The Definitive Assistant

The new assistant designer at the firm was… creative.
She’d boldly taken a sixty-year-old client’s request for a Classic Heritage look and transformed it into Cozy Chic. She’d fearlessly reimagined a newlywed couple’s marital haven into a stark, funereal monochrome.
I’d cleaned up her messes more times than I could count, doling out public reprimands and official penalties to no avail. When I finally decided she had to go, my partner, David, refused to sign off on it.
“This is just how Gen Z is,” he’d said with a shrug. “They’re full of personality. Having ideas isn’t a bad thing.”
I dropped the subject and said no more. Instead, I quietly resigned and started my own company.
Later, I heard my old firm had stepped in it—big time.
That same young woman, so cherished by the boss, had decided the design for the new City Hall was too stuffy. So, on her own authority, she’d had the entire thing painted Barbie pink.

1
“Ava, we have another situation.”
My assistant, Leah, rushed into my office, her words catching in her throat. The look on her face told me everything. It had to be our resident creative genius, Miss Full-of-Ideas, striking again.
After the Classic Heritage-turned-Cozy Chic incident, and the wedding suite-turned-mausoleum fiasco, I figured nothing she did could surprise me anymore.
“Alright, spit it out. What client’s design did she butcher this time?”
“Well, it’s not the design, Ava…” Leah stammered. “This time, she invited a few friends over to the client’s villa—the one that’s supposed to be handed over this afternoon. They had a party. It’s… a disaster.”
Leah handed me her phone, and I swiped through the photos from the scene. A dull throb started behind my eyes.
“Disaster” was putting it mildly. “Utter devastation” was closer to the mark.
Furniture was overturned, garbage littered every surface, and a closer look revealed the tell-tale shimmer of discarded foil wrappers glinting in the debris. That, at least, could be cleaned.
But the brand-new white walls were splattered with what looked like bright red hot sauce. The pristine white marble countertops were stained with dark, inky puddles that had already seeped into the stone. And the client’s custom-made, thousand-dollar wool rug was matted with several sticky, unidentifiable clumps of… something.
The sheer scale of the wreckage was overwhelming. I didn’t even know where to begin.
“When is the handover?” I asked, pinching the bridge of my nose, my eyes squeezed shut.
“This afternoon. Two o’clock,” Leah whispered.
“Right. Okay. I need you to schedule an emergency meeting with David and the other directors. Now,” I instructed. “And make sure Chloe is there. Have HR join, too.”
Leah nodded, then hesitated. “There’s a small problem with that. Chloe is… still at the villa. She just woke up from her drunken stupor. She’s sleeping it off in the client’s master bedroom.”
A white-hot rage flared in my chest. I shot to my feet, my palm slamming against the desk. Without another word, I stormed into David’s office next door.
“Your little protégée has been busy,” I snapped, throwing Leah’s phone onto his desk. “You can either call the client and explain this yourself, or you can have her do it.”
David didn’t appreciate the intrusion. He hastily blanked his phone screen and shot me an annoyed look. “Ava, how many times do I have to say it? We’re not a scrappy startup anymore. A little courtesy, like knocking, would be appreciated. Some things require privacy.”
I was too furious to speak. If I wasn’t mistaken, he’d been watching highlight clips from Chloe’s livestream. I recognized the background; a few colleagues had shown it to me before, marveling at how these “slash-generation” kids all had side hustles. They’d even commented on how generous Chloe’s top donor was, sometimes dropping thousands in a single night.
“Fine. I’ll remember that for next time,” I said, my voice tight. “Now look at the photos.”
He picked up the phone. It was his design, his project. He recognized the villa instantly. A few swipes later, his face contorted with fury. He slammed his fist on his own desk, the sound echoing through the office.
“Is this Mr. Sterling’s place? Who? Who the hell would dare to do this? I’m supposed to walk him through the final inspection this afternoon! What am I supposed to show him now?!”
I crossed my arms, a humorless smile on my lips. “Who else? Your adorable, hand-picked assistant. Chloe.”
The fire in David’s eyes died instantly, replaced by a flicker of awkward defensiveness.

2
David and I founded Apex Designs together. We’d been classmates in design school, friends for years. Through all the tough times, we never compromised on our design philosophy or the quality of our work. We clawed our way through the lean early years and slowly built the firm into what it was today—a respected company with hundreds of employees, a stellar reputation, and an IPO on the horizon.
Then, after the New Year, David showed up with a young woman in tow. His new assistant. Chloe arrived with a cloud of pinkish-purple curls, wearing a sheer, cropped blouse, denim shorts that were more pocket than pant, and a pair of Crocs. The entire office, myself included, was stunned.
But David waved it all away. “This is the new generation,” he’d declared. “It’s personality, especially for a cutting-edge designer. We should encourage it.”
When I asked about her education and experience, however, Chloe’s eyes welled up with tears.
“The school was mean, they wouldn’t give me my diploma,” she’d whimpered. “I’m super sad about it, but I don’t wanna talk about it.”
I was floored. As the co-founder and Design Director, I had standards. An employee with that level of emotional maturity didn't meet any of them.
But David was inexplicably moved. He laid down the law, his tone leaving no room for argument.
“Our firm is too buttoned-up, Ava. It’s full of straight-laced people. It feels… stagnant. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve felt any real passion or inspiration for design?”
I said nothing. He was the CEO, I was the VP. In the end, I had no real power to veto his choice of assistant.
But my silence unleashed a torrent of problems.
This girl, Chloe, was certainly… special. She complained that the catered lunches weren’t to her taste, and after a few tearful sessions with David, corn dogs and french fries were added to the menu. She couldn’t possibly drink plain bottled water, so she’d wheedled David into having the admin stock the fridge with Capri Suns and Yoo-hoos.
That was just the beginning. Her “brilliant ideas” started small, with unauthorized tweaks to approved designs. She’d swap out a client’s bedroom hardwood floors for cold tile, or their bathroom porcelain for brutalist concrete. She’d tear down walls for an open-concept kitchen a client never asked for. She even had a magnificent crystal chandelier a client had hand-picked ripped out and replaced with soulless recessed lighting.
Every time a client stormed into our office, furious and demanding compensation, Chloe would simply hide behind David, her eyes shimmering with tears as she offered her defense.
“David, babe, their ideas were just so dated,” she’d pout. “They just don’t get what’s trending now. I didn’t want our company’s work to look basic. Is it so wrong to have artistic integrity?”
And David, after a moment’s thought, would actually conclude, “Her intentions were good, even if the execution was a little off.”
With him covering for her, Chloe grew bolder. Soon, she was changing entire design schemes without consulting anyone. Mediterranean became minimalist, Scandinavian became French Country, Japanese Zen became Korean Cottagecore… she was a force of stubborn, chaotic creativity. She refused to stick to a plan, insisting on her “spontaneous inspiration.” The project managers assigned to her were losing their minds. But she was the CEO’s assistant, and David doted on her. Everyone assumed she had connections, so no one dared to cross her.
When I finally cornered her and demanded an explanation, she blew a bubble with her gum and smirked. “The clients have terrible taste. I’m just giving them the hottest styles from Pinterest.”
And after every disaster, David would sigh, comfort Chloe, and then send me to smooth things over with the client.
How do you smooth over something like that? With money. Lots of it.
We either had to undo her changes for free and throw in an upgrade, or we had to compensate them for lost time and emotional distress. I made a point of deducting every single dollar from Chloe’s salary. But all it took was one tearful visit to David’s office, and after a token lecture, he’d absorb the cost himself.
As long as someone else was paying, I couldn’t say much.
But this time, she had gone too far.

3
The owner of the villa, Mr. Sterling, was the CEO of a major real estate development company. He’d given us the contract for his personal residence as a favor to a mutual business partner. We were all hoping this project would be the gateway to a much larger contract for all of his company’s new model homes.
Now… well, now he probably wanted to kill us.
David and I were at a standoff in his office, the argument raging. I was adamant: Chloe had to be fired. She was a liability who did nothing but cause trouble and act like a child.
He wouldn’t budge. He kept insisting there must have been some kind of misunderstanding.
I was livid. “A misunderstanding? Are you going to go tell Mr. Sterling it was a misunderstanding? That’s as good as telling him we’re an unreliable, untrustworthy firm! We can’t meet a simple deadline, and if he finds out what really happened, do you think he’ll ever feel comfortable living in that house?”
David’s brow furrowed as he grasped for a defense. “I know Chloe. She has a lot of ideas, sure, but she wouldn’t do something this insane. Besides, even if you fire her, there will be a thousand other Chloes. That’s just how Gen Z is. Having ideas isn’t a bad thing.”
His twisted logic made me want to scream. “Where are you getting this idea that I have a problem with Gen Z? Leah, Josh, Kate—they’re all Gen Z. When was the last time any of them caused a five-alarm fire? Since you’re so determined to protect her and clean up her messes, why don’t you just take her home and keep her as a pet? Why inflict her on the rest of us?”
That hit a nerve. He blurted out, “You know, Ava, now that you mention it, why are you always so focused on Chloe? There are plenty of other young employees here.”
I stared at him, incredulous. Before I could even form a response, the door swung open.
“You don’t have to ask, David, babe. I know why,” Chloe announced, sauntering in with a messy bun and the hungover face of someone who’d just woken up. She was sipping a large bubble tea.
“Ava’s, what, eight years older than me? We’re practically from different generations. Of course she doesn’t get me,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Besides, I’m young, and I’m always around you… It’s only natural for her to feel a little… threatened.”

4
The room fell silent. Every eye in the office, including the directors who had gathered for the meeting, turned to me.
I was utterly baffled. David and I had known each other for a decade, worked side-by-side building this company. Sure, in the early days, there might have been a spark, a mutual flicker of something more as we supported each other through the struggle. But years of working together day in and day out had ground that spark into dust. For my part, at least, my feelings for him were purely platonic and professional.
Besides, I had other things on my mind. Over the holidays, I’d reconnected with an old high school classmate at a wedding. He worked in the same city, we’d hit it off immediately, and just last month, I’d accepted his proposal. But that was my private life; I saw no reason to broadcast it at work. Not to mention, ever since Chloe’s arrival, David had been too busy either parading her around to meetings or cleaning up her disasters to pay attention to anyone else’s life.
I dropped all pretense of politeness. “Get your head on straight,” I said to Chloe, my voice ice-cold. “I am the Vice President of this company. As an employee, do you think it’s appropriate to spread malicious rumors about me? This is a workplace, not a daycare. Act like a professional. As for Mr. Sterling’s villa, the company could sue you for the damages, and we’d win. So, which will it be? Are you going to pay for the repairs, or do we handle this through our lawyers?”
The bubble tea suddenly seemed less appealing. Chloe’s lower lip trembled as she turned her big, pleading eyes to David, just as she had countless times before.
“David, I didn’t mean to! My friends heard that the famous designer David himself did the villa, and they all wanted to see it. I was so proud of you, I just had to show them… We got tired and just had a little snack… Besides, doesn't the company have a cleaning crew? Just have them tidy up. If we don't say anything, the client will never know.”
A flicker of conflict—and a hint of pity—crossed David’s face. I saw him start to soften.
“David,” I cut in sharply before he could speak. “Mr. Sterling is expecting the final walkthrough in two hours. You need to figure out what you’re going to tell him.”
Chloe piped up, her voice a syrupy whisper. “It’ll be fine. I don’t think Mr. Sterling is mean and scary like some people. He’s probably just like the big-spender fans in my livestream. They all adore me. It’s okay, David, babe, I’ll go with you this afternoon. I’ll just bat my eyelashes and ask him nicely to forgive us.”
David’s expression relaxed. He gave her a half-hearted scolding. “Chloe, you were in the wrong here. You need to sincerely apologize to Mr. Sterling this afternoon.”
Her tears vanished, replaced by a triumphant smile. “You got it!”
Seeing that he was once again going to shield her, I gave up. “Fine. Whoever made the mess can clean it up. But I’m putting it on the record right now: if this isn’t resolved today, either she goes, or I do.”

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