Business Casual

Addison Parker:

“Hi, I’m Addison Park and I own Ap Tech. Well, yeah it’s a start up, and I’m fairly new to the game but I’m 28 years old and ready to take on the tech world.” Ugh. So. Fucking Lame. What was that? An introduction for third graders? Try again, I told myself.

I heaved in another deep breath, preparing myself for another equally awful try at an introduction.

“Hi, I’m Addison Parker and I own Ap Tech. Sure, it’s a start up but I’ve grown from it’s beginning. Ap Tech is a new mental wellness platform that merges neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and personalized specific health tracking to change how individuals manage stress, burnout, and emotional well-being. It’s next level—literally, and is revolutionizing the way artificial intelligence is utilized.” I forced a strained smile on my lips as I stared back into the mirror. Perfect, absolutely perfect. I couldn’t have said it better. At all.

I felt as if I was almost prepared to give the speeches a few hundred times tonight, even though I most certainly was not.

But I at least needed to pretend as if I was.

This was a lot of pressure, especially since this was my first outing with my start up and even speaking about it publicly.

I was in debt, let’s face it, even with the serious amounts of saving I did do, it still wasn’t enough. Business loans were expensive, like really really expensive.

And I needed to find a way to repay it, so here I was, looking for investors at a marketing event, and trying to get my business out there.

It’s similar to any type of service that sells ‘yourself’ if I’m being honest.

Maybe I’m not selling my body but I’m sure as hell selling a part of my soul.

Owning a start up and the process of actually creating one wasn’t an easy thing. In fact it wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies like you’d think it is. And believe me you’d think it was—-according to the national news media it was easy like a sunday morning.

But it was far, far from it.

It wasn’t easy to find investors, except for women investors. Women were mostly happy to support women, but men, they were a totally different story. And a lot harder to find as investors.

Success didn’t come easy for some people, not everyone could be an overnight tech mogul, like some billionaires did.

Prime example would be one I know. Well—-knew.

Noah Carson.

Noah Carson was far from the ordinary. His family— well his family are millionaires. My family is well off too, don’t get me wrong, but nothing like Noah’s family. He came from money. And it was only in his future to become even more rich.

That brings me to my next point and the main reason why I’m even talking about someone I used to know. He also opened a tech startup. It’s not much of a startup anymore though. It’s gone global, and he’s a billionaire, like I said, he was destined to become even richer.

Why did I get into the tech business you ask? Well, it’s actually partially because of Noah after all, and my big brother, who happened to be his best friend, Caleb. Caleb and Noah were obsessed with technology, when it wasn’t even a thing. They were big gamers, and beyond that obsessed with creating code, even mining for ‘bitcoin’. Everything normal boys weren’t into. In other words, they were dorks. Impressive dorks that still got girls, but dorks nevertheless.

I became obsessed with technology and code and all things ‘Noah’ after all, even though I was the annoying younger sister, who Caleb wanted out of his hair.

I was an ‘oopsie’ baby, in other words, my parents didn’t actually plan on having me. That left a huge age gap between us of 8 years, when Caleb was 18, I was 10 years old. When I was 12, Caleb was 20. When I was 18, Caleb was 26. And so was Noah. You get the point. There’s an 8 year age gap between Caleb and I—and Noah.

I sound obsessive, and when I was younger, I was.

I was pretty fucking obsessive with an annoying teenage girl. But time changes everything.

My obsession changed and faded, because Noah and Caleb just stopped being friends.

And man, I’m sure Caleb regrets it now, especially seeing how well Noah and his business are doing.

But I guess that’s life, life changes like the wind. And friendships are sort of like a breeze, carrying the memories away from us.

Anyway, I hadn’t run into Noah Carson in 8 long years, and I wasn’t planning on doing so tonight. Even though I knew there was a good possibility that it could in fact happen, being a networking conference for tech entrepreneurs.

But I’ve always been an optimist so I shouldn’t stop now. I should continue being one for the sake of my own nerves.

I let out a heavy anticipatory sigh as I looked back at my reflection in the mirror. Perfect posture, long blonde hair, a little bit too much black eyeliner, and a nervous twitch in my eye. Yep, I’m not ready. At all.

You got this, Addison, I told myself.

But I knew there was a shred of doubt inside me that told me otherwise. I didn’t feel like I got it.

The nerves weighed on me like I was somehow drowning in shallow water. And let me tell you, usually I was a fantastic swimmer, but now I was far from it, I could barely move my legs underwater.

I needed a drink, that’ll help.

I quickly poured myself a large heaping glass of wine, the kind of glass that filled to the brim and you had to dip your neck down to sip before even picking up the glass in your hand. Yeah, that’s exactly the type of glass I needed right now.

I slugged the wine in less than a minute before feeling the alcohol warm my body and give me the confidence I was so desperately searching for.

Eyes half lidded, the stench of wine on my breath, and a fragmented delusion of confidence, and I was ready to take on the night.

I was ready to convince some investors that my startup was the right startup to invest in.

I was Addison Parker, graduate of Northwestern University, 28 years old, female, pretty and smart, I knew I was talking about, I started the company with a lot of long nights fueled by caffeine and 3 hours of sleep, my resilience in unmatched, my work ethic is unparalleled, and I have a never give up attitude. I could do this. I could make this happen.

With one click of my phone, I ordered a ride and waited impatiently for five minutes until the car pulled up and turned on its flashers outside my brownstone. I lived in the Back Bay area of Boston. It was quaint, and had a certain homeyness to it. I liked that it was the city but also surrounded by such rich history.

As we drove through the city, my eyes remained on the outside flashing lights, the historic buildings of Boston, along with the quaint cobblestone side streets.

Approximately 20 minutes later, the car came to a stop in front of the Boston Hilton in the downtown area, where the networking event was set to take place.

As my heels hit the cement, a nerve wrecking feeling flashed over me.

It was the ‘oh shit’ type of feeling that never meant anything good.

I couldn’t pinpoint why, but my feet began to feel more like cement, as I made my way towards the Hilton’s elegant stone entrance, lit with warm golden hues, and a doorman to boot. At the entrance were two men in all black suits with serious looks on their faces, security guards. Security guards at any high profile event weren’t unusual but it was the way their eyes surveyed their surroundings that made me suspicious. I got that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach again.

As soon as I walked inside, I felt it again in the air as my eyes scanned the hotel’s lobby, looking up at high golden ceilings as laughter sounded around me.