No Jobs For Mommys Little Girl Chapter 1

The new intern orientation is always a circus, but this year felt different.

I was buried in quarterly projections when my phone buzzed with a LinkedIn request. The note was brief: “I’m Mackenzie’s mother. Please add me.”

Mackenzie was the star of this year’s cohort—the kind of Ivy League recruit whose resume looked like it had been curated by a PR firm. Top of her class, perfect test scores, glowing recommendations. I hesitated, then clicked 'Accept.'

The floodgates opened instantly.

A barrage of messages lit up my screen. She wasn’t looking for professional feedback; she was providing a manual for her daughter’s existence. She demanded the cafeteria prepare low-sodium, organic meals. She requested a private nap pod for Mackenzie’s afternoon "recharge." She even specified that Mackenzie required two hard-boiled eggs every morning, organic and pre-peeled, because Mackenzie "found the shells distressing."

I stared at the screen, a cocktail of amusement and horror rising in my chest. I took a screenshot, forwarded it to my assistant, and deleted the woman’s contact without a word.

I thought that was the end of it. I thought I was hiring a software engineer, not adopting a Victorian child.

* * *

I was reviewing the latest revenue reports when the notification pinged again. This time it was a direct text.

“Hi, this is Mackenzie’s mom. I need you to approve this.”

I felt a prickle of annoyance. Mackenzie had placed first in both the technical and culture-fit interviews, but this was becoming a distraction. I accepted the message out of morbid curiosity.

“Hello, Morgan,” she wrote, using my first name with a familiarity that made my skin crawl. “Please look after my little girl. She’s very special.”

“We value all our interns,” I replied, keeping it professional.

The screen immediately filled with a scrolling wall of text.

“Morgan, our Mackenzie is delicate. She’s never had to deal with hardship. Her stomach is sensitive, and the office catering is far too greasy. I’ll send you a custom menu for the kitchen to follow.”

“Also, she needs a nap. Does the office have a quiet room? It needs blackout curtains. Oh, and about her breakfast—she needs two hard-boiled eggs every morning for protein. Make sure someone peels them; she doesn’t like the mess. And the fruit must be pre-sliced. She won't eat it otherwise.”

“Don’t put too much pressure on her. She’s fragile. If she gets criticized, she might cry, and we can’t have that. She’s my only daughter. She’s the hope of our entire family...”

I stared at the list. Was I running a multi-million dollar tech firm or a boutique daycare? I didn't reply. I simply screenshotted the entire deranged manifesto and sent it to Daniel, my Chief of Staff.

“Handle this per company policy. Ignore any further communication from this woman,” I messaged him. Then, I blocked her.

I hoped it was a fluke, a case of a "helicopter parent" who didn't know when to let go. But I quickly realized that Mackenzie and her mother were cut from the same cloth.

Mackenzie had talent, certainly. But she spent 90% of her energy on the optics of work rather than the work itself. During a departmental sprint, she presented her progress with a slide deck so flashy it belonged at a tech keynote, filled with buzzwords and high-res animations. It looked like she’d solved cold fusion.

The CTO, however, wasn't impressed. He squinted at the screen. “The efficiency on this algorithm is abysmal, Mackenzie. Why didn't you use Option B? It’s the industry standard for a reason.”

Mackenzie adjusted her designer glasses and shrugged with an air of unearned confidence. “My mom always says the presentation is what people see first. We can fix the 'boring' details later.”

The room went dead silent.

In the corner, almost invisible, was Noelle. She was the runner-up in the internship rankings—a quiet girl with thick-rimmed glasses who rarely spoke unless she had something vital to say. While Mackenzie was busy perfecting her font choices, Noelle was quietly shipping code.

A few nights later, a critical bug crashed the dev environment at 2:00 AM. Mackenzie was in the group chat, posting long-winded theories about "synergistic failures" and "architectural misalignment."

Then, a single message from Noelle popped up: “Issue resolved. It was a parameter mismatch in the auth-token. Patch is live.”

The next morning, I overheard two senior devs in the breakroom.

“God, Mackenzie is exhausting,” one whispered. “If I have to hear one more story about her mother’s 'wisdom,' I’m going to quit. She’s all fluff.”

“Tell me about it,” the other replied. “Noelle, though? She stayed late and optimized my redundant code yesterday. Boosted the execution speed by thirty percent. She’s the real deal.”

I sipped my coffee, watching the two interns through the glass wall. The trial period was ending soon.

On Friday afternoon, I asked Daniel to post the final capstone project. And with a flick of my finger, I assigned Mackenzie as the Project Lead.