And there she was now, nicole, with such a strange task. The temple of Venus. Since she was not very religious she needed to get a grip on that religion matter in the first place. Mr Noxx wanted it to be a place for everyone, not just the rich. She took a collegeblock and biro and walked over to the couch in their office. A low black leather couch, accompanied by an armchair and a rectangular low table with black glass tile and golden legs was situated in the corner. At first she had to conceptualize this project, find out who were the stakeholders and what this "product" was all about. She remembered Janine to be marketing specialist. But she was not sure if she may share information about this project with her. Nicole took out her business phone and called Mr. Leinenberger. After just some seconds she heard his low dark voice:
"Leinenberger."
"Mr. Leinenberger , I am working on the Venus project right now. To evalute the stakeholder needs I would love to have the assistance of Mrs. Schneider. She is a marketing expert and has much more experience in this field, and...."
"Ask her, Mr. Noxx trusts Mrs. Schneider. But tell her it is a serious operation and that I am you supervisor. She will know how to treat this project."
"Umm, thank you Mr. Leinenberger"
"Mrs. Bartelli."
"Yes Mr. Leinenberger."
"This project has to be successful. NEIG operations always hit the spot."
"Yes Mr. Leinenberger."
"I await your budget and hr plan beginning next week."
"Yes Mr. Leinenberger."
"Anything else Mrs. Bartelli?"
"No Mr. Leinenberger."
"Alright, have a nice evening, don´t forget to sleep."
"I will Mr. Leinenberger, have a nice evening too."
Nicole smiled happily and fluted:"Janiiii -neee"
Janine looked at Nicole with an asking face, still carrying the biro in the right corner of her mouth, saying to silently to her self:"Wage-level."
Nicole winked her excited to her place at the couch. "Come here Jane. Oh my god I am so excited that I am allowed to share this with you.Cooome."
Janine raised from her chair and dropped the biro to the desk. "I am coming, whats up Nici?"
Nicole petted the couch beside her and looked at Janine with sparkling eyes full of excitement:"This will be so cool, definitly the best thing we ever did."
Janine took place and crossed her legs, half facing Nicole. Then her eyes caught the college block at the table. An empty page with one word in the center which was encircled. Nicole had written "VENUS" in capital letters. She turned slowly to Nicole with half opened mouth and put her dark black mane behind her shoulds and then asked suspiciously:"What are you working on Nicole? Wait, no. no. this has nothing to do with work right? You had been in some strange club or something." Then she began to laugh and laid her hand on Nicoles shoulder.
Nicole was also laughing:"I am going to tell you soon, annnnd, no it has, and no, no club" Then she looked at Janine:"Do you know where I come from?"
Nicole looked irritated:"I guess from italy telling by your hot accent."
"No, I do not mean this. Do you know where I have been the last 30 minutes?"
"No, no clue. What happened? Dont keep me asking and stop asking me stupid questions. What about Venus?"
"I have been in the office of Mr. Noxx !!!!"
"No !!! He called you?"
"No not really, I needed to deliver documents. Well I normally put them into the management postal box but today I thought I would prefer to go up to him."
"I can not blame you for that !!!"
Both women were laughing again.
"Then something really strange happened. He asked me a lot of questions and told me about society and even sex."
"You talked with him about sex ? Did you went to toilet on your way back?"
"Hey shut up, not that way. It was all about society not the two of us. Then he asked about my past, my family and my connection to Italy. If I was well known there and if I have a lot of friends."
"And then? Don´t torture me!"
"Then, hold tight now, he assigned me a project. I am now project manager of project V. V- like Venus. HE WANTS ME TO ESTABLISH A TEMPEL OF THE GODDESS VENUS!" She was closly to jumping up from the couch while telling this."
"WHHHHAAAAATTTT? Of Venus ? That ancient gorgeous goddess of lust and pleasure? You are going to establish a temple for her ?"
"YEEES. And it is still getting better.", she paused with a conspiring smile.
"Yes? YEEEEESSSSS?"
"We will do it together. I asked Mr. Leinenberger if you may assist me. You understand? We will be working together and establish this freaking unbelievable, not from this world, gorgeous and glamorous temple which will be in every newspaper, on every instagramm account. People will get horny just thinking about it!!!"
"I am getting horny thinking about it!" Janine laughed heartly now with the same sparkling eyes like Nicole. And Nicole also laughed:"I bet!"
"But seriously, I have to deliver a project plan next week. We have seven days"
"We do it in two. Don´t you understand ? You got a "serious operation" from Mr. Noxx directly. We do it in two, maybe in one."
"Fuck you girl, I have to work everything out, do you know how big this is?"
"Of course I know brat, I have a master of business administration from the Oestrich-Winkel business school. You are going to work hard now. You have been lazy the last 5 month, cleaning your nails every thirty minutes."
"Again the, ´I have blablabla...´talk ? I am the project manager. Actually I have the final decision. But hell yes. We will do it in two days. If you help me Jayn." Nicole petted Jaynes leg softly and smiled begging at her.
Janine smiled at her:"Of course! What you wanted to start with?"
"Mr. Noxx told about the problem society has, shortly, no spiritual exercise and experiences and no lust. The solution is: Venus. So I suggest we approach it like a product. In the first place I would like to gather all the stakeholders of this project. It will be much easier to declare the temple after we got this."
"Yes, good girl, thats how you approach a product in the first place. We need to identify the stakeholders. Write them around that circled Venus in the center."
"Who do we write on top?"
Janine laughed:"Are you asking for real? Of course Mr. Noxx!"
Nicole giggled:"Ah yes of cause, oh my god I am to excited to concentrate clearly." She wrote ´Mr. Noxx´ in capital letters on the top above the "Venus"."I am already dreaming of how it will look inside and how the dancers will look and the statues, the colors and the carpets! It is so exciting."
"Yes we definitly need dancers. It is like organizing a never ending party.", Janine said laughing.
Nicole looked at her:"You are right! I should treat it also like that. Now get serious. Who else?"
Janine looked to the cealing and scatched her neck with her white fingernails:"Well of cause the diffrent kind of guests. Women, men. Rich, middle class, poor. Thats the target class. It shall attract all grown up so we need a very well designed mixture."
"Yes but not only this, we also need all type of ages. How do you regularly classify ages?"
"Well we normally have: Kids until 10, teenager until 18, young grown ups until 25, grown ups until 45, elderly until 67, and old people until they die. But in fact these groups have been formed in concern of their economical and job status. I don´t know if this fits also in terms of a temple. "
"Well just start with this table now and then check later if it is proper for our needs." Nicole added a small table containing the social classes and age. "This makes 36 customer groups! Oh my god! "
"No", Janine laughed, "or did you plan to let 7 years old boys into the temple?"
"Oh yes, I see, yeah. Well 2 ages gone left 4, still 24 groups."
"Yes thats the challenge of marketing if you plan a product for everyone. We will check this in details later. Get more stakeholders. Who will be interested in the Venus temple?"
"Everyone of course! I am not kidding. Women will also go there, don´t think to only see horny men there."
"Yes sure, I will go there and I will be a VIP. I am yet enjoying myself.", Janine said with an excited voice.
"Stop that horny cow. ", Nicole shaked her head,"it is to small just to reduce it to this. Mr. Noxx explicitly warned me that it shall not just be a luxuries brothel. So who else?"
"The church", Nicole then said serious and looked at Janine. "And they will not be pleased.", then hastingly she added,"go on we need those who will oppose the temple even more detailed then the customers. We need plans to overcome them and counter their attacks on our project."
"All christian churches? This will be many. I guess most of them will just condemn us but the larger ones might launch campaigns, like TV shows, social media channels or accounts to discredit us. Let´s just summarize them as "other religious groups". In economic terms these would just be the competitors. Every company has them. There will be equal strategies to deal with them.", Janine said. "Good for you have me by your side little data nerd."
Nicole smiled at her."Yes I am happy. And it is also much more fun to do this together and to share my thoughts with you."
For the next three hours the two women were working at the list of stakeholders. Time flew by and soon they did not find place to write new entries down.
Janine said nervously:" So many stakeholders. How we cover them all? It seems impossible."
Nicole answered:"Do not worry, we will write down the needs and don´ts for every single stakeholder and then combine them in a stakeholder matrix. This will clarify for us quite easily which are the most important matters. We will also judge them if they are in accordance with other needs and don´ts or if they are just irrelevant to others or even oppose them. This will alow us to build clusters. You will see. It is just important to go step by step and not get overwhelmed." Then Janin put her head to the side and yawn silently while holding her hand in front of her mouth. "I am tired, I am working since 7. It is 17 now. I want to leave soon. Gym is waiting."
"Ah come on, forget the gym. We have to celebrate the day. I invite you to Taisho.", Nicole answered.
"Mhh Taisho. Sounds very tempting. I would like to have one of his Ramen."
"Oh yes they are great. I will also have a Ramen."
Janine smiled:"Ok let´s go then. I am hungry now."
Nicole played nervous:"Oh no. Let´s rush then. Janine is hungry, don´t get in our way. Police move aside we have to reach Taishos in five."
Janine laughed:"Hey I am not like that."
"You are. Even worse. You once said ´I would kill a baby bambi for Mako Sushi now´. Since that time I always have a Snickers or Bounty in my bag."
Janine made a pout:"Don´t be so mean, it was a joke."
"Yes but you get aggressive anyways.", then she searched in her handbag and draw out a snickers and presented it with a teasing smile, "Hungry?"
Janine stared at her. "I can´t believe it ! Give me that snickers!"
Nicole laughed and handed the snickers to her."Enjoy."
Janine put it on her desk and then took her Lady´s coat. Nicole looked at her suspiciously but didn´t want to ask. "I wait till tomorrow", she thought. Then she turned to Janine:" Let´s ask Lars to drive us. He has no tasks actually. I checked his schedule today morning. He will be needed at 22:30 to drive Carla to the airport but until then we will be back. But you need to ask him"
Janine grinned:" We get driven by Lars ? That "I carry your bags, Mrs. Bartelli" Lars ? Or that "May I drive you home Mrs.Bartelli?" Lars ?"
"I like him, he is polite and a gentleman and he never took advantage of me. Not many men like him around anymore in this world."
Janine pressed her index finger on the button to call the elevator. "You know my sister talks to me like that all the time. Men are shit, no one needs men, no honorable men on this world and so on. But you know what? Men adopt immidiatly to whom is in front of them. If you act like a scoundrel girl you will be treated like that. Men love to spoil women, but they hate to throw pearls to the pigs. If you get bad treated, it is all your own fault. I almost never get ill treated, and if I do, I know exactly why."
The elevator arrived and the two ladies entered. Janine was wearing a long black lady coat with gold accentuated scarf and a high collar. Nicole was holding her thick grey woolen coat over one arm. Nicole looked introverted, thinking about something while she was entering the elevator. Then she looked at Janine:" What is this place?"
Janine looked irritated:" What do you mean, it is our place to work, a real cool place to work." Then she pressed the button for the lobby level.
Nicole still looked very thoughtful:" You know what you were just telling me. Your sister, my own opinion." She looked at Janine. "I suddenly understand." Then she laughed:" Oh no, I start to understand. What Mr. Noxx was talking about and now it frightens me. Who is he?"
Janine made a pout and laid her head a bit to the left side. "What do you mean ? I do not understand a single word."
"I told you Mr. Noxx was talking to me about society, my past and lust. Then he came up with the temple. But I just now, talking with you understand how deeply we are messed up. I think bad about men. I mean in general. And when you told me about behavior and men reaction my first thought was ´oh shut up little house wive and go get the beer for your fat ass sitting at the couch watching soccer´."
Janine rose a brow:" You are really fucked up."
Nicole nodded and looked despaired:" I never questioned that you know. It just developed like that. I did not have a bad dad. He was not at home very often, but I think that is how dad´s act. They work. And...."
The elevator door opened and two men and a woman waited in front of the door to enter the elevator. Nicole and Janine made place and walked out into the lobby. Janine just caught a glimpse at a man who left the elevator to the left of them. She took the arm of Nicole and turned with her to the left, arming her face with her most charming smile.
"Good evening Mr. Leinenberger."
The tall man looked at them. He wore a complete black suit, custom tailored with perfect fit, italian dark brown business shoes and a blue tie with pattern of broad stripes. He had brown hair, short cut and also brown eyes and also his skin hat a bronce color like he sees the sun regularly:" Time to go home ladies, get a good dinner and grasp some sleep, we need you in 1A condition." Then he saw Nicole. "Mrs. Bartelli, my congratulations for your new assignement. That´s a ´once in your life´ opportunity. Don´t mess it up."
Since they were in the lobby they should not talk about the project. It had to be secret as long as possible so Nicole decided to answer quite general:" Thank you Mr. Leinenberger. I....We, will not let you down."
He was walking on turning his head to them:"Mrs. Schneider, introduce your last researches to Mrs. Bartelli. They will help you a lot in your endeavor. NEIG is very pleased with the results. Don´t forget to sleep." Then he was far and Janine was still looking at him.
"Hello, he left the building."
"He is amazing. You just do not understand because just have not even scratched at the surface of where you are. You did not understand who he is and by far who Mr. Noxx is. If so you would be screaming when he called you by your name."
The both of them were walking to the large reception. Janine walked up to lady at the counter. "Good evening we would like to get a drive by L61 to the Taishos."
"Your card please."
Janine handed over her key card for the building. The woman lay it upon a reading device.
"Floor 26 ? NEIG? Of course I will call him immidiatelly please take a seat at the garden lobby. It will not take long.", she said hastingly. "Can I be of any other service for you?"
"Please let us bring a coffee while we are waiting."
"Sure, please take a seat, the coffee will be served soon."
The two ladies turned around and walked through the huge entrance area to the garden lobby, which was located in the west side of the building. Its ceiling was about 60 meters high at the 23rd floor and there were small cosy couches and armchairs with tables, surrounded by trees, bushes and flowers inside the building. Even it has been raining since lunch the colored glas and the smart lighting effects produce a warm feeling of an early summer day. Naturally this place was quite crowded.