Girlboss Interrupted

Successful, cutthroat businesswoman Marily Uptightington just wanted to visit the small, Christmas-obsessed town she grew up in. However, now her boss says she has to return to the office immediately. Will Marily actually blow off the local cookie decorating contest and the besweatered, handsome man from her past she's recently reconnected with to help her company close the big deal? Obviously not, but some would say it seems unfair she has to make that choice at all.

Rupert Greedmiser, CEO and Executive Vice President of Important Business Deals at Incorporated Business Solutions (IBS) and Marily’s boss tells us the big business industry is tired of losing girlbosses to Christmas-dominated hamlets and their resident hunks.

“We’re under so much pressure to develop corporate girlboss talent,” says Greedmiser, as he sits in his massive office at the top of a big city skyscraper, “but then this kind of thing keeps happening!”

IBS boasts about their world-famous Girlboss Competency Training Program which they use to promote women who show great aptitude in girlbossery, including skills such as sacrificing one’s love life for one’s career, cutting off all ties with friends and family for the sake of making that sweet business money, and utilizing proper businessy attire (pencil skirts, high heels, pantsuits, etc.) to give off a no-nonsense air of severity.

“But each year,” Greedmiser continues, “all our best and most ambitious girlbosses take vacations in Q4 to whatever Christmas-themed town they grew up in where some handsome bozo in a sweater or flannel shirt convinces them to leave their big city life behind. All the resources we spent meshing their female survival instincts with the corporate mindset and gaslighting them into subservience to the company goes straight down the toilet, right along with the big business deal they’re perpetually on the cusp of closing!”

We asked why this has only recently become a problem.

“It used to be much less common,” he says. “There’d only be new stories about girlbosses casting off their business jobs two or three times a year, but then I don’t know, it became like a really popular thing all of sudden. Maybe it was happening ironically at first, but now it seems there are dozens of these instances every year. It’s all too much for the big business community to bear!

“Used to be,” he adds, “that we could nip this in the bud during the interview process, but thanks to Title VII and the Girlboss Discrimination Act we’re no longer allowed to ask applicants if they’re from or plan on visiting any Christmas-fetishizing villages. You know, because of woke!”

So IBS and other big-business businesses have issued forth a mandate that any girlboss either on vacation or working remotely in a Christamassy town, hamlet, or village must return to their regional office immediately to ensure their big business deals go through and keep the wheels of commerce turning, much to the chagrin of Uptightington and other girlbosses currently enthralled by the Christmas spirit and the possibility of forgetting all about the business world whilst curling up with an old flame by the fire while a fluffy kitten playfully nudges a ball of yarn in front of her fuzzy socks.

Marily Uptightington had actually returned to the town of Tinselville, Statesginia at the request of her mother, Holly Festivefield (she remarried). Festivefield owns and operates one of the town’s many Christmas cookie shops and was hoping this year she could finally clinch the annual cookie decorating contest, but she can't do it without Marily for some reason.

Marily, you see, is actually an accomplished cookie decorator. At least she was before she left town to major in Girlbossing with a minor in Big Business Deal Making at Big City College. Holly maintains, however, that with some practice and a montage or two she can once again find her rhythm and help win the coveted Icing Cup! She also believes, perhaps foolishly, that Marily should be allowed to do both Christmas and girlboss stuff.

“I don’t see any reason why Marily should have to cut her visit short,” says Festivefield. “She could easily work from here, do her big business deals remotely and girlboss over Zoom. It seems cruel to not at least let her try!”

“I just want Marily to be happy,” says Chaz Rockhardpecs, a local Christmas tree technician who once had a relationship with Uptightington before the pair broke up so she could focus on her amazing career, “and if that means doing big business things then I’d happily lose her again. But what if it also means staying here with me and my adorable, precocious child and/or pet? Shouldn’t she be allowed to do both!?”

To make the decision whether to obey the return-to-girlbossing mandate even more difficult, the town of Tinselville, whose only claim to fame is its cookie decorating acumen and a history of lynching, may have some major changes on the horizon.

[Editor's note: Thanks a lot, now the town of Tinselville is suing us!]

“I need to pay $23,895.56 back to the bank or I'm going to lose my store,” says Festivefield. “Luckily that's the exact amount of prize money we'd get for winning the cookie decorating contest!”

“The bank already has a buyer for the store,” says Rockhardpecs, who overheard some sensitive information when he was called in to do some emergency repairs to the Tinselville Bank’s lobby Christmas tree. “It's some big-business business corporation looking to convert it into a Ramadan store! Can you believe that? In this community!?”

Okay, we're just going to brush past whatever he means by “this community”.

[Editor's note: Thank you!]

But wait a minute…. Big-business business corporation you say?

“Oh yeah, that's totally us,” laughs Rupert Greedmiser. “Our investors felt that de-Christmasfying some of these Christmas towns would help us retain more of our girlboss employees.”

Well that certainly seems like the setup for a marginally entertaining dilemma to take us into the third act conflict! But while Marily Uptightington sprints towards her foregone conclusion, Rupert Greedmiser and his ilk assure us their conclusion is just as foregone.

“They can save their little cookie shop and steal our girlboss this year,” says Greedmiser, “but we always have plans in the works. Whether we drive out all the small, family owned holiday cheer dispensaries by opening our own and pricing them out or by purchasing lots in their backyard for AI data centers, poisonous chemical processing plants, or some other Scroogely endeavor, we'll get them back. Eventually we'll own all those towns and all the former corporate girlbosses in them.”

How confident are the executives at corporations like Incorporated Business Solutions that they can actually own all the small Christmas towns in the country? Turns out, extremely confident.

“Trying to separate Christmas and big business is like using tweezers to remove salt from seawater,” says Greedmiser. “Like it or not, we are Christmas!”

So to all the girlbosses out there considering leaving the office culture of shattering glass ceilings and making big business deals happen for a life of quiet simplicity and a yuletide fixation, remember this: Just as you are entwined in the strong, sweater-clad arms of your renewed love interest so is Christmas entwined with capitalism and thus the likes of Greedmiser and his ilk.

But still, try to have a merry Christmas. Also, IBS is going to sue you for breach of contract.