“That’s none of your business!”

Chrissy slammed her business phone down on her business desk and sighed. She looked around. Her entire desk was covered with business binders, business books (including the classic, How to Business Your Way to the Top of Business), and business supplies. One thing was for sure: She was a business lady. The phone rang again. She picked it up, shouted, “Business!” and slammed it back down. She simply had too much business to do to deal with all of this.

Chrissy pulled a hand mirror out of her desk drawer and examined herself. She was dressed the way she did every day: dark blazer, skirt, and extremely sensible heels—in fact, when she bought them, Chrissy had asked the shoe salesman to bring her the “heel equivalent of the woman at the bar who takes her friends’ keys and is always reminding them to keep drinking water.” That’s how sensible they were. To complete her outfit, she wore her hair pulled back into a smart ponytail (not like a ponytail you’d wear for sports, but the kind of smooth business ponytail that business ladies can pull off). In short: the perfect outfit for doing business. She checked her makeup in the mirror—minimal, not so distracting that it would get in the way of business. Every eyelash in place. She took a deep breath. Today was going to be the day. Chrissy had started at Big Business Company ten years ago as an intern, and now, after years of thankless work—filing, sorting, synergizing, circling back on that email—it was finally happening. She was going to be promoted to junior executive in charge of business.

“I’m not a businessma’am,” she whispered to her reflection in the mirror. “I’m a business, ma’am.” It was what she always told herself when she needed to get pumped up.

Her phone rang again and she grabbed it in frustration. “Eve, I told you to hold all my calls,” she snapped at her assistant through the line.

“Sorry,” Eve whispered. “But it’s your mom, so I thought you might want to make an exception.”

Chrissy sighed.

Should Chrissy. . .