Page 14 of 12 Years: My Messed-up Love Story

DUBAI

‘You’re the most hard-working guy we have. And you’re quitting?’

Advik, my boss, said, leaning back in his swivel chair as he waited for me to respond.

‘I’m sad to leave as well,’ I said.

I sat in Advik’s office at Pantheon Fund, my employer for the last two years. Advik had started Pantheon seven years ago, and it had already grown into a two-billion-dollar fund.

‘Why are you leaving? Joining one of our competitors?’

Advik said, getting up and walking to the bay window that overlooked the Burj Khalifa.

‘No.’

‘We can match any offer. You know that.’

‘I’m not joining another firm. Pantheon’s a great place.’

‘Then?’

Advik said, still looking outside.

‘I’m going to build my own start-up.’

‘Oh.’

Advik turned around to look at me.

‘When did this happen? I didn’t know you had the start-up bug.’

‘It was always the plan. A long time ago, I had a start-up that I sold.’

‘Oh yes. I remember you telling me about that during your interview.’

‘Yeah. I think I’m ready to build something again. I’m sorry to leave the Pantheon team though. Also, I must apologize to you, because you gave me a chance to work here.’

‘Well,’

Advik said.

‘You got to do what you got to do. I built Pantheon to help entrepreneurs achieve their dreams. How can I hold back my own people from doing the same?’

‘Thank you.’

‘I hired you because I loved your profile. You had experience. Plus, you had the ability to make bold moves. Like that comedy career you tried.’

I winced.

‘That was so cool. Do you still do stand-up gigs?’

‘No,’

I said.

‘That died a few years back.’

‘Why?’

‘Long story,’ I said.

‘Hmm. Anyway, what’s the start-up?’

‘Well, I’m calling it SecurityNet. It’s a cybersecurity company, particularly for cloud-based platforms.’

‘Okay, sounds interesting. I like ideas that can be described in one line.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Tell me more. I’m curious. How does it work?’

Over the next fifteen minutes, I gave him an outline of what SecurityNet was going to be, and its use case in the fast-growing cloud-server space.

Advik came back to his desk, sat down, opened a drawer and took out a cheque book. In true Wall Street Gordon Gekko style, he slid it towards me.

‘I want in,’

Advik said.

‘On whatever you’re doing. I like what I heard.’

‘Really? Advik, it’s brand-new. I need to build it up from scratch.’

‘That’s okay. The sooner I get in, the bigger the upside.’

‘Pantheon invests in companies that have achieved a certain size. SecurityNet hasn’t even begun.’

‘I’m not investing as Pantheon. I’m investing in a personal capacity. How much do you need to get started?’

‘Half a million US dollars.’

‘And who’s funding it right now?’

‘I have some savings. My best friend, Mudit, is putting in some money. That’ll cover half of it. For the rest, I was going to approach some VC firms.’

‘No need,’

Advik said. He wrote a cheque for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and handed it to me. ‘Works?’

‘Wow. I came here to resign. I thought you’d be mad. I’m getting a cheque instead.’

‘That’s how life works sometimes. Am I in then?’

‘What percentage do you want for this?’

‘I’m putting up half the investment. So, fifty per cent?’

‘I’m doing all the work. I keep fifty per cent for that. The remaining fifty, you, Mudit and I divide on the basis of our investment ratios. You’re putting in half the money, so half of fifty. Twenty-five per cent.’

‘Can I get more?’

‘Take it or leave it,’ I said.

He laughed.

‘You’re smart. And a tough negotiator.’

‘Don’t you want your founder to be that? Cold, rational and tough?’

‘I do. Done. We have a deal,’

Advik said as I shook hands with my new investor.

‘Fifty million. Did you say fifty million dollars?’

‘We are not getting fifty million. That’s just the valuation for SecurityNet,’ I said.

I was on the phone with Mudit, sitting in my office in Dubai.

It was a small room with glass windows facing the main road.

It had been two years since the launch of SecurityNet.

Our team had grown to thirty people, and we had a modest two-thousand-square-feet office space in Media City.

We had just closed a Series B, or a second round of funding.

Two private equity firms had invested five million dollars each, receiving a ten per cent stake in return.

With this ten-million-dollar raise, we could expand our operations by hiring more people and growing our server infrastructure.

‘Fifty million. Say, seventy rupees to a dollar. Wow, that’s like three hundred and fifty crore rupees,’

Mudit said.

‘It’s only the valuation. On paper. Relax, we have a long way to go, Mudit.’

‘Still. You created this company. From zero to fifty million, in two years.’

‘Well, you helped. You gave me the seed money.’

‘How much is my stake worth now?’

Mudit said.

‘Mudit, there’s no point in doing all these calculations. You can’t get this money. Every cent coming into the company is for growth.’

‘I want to feel rich, bro. Even if it’s only on paper.’

‘Okay, fine. So, you had a twelve and a half per cent stake. Now, we all get diluted to accommodate the new investors. Meaning, you now own ten per cent.’

‘Ten per cent of fifty million. I’m worth five million dollars? Seriously?’

‘On paper, yes.’

‘Fuck me. Really? Why am I still running a comedy club?’

‘Because this is a paper stake. And it’ll remain so until we have an exit—either the company gets acquired or we do an IPO.’

‘We will, though, right? One day?’

‘As they say here in Dubai, inshallah. God willing, we will. Lots of hard work ahead.’

‘I’m coming.’

‘What?’

‘I’m coming to Dubai.’

‘To visit?’

‘No, I’m moving there. I’m joining SecurityNet. Helping you grow it. And growing the value of my stake as well.’

‘Really? You aren’t kidding, are you?’

‘You have a role for me?’

‘Yeah. Marketing, branding, business development. We need a head for all that.’

‘I’ll do it.’

‘What about the club?’

‘I have people here. There’s a manager who can handle things. I’ll keep kicking his ass virtually from Dubai.’

‘Cool. When can you join?’

‘When is the next flight out?’

I laughed.

‘I’ve missed you,’ I said.

‘I’ve missed you too, bro. And it’s nice to hear you laugh.’

‘You come here. Maybe I’ll smile more after all. It does get lonely here.’

‘Still no girlfriend?’

‘Nope.’

‘It’s been, what, four or five years, bro? Start dating. You’re not still hung up on that girl in Mumbai, right?’

Yes, I still was. And he’d just reminded me of her.

‘Leave all that. Let’s talk about your move. We need to start your immigration paperwork,’ I said.

How could I tell Mudit about the PTs, or the Payal Triggers, that I still lived with? Under normal circumstances, four to five years is more than enough time for people to recover from a break-up.

But here I was, thirty-nine years old now, a fully grown, mature man with grey hair.

How could I still get so affected by anything even remotely related to her?

I walked out of my office and went up to Alok, the CTO of the company.

‘I’m leaving,’

I told him.

‘I’ll just work from home for the rest of the day.’

Alok looked at me in surprise. It was only one in the afternoon. I rarely left the office before midnight.

‘Everything okay, Saket?’

‘A bit unwell. I’ll be fine.’

In Dubai, I lived in a one-bedroom flat in a building called Princess Towers, around four kilometres away from the office. Despite the brutal summer weather, I decided to walk back home. I hoped the heat and the sweat would wash away all thoughts of Payal.

‘She probably has a kid by now. Maybe two,’

I mumbled to myself.

It was forty-five degrees centigrade outside, which meant that nobody was foolish enough to be walking on the pavement—except for me, of course.

I felt I deserved this punishment for being unable to fix my brain even after so much time had passed.

I could move countries, create a company from the ground up and raise funding.

I could not, however, figure out a way to stop thinking about Payal.

Anything could trigger them—the damn PTs were everywhere.

I see a girl in a corporate suit—boom, I’m back in Express Towers.

Is Payal still going to office there? What would she be doing all day? Stop it, Saket, she’s married.

She’s gone. I’d bring myself back to reality, only to be hit by another PT a few hours later.

‘Any dietary restrictions, sir?’

a server would ask me at a random restaurant. That’s a PT. Guess who has dietary restrictions? Jains. And who’s the Jain who continues to haunt me? Bingo. A glass of white wine was a PT. As was the wor.

‘chartered accountant’. Wedding scenes in a random movie, couples holding hands, songs Payal and I had heard together … the world was a minefield of PTs, and there was no way I could avoid them.

I pulled out my phone. It was hard to see the screen under the scorching sun. I increased the brightness and opened WhatsApp. I sent a message to Neha:

‘Hi. Sorry for the late reply. Let’s catch up soon?’

‘Hey, no problem,’

Neha replied immediately.

Neha and I had met at Alok’s birthday party at the Barasti Beach club some two weeks ago.

She was working in Dubai, and her brother was Alok’s best friend.

That’s how she’d landed up at the birthday celebrations.

We spoke briefly at the party. She worked in a consulting company and wanted to open her own online bakery business.

Maybe I’m an idiot when it comes to reading signals from women. I really thought she wanted my business advice. I gave her tips about making a business plan. She listened intently, smiling frequently as I spoke.

‘See, a business plan’s like a recipe. Or a movie script. If you have a good plan, a solid script, your dish, or the movie, will turn out well.’

‘I love how you explain things. Thank you,’ she said.

‘You’re welcome,’ I said.

‘I’d love to get more of your guidance. If you want to hang out sometime, for drinks or dinner or whatever …’

‘I keep pretty busy,’

I said.

‘with my own start-up.’

‘Oh, okay. Only if you want to,’

she said, looking somewhat taken aback.

I finally realized she had something else in mind. She wanted a date, not a business-advice session.

‘I hardly socialize,’ I said.

‘I understand,’

Neha said.

‘Shall we exchange numbers anyway?’

A few days after that party, she messaged me saying how nice it was to talk to me and that if I ever wanted to take a break from work, I could message her.

I wasn’t interested. However, perhaps meeting other people would help me move on. Maybe meeting Neha would help me deal with the PTs. Even Mudit kept telling me to go on dates.

‘What are you doing this evening?’

I messaged Neha.

‘An inside table, of course,’

I said to the waiter. I had done my hot sauna walk for the day.

Neha and I arrived within minutes of each other at Attiko, the rooftop bar and restaurant at the W Hotel in Mina Seyahi.

The waiter led us to a table in the air-conditioned section indoors.

Attiko has a stunning view of the Palm Jumeirah, a man-made island in the shape of a palm tree.

Its fronds are lined with villas that have their own private beaches.

From the thirty-second floor, however, the multi-million-dollar Palm villas looked like toy homes arranged along the water.

‘What an incredible view!’ I said.

‘I’m glad you like it,’

Neha said. She was the one who’d suggested we meet here.

Neha was wearing a short, fitted orange dress. Heads had turned when she entered Attiko with me. Despite her attractiveness, Neha stirred nothing in me.

‘Where are you originally from?’ I said.

‘Lucknow,’ she said.

‘Ah, okay,’

I said. Possibly, the dullest response a man could give, ever. I could’ve at least asked her something about Lucknow. Like if she fancied tunde kebabs or chikankari suits or something.

We ordered two tequila sodas.

‘How about you?’

she said.

‘Where were you before you came to Dubai?’

‘Mumbai. Although I’m originally from Chandigarh.’

‘Chandigarh … Nice city,’ she said.

Chandigarh is the quintessentia.

‘nice city’. Maybe it’s the planned roads that make people believe the place is nice. But nice also means boring, which is where this date was going anyway.

‘Yeah, Rock Garden and all,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘The Rock Garden? It’s this famous place in Chandigarh. Been there too many times. Every time someone visited us from out of town, we had to take them to the Rock Garden. Traumatic memories.’

‘Why traumatic?’

she said, sounding concerned.

‘I mean, not really traumatic. But I just went there way too many times. I was trying to make a joke.

‘Oh.’

‘That landed flat.’

‘Who landed?’

‘The joke. Sorry, that’s comic lingo. I used to be a stand-up comic, a long time back.’

‘Stand up?’ she said.

‘Stand-up comic? Like people who make jokes on stage?’

‘Oh, interesting,’

Neha said in a disinterested tone.

I remembered a time when the conversation would flow and the jokes would land effortlessly. My mind went flying back to one of those random nights in that tiny Pali Hill flat.

Payal and I were lying in bed, chatting.

‘Good show today?’

Payal said.

‘Yes, the audience loved it. They were hooting and whistling.’

‘That’s great. Listen, do you still do the push-up-bra bit?’

‘Yep. It always works. I always get the loudest laughs for the dhakka-maar bra.’

‘I actually have an objection to file on that,’

Payal said, sitting up and turning towards me.

‘What?’

I said, looking at her twinkly eyes.

‘You say that push-up bras are technically a fraud.’

‘Yeah …’

‘How is it a fraud? They advertise it as that.’

‘Well, the men don’t know.’

‘I use push-up bras sometimes. I’m not that big.’

‘I know. It’s okay.’

‘It’s okay? Excuse me?’

‘Yes, it’s okay, baby. I love you anyway, whatever your size.’

‘Ouch,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Nothing. It’s okay, Saket. I love you too anyway, whatever your size.’

‘Huh?’

I sat up.

‘What do you mean?’

Payal smiled.

‘Is it small?’ I said.

‘Well …’

Payal trailed off, a grin on her face. She fluffed a pillow and leaned back against the headrest.

‘What?’

‘I’ve seen bigger,’

Payal said.

‘Ouch. Double, triple ouch. Where have you seen them?’

‘In porn.’

‘Oh, of course. Porn actors are the outliers in size. The top one per cent. It’s like they’ve cleared the porn-JEE.’

‘Well, you certainly wouldn’t clear that JEE. Good thing you took the other JEE.’

‘Ow!’

I said.

‘That hurts. You’re brutal, Payal Jain.’

‘It’s okay, baby,’

Payal said, patting my shoulder.

‘I still love you.’

‘You’re so bad,’

I said, grabbing Payal as she burst out laughing.

‘What happened?’

Neha said as she caught me smiling.

‘Huh? What? Nothing,’

I said, coming back to the present.

‘Anyway, when do you want to open your online bakery business? What’s the timeline?’ I said.

‘We’ll see. I’m quite happy with my job too,’ she said.

Okay, she never really wanted to open a business.

‘Tell me something. When you asked to meet me, was it to discuss business plans or something else?’ I said.

‘Like what?’

‘Like us dating potentially.’

She smiled. ‘Maybe,’

she said.

‘You’re single, right?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘How come?’

she said, tilting her head a little to the side.

‘As in how am I single even at this age? What’s wrong with me?’ I said.

‘No, nothing like that. Sorry.’

‘It’s okay. I’m thirty-nine. So, yes, I shouldn’t be single, but I am. I was married a long time ago. Got divorced about six years back.’

‘Any relationships since then?’

‘Yes, one. It ended a while ago.’

‘What happened?’

‘I …’

I hesitated.

‘I’d rather not talk about it, if that’s okay?’

‘Sure. Did it end recently?’

‘No, around five years ago.’

‘Oh,’

she said, probably thinking I was a weirdo who found it difficult to talk about five-year-old break-ups. She wasn’t wrong though. I was that weirdo.

‘And have you dated anyone since then?’ she said.

I shook my head.

‘Oh,’

she said again.

‘I had to focus on my job and then my company. How about you? What makes you single?’

‘It’s not by choice,’

Neha said, smiling ruefully. She brushed her hair back from her forehead. She had some make-up on. The dark-red lipstick she was wearing made her lips look even thicker. Or maybe she’d had her lips filled—that seemed to be an extremely popular trend in Dubai. She looked like a heroine in one of those Abbas–Mustan murder-mystery movies—a little tacky, but sexy nonetheless.

‘I came to Dubai five years ago. I’ve met quite a few guys on dates. However, all they want to do is party and then sleep with me. Nobody wants anything serious.’

I nodded.

‘That’s why I’m still single. Even though my friends say, “You’re a catch, how are you not taken yet?”’

‘I agree with them,’

I said, more out of courtesy than anything else.

‘Yeah, so that’s that,’

she said, smiling. I smiled back.

Two minutes of awkward silence followed. It felt like two hours. She twirled the straw in her glass. I took a sip of my drink. What are you supposed to do on dates that fizzle out even before the first drink is over? Someone needs to write a bad-date protocol manual, seriously.

Maybe I should talk, I thought. What do I say? I don’t even know her. Dating and meeting new people is so stressful. I decided to ask the lamest first-date question ever.

‘What are your hobbies?’

Seriously, Saket, that’s how boring you’ve become?

‘I like playing musical instruments.’

‘Oh, which ones?’

I faked interest.

‘In school, I used to play the piano and the violin. Now, I have a keyboard at home.’

‘Ah, okay. I have a keyboard too. Only, it doesn’t make music, it makes code.’

‘What do you mean?’ she said.

‘It was a joke. Like when you say “keyboard”, you mean the synthesizer, a digital piano, yes?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And I use the keyboard on the computer to write code. Anyway, forget it. Didn’t land again.’

‘What didn’t land?’

‘Nothing. Should we ask for the cheque?’ I said.

Or a gun, so we could shoot ourselves out of this misery?

‘How did this happen?’

I said, biting my lip to prevent myself from bursting out in anger. Hands on my waist, I stood in front of the four stacked computer monitors in Alok’s cubicle.

Our website and our server both had crashed. Our helpline number was choked with calls, most of them with complaints from irate customers.

‘Our own cloud server crashed,’

Alok said, furiously moving his mouse around, trying to figure out what had happened.

Others in the office gathered around us. Mudit came out of his office as well. He had moved to Dubai and worked for SecurityNet now. We’d set his office up in the room right next to mine.

‘Did someone hack us?’ I said.

‘No, there’s just too much load on the server,’

Alok said.

‘This looks terrible as far as all our clients are concerned. Like we’re a fly-by-night company that can’t even keep its server running.’

‘I’m sorry, Saket.’

Alok stood up, looking downcast.

‘But in a way, this much load on the server is a good thing, isn’t it?’

Mudit said.

‘Our services are in demand …’

‘In a way, yes,’

I said in a loud voice.

‘But we can’t have our server crash. This is just sloppy. Increase our server capacity. When have I ever stopped you from spending on infrastructure, Alok?’

Alok looked visibly shaken at my rare outburst of anger.

‘Fix it,’ I said.

‘Yes, Saket,’

he said meekly.

‘Now!’ I yelled.

‘Calm down, Saket,’

Mudit said, grabbing me by my shoulder.

‘Come, let’s go to your office.’

Mudit took me back to my office and shut the door.

‘What’s the matter with you? Had too much of your pre-workout supplement today?’

he said, sitting on one end of my office table.

I sank into my chair and let out a sigh of frustration.

‘Our server and website crashed. Do you even realize what that means?’ I said.

‘Yeah, I do,’

Mudit said, rubbing the back of his neck.

I checked the site functionality on my own desktop. We were still down. In anger, I banged my fist on the table.

‘Control, bro. What’s with all this aggression?’

‘This stupid Alok,’

I said.

‘Should I fire him? Maybe I should. It’ll send a strong message.’

I stood up to go out.

‘Stop it,’

Mudit said, physically restraining me.

‘He’s a kid. Sit down.’

I paused for a second and sat down again.

‘Alok is just a geek you hired from Bangalore. He made a mistake. It happens. We’re growing gangbusters, bro. Nobody could’ve anticipated this demand. The team will fix it by tomorrow.’

I nodded and took several deep breaths.

‘What’s going on with you?’

Mudit said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You don’t sound okay. This is not you. Chill a bit.’

‘You don’t build a unicorn by chilling. You have to work hard.’

‘You’ve always worked hard. But you have these anger issues now. You’ve become hard.’

‘Hard?’

‘We used to do comedy. You made people laugh. This is not the Saket I knew. That Saket would’ve made three jokes by now about me using the word “hard”.’

I smirked.

‘Comedy. What an idiotic phase that was.’

‘It wasn’t idiotic. It was you being authentic and following your heart.’

‘If you want to fuck your life up properly, follow your heart.’

‘So, what do you want to follow now?’

‘Money,’

I said, and turned to my desktop again.

‘When did Saket become all about the money?’

Mudit said.

‘The same Saket who gave almost everything to his ex-wife just to be free and come to Mumbai …’

‘When Saket realized that without money, a man is nothing,’

I said, clicking through the process logs from right before the site’s failure.

Mudit leaned forward and switched off my monitor.

‘What the …?’

I looked up at him, irritated.

‘Let’s get out of here. Our site is down. It’s a forced day off.’

Mudit took me to Topgolf. Located in the Emirates Golf Club, it’s a snazzy, hi-tech golf driving range plus bar and restaurant. We hired one of the many bays from where you can hit golf balls into the large ground in front. Mudit also ordered two large pints of beer and burgers for both of us.

‘My diet, Mudit,’ I said.

‘Uff, what are you? A Miss Universe model?’

I sneered.

‘You’re too stuck up,’

Mudit said.

‘Loosen up. To misquote a little, “Pardon my French, but Saket is so tight that if you stuck a lump of coal up his ass, in two weeks you’d have a diamond …”’

‘That’s from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Great movie,’ I said.

‘Thank God, you still remember some fun things,’

Mudit said.

‘Come, hit some balls with me.’

Mudit stood up and collected a ball from the automatic ball dispenser. He took a driver and hit a hard shot. The geotagged ball flew, and the screen in the bay trajectory showed it landing 140 yards away.

‘Not bad.’

‘Your turn, mister.’

I hit a shot.

‘110 yards?’

Mudit smirked.

‘So much for the pumping-iron man. You’re weak, bro.’

‘Dude, I’ve never played golf in my entire life. This is the first time I ever lifted a club,’ I said.

‘Maybe you should take it up then. Have some fun, Mr CEO,’

Mudit said, taking another shot.

‘I’m going to bust your ass,’

I said.

‘eventually.’

‘In your dreams.’

We played for an hour. Mudit’s best shot was 170 yards. I couldn’t go beyond 140. We finished the game and sat down on the couches in the bay.

‘I have to come and practise,’

I said.

‘This isn’t acceptable.’

‘Ouch, someone is hurt,’

Mudit said, grinning.

‘This ain’t deadlifting, bro. This requires skill and coordination.’

‘Deadlifting does too.’

‘Yeah, right, so much skill,’

Mudit said. He stood up and did a mock deadlift with a golf driver, pretending to struggle and making a grunting sound.

I laughed.

‘Good to see you laugh, bro,’

Mudit said. He lifted his beer glass to clink with mine.

‘Thanks for bringing me here,’

I said.

‘I needed this.’

‘What has got you so wound up anyway?’

‘Nothing. Work. The company.’

‘Do you know the buzz about our next funding round? A three-hundred-million-dollar-plus valuation! You’re travelling to New York next month to meet the investors. Things are looking good.’

‘I don’t know. It doesn’t feel as good though.’

‘Why? What else is bothering you?’

I took a sip of my beer.

‘Nothing really, just that … nothing interests me in life now. I work, and that’s it. If I’m not working, I feel weird.’

‘Weird? As in … lonely?’

‘Maybe. Don’t get me wrong. I have you. The people in the company. And we’re growing, doing amazing. But sometimes, it all feels meh. Like, what’s it for?’

‘Okay, bro, I know what your problem is.’

‘What?’

‘You need love in your life.’

I recoiled.

‘No, thanks.’

‘Okay, fine. That was just a nice way of saying it. What I meant is, you need to get laid.’

‘What?’

‘When was the last time you got some action?’

Mudit said, gesturing with his hand to make things clearer.

‘I don’t know,’

I said.

‘Why is that important? And do we order some more food?’

‘Don’t change the topic. You haven’t even touched your burger. Tell me, when was the last time you did it?’

I shook my head.

‘Bro, don’t tell me that you haven’t since …’

he paused mid-sentence.

‘I haven’t. You know I haven’t dated anyone.’

‘Yes. So, wait, nobody since Payal? Wow,’

Mudit said.

Oh, why did he mention her name? It’s going to ruin my first happy evening in months.

‘You need to go on dates, bro. At least try,’

Mudit said.

‘I tried. A while ago.’

‘Oh?’

Mudit raised an eyebrow.

‘And you didn’t tell me?’

‘It was lousy. No reason to talk about it.’

‘Why was it lousy? Who did you go out with?’

‘This girl, Neha. Met her at that office party.’

‘Oh, that hot chick? Alok’s best friend’s sister, right? She and her brother came to pick Alok up after work one day and I saw her.’

‘Yes. That’s her.’

Mudit mock-punched my shoulder.

‘Not bad, bro. What happened?’

I recounted my awkward date at Attiko.

‘And that’s it. We didn’t really communicate after that,’ I said.

‘From what you tell me, she was DTF, bro,’

Mudit said.

‘DTF?’

‘Down to fuck. Get it?’

‘I’m seriously getting old. I don’t know these new-gen acronyms.’

‘Not the point. She wanted you. You should’ve just done it.’

‘But I didn’t see the fit. We weren’t compatible long-term.’

‘First, do it. Then figure out all this performance-review type compatible-long-term stuff.’

‘How?’

I said.