Free Matchmakers 2.0 (A Novel Nibbles title) by Debora Geary Page B

our geeks to hook up more than once before they decide on the match.”  He looked up.  “Is it okay if I borrow the idea?”
    “Sure.  You know they never change the algorithm around here just because someone has a good idea.”  Derrick went back to his mad typing.
    “What gave you the idea, Mick?” asked Miri.
    I looked over at Sam’s flowers.  They were looking a little sad, but they deserved one last day to savor the victory they’d inspired.  “You know, I almost didn’t go on a second date with Sam.  Got hung up on the erotica thing.”
    Miri shook her head.  “Libras are never prudes like that.  Are you totally sure you weren’t born in January?  You’d make a great Capricorn.”
    “I studied fish sex; how big a prude can I be?  Besides, I got over it.”  Well, Jazie harassed me until I got over it, but same difference.  I picked up a petal that had fallen off of one of Sam’s flowers.  “I gave us another chance, and I’m glad I did.  I thought that might work for my Losers too.”
    Crystal stuck her head in my office.  “Michaela, can I see you in my office, please?”  She looked very serious.  Maybe she wasn’t as thrilled with third place as she’d originally seemed.
    I shrugged at my team and followed Crystal to her office. The Vice President of HR was there too.  That was ominous.  He almost never interrupted his golf game for real work.
    “Is this about posting hires to fill my team?” I asked.  “I promise I’ll get on that right away.”  Possibly even this week.
    Crystal shook her head.  “We’re not going to be filling those positions, Michaela.  In fact, we’re downsizing the entire match team.  You’ll get one month of severance pay for each year of service.  It’s a very generous termination package.”
    I was being fired?  On the day I won Match the Loser ?  “My team all finished in the top ten of the contest this morning.  Why are you getting rid of the match team?”
    VP guy answered.  “We’ve decided to allocate more resources to our automated matching algorithms, really take them to the next level.”  In other words, someone finally figured out that having real live people doing the matches wasn’t very web 2.0.
    I’d never been fired before, but even I knew it was useless to argue with HR.  They’re just the messengers.
    I tried to imagine the match algorithm without all of Derrick’s flags and fixes, the ones the company had always flatly refused to build into the algorithm.  No more one-night-stand ‘Lothario’ flags, no more ‘kinky’ warnings, no more liars stamped with ‘pants on fire’.
    Yeah.  Good luck with that.  I made a mental note to get my profile out of the MatchMakers’ system. Pronto.
    I would have to get Derrick to do it for me.  After rejecting a grief counselor, I was escorted out of the building.  Miri had to rescue my flowers.

Chapter 15
    You can get a lot done in a day when you don’t have a job.  I decided to take the first day after I got fired to sleep in and stay in my pajamas all day.
    That got old fast, so I sat down to do some math.  I don’t have a very expensive life.  My apartment is in a great old building, and rent is cheap.  It’s sort of wedged in between a really expensive university and a pretty rough neighborhood.  If you ignore the crack houses a couple of blocks away, they mostly ignore you.  Same goes for the college students in BMWs.
    With my severance package, Match the Loser winnings, and modest savings, I wasn’t going to be homeless any time soon.  My biggest monthly budget item, besides rent, is yarn.
    That’s what gave me the idea to wander down to the knitting store.  I left half an hour later with a part-time job and the much more important employee discount. 
    By the time I got back from the knitting store, I had offers of more work from both Miri and Derrick.  Derrick wants me to consult on their geeks-find-love project.  They have venture-capital