesn’t Like http://ift.tt/2vPfAT1

llustration: Jim Cooke/GMG, photo: Getty

The story in the New York Times this week was unsettling: The New America Foundation, a major think tank, was getting rid of one of its teams of scholars, the Open Markets group. New America had warned its leader Barry Lynn that he was “imperiling the institution,” the Times reported, after he and his group had repeatedly criticized Google, a major funder of the think tank, for its market dominance.

The criticism of Google had culminated in Lynn posting a statement to the think tank’s website “applauding” the European Commission’s decision to slap the company with a record-breaking $2.7 billion fine for privileging its price-comparison service over others in search results. That post was briefly taken down, then republished. Soon afterward, Anne-Marie Slaughter, the head of New America, told Lynn that his group had to leave the foundation for failing to abide by “institutional norms of transparency and collegiality.”

Google denied any role in Lynn’s firing, and Slaughter tweeted that the “facts are largely right, but quotes are taken way out of context and interpretation is wrong.” Despite the conflicting story lines, the underlying premise felt familiar to me: Six years ago, I was pressured to unpublish a critical piece about Google’s monopolistic practices after the company got upset about it. In my case, the post stayed unpublished.

I was working for Forbes at the time, and was new to my job. In addition to writing and reporting, I helped run social media there, so I got pulled into a meeting with Google salespeople about Google’s then-new social network, Plus.

The Google salespeople were encouraging Forbes to add Plus’s “+1" social buttons to articles on the site, alongside the Facebook Like button and the Reddit share button. They said it was important to do because the Plus recommendations would be a factor in search results—a crucial source of traffic to publishers.

This sounded like a news story to me. Google’s dominance in search and news give it tremendous power over publishers. By tying search results to the use of Plus, Google was using that muscle to force people to promote its social network.

I asked the Google people if I understood correctly: If a publisher didn’t put a +1 button on the page, its search results would suffer? The answer was yes.

After the meeting, I approached Google’s public relations team as a reporter, told them I’d been in the meeting, and asked if I understood correctly. The press office confirmed it, though they preferred to say the Plus button “influences the ranking.” They didn’t deny what their sales people told me: If you don’t feature the +1 button, your stories will be harder to find with Google.

With that, I published a story headlined, “Stick Google Plus Buttons On Your Pages, Or Your Search Traffic Suffers,” that included bits of conversation from the meeting.

The Google guys explained how the new recommendation system will be a factor in search. “Universally, or just among Google Plus friends?” I asked. ‘Universal’ was the answer. “So if Forbes doesn’t put +1 buttons on its pages, it will suffer in search rankings?” I asked. Google guy says he wouldn’t phrase it that way, but basically yes.

(An internet marketing group scraped the story after it was published and a version can still be found here.)

Google promptly flipped out. This was in 2011, around the same time that a congressional antitrust committee was looking into whether the company was abusing its powers.

Google never challenged the accuracy of the reporting. Instead, a Google spokesperson told me that I needed to unpublish the story because the meeting had been confidential, and the information discussed there had been subject to a non-disclosure agreement between Google and Forbes. (I had signed no such agreement, hadn’t been told the meeting was confidential, and had identified myself as a journalist.)

It escalated quickly from there. I was told by my higher-ups at Forbes that Google representatives called them saying that the article was problematic and had to come down. The implication was that it might have consequences for Forbes, a troubling possibility given how much traffic came through Google searches and Google News.

I thought it was an important story, but I didn’t want to cause problems for my employer. And if the other participants in the meeting had in fact been covered by an NDA, I could understand why Google would object to the story.

Given that I’d gone to the Google PR team before publishing, and it was already out in the world, I felt it made more sense to keep the story up. Ultimately, though, after continued pressure from my bosses, I took the piece down—a decision I will always regret. Forbes declined comment about this.

But the most disturbing part of the experience was what came next: Somehow, very quickly, search results stopped showing the original story at all. As I recall it—and although it has been six years, this episode was seared into my memory—a cached version remained shortly after the post was unpublished, but it was soon scrubbed from Google search results. That was unusual; websites captured by Google’s crawler did not tend to vanish that quickly. And unpublished stories still tend to show up in search results as a headline. Scraped versions could still be found, but the traces of my original story vanished. It’s possible that Forbes, and not Google, was responsible for scrubbing the cache, but I frankly doubt that anyone at Forbes had the technical know-how to do it, as other articles deleted from the site tend to remain available through Google.

Deliberately manipulating search results to eliminate references to a story that Google doesn’t like would be an extraordinary, almost dystopian abuse of the company’s power over information on the internet. I don’t have any hard evidence to prove that that’s what Google did in this instance, but it’s part of why this episode has haunted me for years: The story Google didn’t want people to read swiftly became impossible to find through Google.

Google wouldn’t address whether it deliberately deep-sixed search results related to the story. Asked to comment, a Google spokesperson sent a statement saying that Forbes removed the story because it was “not reported responsibly,” an apparent reference to the claim that the meeting was covered by a non-disclosure agreement. Again, I identified myself as a journalist and signed no such agreement before attending.

People who paid close attention to the search industry noticed the piece’s disappearance and wrote about it, wondering why it disappeared. Those pieces, at least, are still findable today.

As for how effective the strategy was, Google’s dominance in other industries didn’t really pan out for Plus. Six years later, the social network is a ghost town and Google has basically given up on it. But back when Google still thought it could compete with Facebook on social, it was willing to play hardball to promote the network.

Google started out as a company dedicated to ensuring the best access to information possible, but as it’s grown into one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world, its priorities have changed. Even as it fights against ordinary people who want their personal histories removed from the web, the company has an incentive to suppress information about itself.

Google said it never urged New America to fire Lynn and his team. But an entity as powerful as Google doesn’t have to issue ultimatums. It can just nudge organizations and get them to act as it wants, given the influence it wields.

Lynn and the rest of the team that left New America Foundation plan to establish a new nonprofit to continue their work. For now, they’ve launched a website called “Citizens Against Monopoly” that tells their story. It says that “Google’s attempts to shut down think tanks, journalists, and public interest advocates researching and writing about the dangers of concentrated private power must end.”

It’s safe to say they won’t be receiving funding from Google.

Update, September 1, 1:55 p.m.: Yesterday, we asked Google’s communications team for a response to this story. Initially, after reviewing contemporaneous internal Google emails about the Forbes story, two PR reps told us there was no way to know whether Google was responsible for deleting the cache and issued a short statement saying only that Forbes took down my story because it was “not reported responsibly.”

This morning, Google’s vice president of global communications, Rob Shilkin, emailed me to say definitively what two of his colleagues wouldn’t: “We had nothing to do with removing the article from the cache.” When I asked Shilkin how he came to that conclusion, he said it was based on old internal Google email threads. Since his colleagues had old email threads about the issue but never denied that Google took down the cache, I asked Shilkin if I could see the threads myself. He declined. His entire email, which he agreed to publish, is below.

Hi Kashmir

I wanted to clear the air on this. We have always enjoyed working respectfully with you and are sad to hear that you’ve carried this since 2011. I’m sorry about how this went down, and wanted to give you the tick-tock from our end.

From our perspective, this was a disagreement over whether a meeting was held under NDA. As you know, you attended a Forbes business meeting with the Google sales team, which was presenting on the (then) new +1 button. It didn’t strike our sales team as unusual that someone from Forbes’ editorial was in the meeting because they’d often attend these types of meetings - Editorial is often involved in a publication’s social strategy.

However, like most of our client meetings that discuss new features, it was held under an NDA (it sounds like Forbes didn’t inform you of this before you attended and had we known you were going to report on the meeting, we would have raised that concern).

Our sales team called their fellow attendees of the meeting from Forbes to express surprise that the article was based on a meeting held under NDA. I understand that one of our PR reps raised this concern to you, and then your editor. I understand that our PR rep asked that the piece come down from Forbes’ website, as it was reporting on a confidential business meeting.

Your editor agreed - he told our PR rep that the article was being removed because it involved reporting on an NDA meeting. As for the Google cache, it’s trivial for a website owner to request its cache to be cleared (see here). I assume this is what happened because we had nothing to do with removing the article from the cache. I hope our team has enough credibility, among those who work with us, that you know that we couldn’t and wouldn’t engage in this type of behavior - never have, never will.

You have long held our and the tech industry’s feet to the fire on privacy issues. And you have written (more than) a few critical stories about Google+ and many other things Google-related :) To my knowledge, never have we had any issues like this, with even the most critical story. On this one piece, there seems to have been an unfortunate misunderstanding over whether all the attendees at a meeting believed they were under an NDA.

I won’t pretend to love how you shared your concern about this incident but - after a stiff drink - I’m glad you raised it. I hope that in the intervening six years, we’ve re-earned your trust. And if not, we’ll keep trying.

Regards

Rob

This story was produced by Gizmodo Media Group’s Special Projects Desk.

BruceFav Bloggers via Daring Fireball http://ift.tt/1wWZ3qV September 2, 2017 at 04:13AM

#PersonalFav