Rory
The seating chart at the formal company dinner put me directly across from Desmond Sterling, and I understood within thirty seconds of sitting down that this particular meal was going to cost me considerably more than the price of the meal itself.
It was a mid-summer tradition, apparently — a dinner for senior staff and select interns, held in a private room at some restaurant so expensive the menu didn't bother listing prices, meant to give the intern cohort face time with leadership before the second half of the program began. Priya had warned me about it days earlier, half-joking, half-serious. "It's basically a performance review disguised as a nice meal," she'd said. "Just don't get seated near Desmond if you can help it. He likes to test people at dinner. Calls it getting to k
