All is coming up roses for Nick Viall
BACHELOR NICK VIALL seems to be pitching himself as a reality-TV star. He has been a contestant or lead on all of the Bachelor franchise shows. And next Monday, he’ll be back on ABC… as a contestant on Dancing With the Stars.
Viall certainly has experience on reality TV. But of everyone on this season of The Bachelor, contestant Corinne Olympios seems to be made for reality TV stardom more than mild-mannered Viall.
Let’s say DWTS is his last tango with TV.
What’s next? He might do some modelling (he’s represented by the modelling agency Wilhemina International).
Or what if he goes back to selling software? (Viall’s LinkedIn profile notes that he has been at Salesforce since 2013.) How might the things he has learnt on reality TV translate to an office environment? We have some ideas.
Viall gets up at 6.30am, hits the CrossFit gym down the street. Comes home, showers and stares into his closet. He picks out something basic but stylish – that $3 423 (R45 140) outfit that Bachelor contestant Corinne Olympios bought him on their date to meet her family in Miami.
Viall breathes a sigh of relief that Olympios is no longer in the picture – he never was going to make enough to keep up with her lifestyle! – but he’s glad he got to keep the clothes.
Just before 8am, a note from Chris Harrison arrives at Viall’s doorstep, with the message: The sky’s the limit. xo Chris
Viall knows what this means: a helicopter is arriving to take him to the office!
Actually, no. The other side of the card reads: “Just an inspirational note to start your day.”
“I love you, man,” Viall texts Harrison, “but these practical jokes have to stop.”
Viall slogs through traffic – what a journey! – not to find love or anything, just to get to the office. A long commute gives him plenty of time to think about how to worm his way into a meeting of senior company executives that afternoon.
He wasn’t invited, but he has a hunch that his future boss – aka future promotion – could be in that room. He wants to get into that room. He needs to get into that room. If only he could slide into the right person’s DMs… he knows he could make a good impression.
Once in the office, Viall heads to the company kitchen, where he pours coffee into his Male Tears mug (a gift from Andi Dorfman after their public make-up session). For Viall, the mug isn’t an ironic feminist statement but an earnest reminder to be vulnerable, even if that means crying in the office.
“Hey, Nick – good to have you back!” It’s Chip, Viall’s work spouse who realllllly missed him when he was gone. The two men go in for a casual bro hug, and Viall thinks about how he’s not going to miss Chip once he has gotten that promotion. But Chip will miss him. Chip will post heavily filtered images to Instagram of lunch breaks and work happy hours, not mentioning Viall but clearly posted with a target audience of one.
At his desk, Viall scans the internet for any spoilers about Rachel Lindsay’s season of The Bachelorette. “I really shouldn’t have let her go,” he mumbles to himself.
Back to the task at hand! Viall Slacks his boss’s boss’s boss. Viall starts by exchanging CrossFit workout stats and is suddenly getting invited to that afternoon meeting without even asking. “Well, that was easy,” Viall mutters. Far easier than making it to a fantasy-suite date.
An invite for a company picnic arrives in Viall’s inbox. He thinks about bringing his younger sister Bella as his plus-one. She would humanise him so much more than any significant other ever could. Soon, that promotion will be his.
Viall reviews his quarterly sales numbers, thinking about how he can fit them into his narrative of a boy, standing in front of multiple clients, asking them to love him – er, buy some software. The secret was in making every client feel special, like they were the only one in Viall’s life. Even though that’s never true.
Earlier in his career, colleagues questioned his motives: was he there for the right reasons? Did he believe in the product he was selling, or was he just there for the adrenalin rush that came with closing a deal?
But after Viall’s years of soul-searching and number-crunching, his reputation had been repaired. In that afternoon meeting, he no longer mumbled. Once known as the guy on the team to take credit for others’ successes, he stopped focusing on himself and learnt how to make his boss look good. It was just like acing a group date.
By the end of the day, his boss’s boss’s boss came by with a bouquet of red roses and wanted to know: would Viall accept this promotion?
You bet he would. Andi would be so proud.