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– journalists and rock stars are two different things. We have to hold ourselves to a higher standard on when we deliver the goods.”
    “So you’re saying you’re better than rock stars,” Ryan said with the tiniest bit of coldness in his voice.
    “Oh, no, no no no no no – no, I wasn’t implying that – ”
    “So you were placing punctuality above quality? Deadlines above genius?”
    “No, with journalists, we need both punctuality and quality. And I hardly think that Ms. Reynolds qualifies as a genius,” he said with a snarky little glance over at me.
    Asshole.
    “Whether she is or not, I’m telling you from firsthand experience that sometimes you can’t rush the work,” Ryan said evenly. “Sometimes you need to let the work breathe and develop organically. Rushing it can destroy it.”
    Now Glen was becoming impatient. I could tell, because his deference towards Ryan was starting to drop away. “We hired her to be a professional, not an artist.”
    “So your writers aren’t artists?”
    “I’m – I didn’t say that. But we needed her to deliver a product.”
    “A product. Like an assembly line.”
    “NO, but – look, she had a deadline – ”
    “No I didn’t,” I protested. “You never gave me a deadline.”
    He swiveled his gaze over to me and his inner reptile came out. “I TOLD you that we needed it as soon as possible – ”
    “That’s not a deadline, Glen. A deadline is a date. ”
    He jabbed a finger in the air. “LOOK – ”
    “Glen,” Ryan said in that same tone of voice he used on Riley when she was misbehaving.
    Commanding. Cool. Brooking no dissent.
    Glen glared at me, but bit his tongue and looked over at Ryan. “What?”
    “You knew that Kaitlyn had no national-level publishing experience when you hired her. Correct?”
    The question stung a little, but I thought I saw where Ryan was going with it.
    Glen didn’t. He just smirked at me. “Yes.”
    “In fact, she didn’t even have mid-level newspaper experience. Correct?”
    “Correct.” He couldn’t resist throwing in a little jab: “As her behavior since then has demonstrated.”
    I wanted to pull a Riley and throw a bottle of Jack Daniels at his head SO bad.
    Ryan didn’t get fazed at all. “In effect, you were hiring someone with very little experience, and then expecting her to perform at the highest level imaginable. Wouldn’t you agree?”
    Glen stared at Ryan. Now he could see where this was going, and he didn’t like it.
    “I gave her an opportunity – ”
    “And you also hired someone with very little experience, and then expected her to perform at the highest level imaginable. Yes?”
    “I wouldn’t characterize it that way.”
    “I would,” Ryan said with the coldest of stares. “And I would suggest it was a monumental error in judgment on your part.”
    Glen gritted his teeth in anger. “She assured me that she could do the job.”
    “Actually I said ‘no’ and walked out on you,” I reminded him.
    “But then you said yes!” Glen yelled.
    “This isn’t about her judgment. She was a young journalist presented with a fantastic opportunity. Of course she was going to say yes,” Ryan continued. “The question is, should you have given her the opportunity in the first place? And having given it, should you have placed such unreasonable expectations on her?”
    Damn, Ryan sounded like a lawyer. And a good one, to boot.
    “She was the only way to get to Derek Kane!” Glen snapped.
    “Which is why you hired her.”
    “Which is why I hired her!”
    “Not based on her journalistic background.”
    Again, it hurt to hear, but I saw the trap he was laying.
    So did Glen. “I – of course I took her journalistic background into consideration.”
    “Really? So you took someone with no national level experience and put them into the most high-pressure situation imaginable, and expected her to deliver at the level of one of your very best writers? That was your choice as an