i.
Harry is a nice man, he promises. He just has to work with stupid people all god damn day, and being the boss of them doesn't really help him in the slightest, so he comes off as a bit of a prick and he can't help that. It's like – these people don't understand all he has to do in one day, and it's tiring trying to keep a smile on his face when he's pissed off, so they'd labeled him some sort of hard ass and well...he guesses it's not too bad being feared.
So he pities the people who have to come to him for a job interview, when Liam (who was the nicer face of the company) wasn't in. Especially the younger ones – while Harry is only 27, he feels as if he's gathered enough knowledge to be in his senior. Running a chain of supermarkets rivaling Costco was not an easy feat, and he needed hardworking people who knew what they were doing, so there were a lot of interviews cut short for pauses and "uh's", plus he wasn't the easiest to impress. It's safe to say not a lot of people are hired because of him, but the best people are hired because of him.
When there is a knock on the door, warning Harry that someone was heading to his office with a fun little outfit who's hoping for a job, he spins his chair from facing out the window and scoots up to his desk. An application waking up his fax machine that he peels out and reads over, because most the time this was his favorite part – a lot of people get declined right off the bat from this, especially if they seem useless. Though he's gotten good laughs from seeing these people's cheesy descriptions of themselves.
However, with this one, he finds himself reading over it seriously. A casual hand cupped over his mouth as his eyes scanned over, this Y/N's application – a 21 year old girl, fresh out of college, and seemingly exuberant in her writing. Even the list of her strengths and weaknesses had him intrigued, from a strength of typing to a weakness of having too many tabs open at once, it made him want to giggle almost and not at her...with her, which is very unusual for him. There's an eloquence to it that makes him eager to meet her, and the elevator ride up is taking far too long for his taste.
There's a knock on the door to which Harry gives an unfazed, "Come in." while he skims over the last few items on the resume he'd switched onto, closing it when the click of his secretary's boots hit the floor, "Good luck." He whispers to the girl – who Harry presumes to be Y/N, before patting her on the back and she smiles graciously before turning towards Harry.
"Good morning, Mr. Styles," she grins, reaching into her purse, "I brought you a muffin."
Harry is...startled, to say the least, a snort catching him off guard from his own lips, "Already trying to bribe me then?" He asks, and Y/N nods, handing it to him, "I'm not an easy man to bribe, Miss. Y/N. Take a seat."
"I heard white chocolate chip muffin's were your favorite," she continues, smoothing down her skirt to take a seat on the chair before him, "So I baked a batch from the heart."
"While this is a nice gesture, you're not being interviewed for a job in a bakery," he reminds her, "I don't mess around in interviews, I don't care to get to know you, and I'm not easily persuaded," he starts off, seeing if he can see any form of doubt in her eyes but they stay unruffled, "So I will give you exactly five minutes to wow me. You're lucky, it's usually three, but your application and resume intrigued me, so lets hope you speak as well as you write."
Y/N nods, scooting closer to him in her chair, "Well, for starters I'm Y/N Y/L/N. . ."
This is where she begins, simple and easy, before diving into where she went to high school, to college, her grade point average throughout, the community service she's done in the past and present, and nowhere does he hear the usual I'm a hardworker and very dependable, which doesn't perturb him any. He finds the ones who say that to be the least of those two attributes. She tells him a brief history of previous jobs, her minor in astronomy (and he didn't seem to care she got carried away talking about stars), explains to him that she has the utmost respect for her higher ups and has "nifty pens for notes! I'm stellar at taking notes, Mr. Styles, best in my class I'd say".
