Walk into the employee entrance of Doc's Place just before nine. At the Personnel window upstairs, I see George Wright inside and wave. He did my intake interview a couple weeks ago.
"We've been looking forward to today," says George. "Louise is not in yet. Would you like to meet the HR staff?"
"Sure."
Personnel coordinators, a benefits manager, a benefits coordinator and an ancient clerk named Rose who has worked here almost forty years. Rose worked for Jeremiah Strain, the founder, and then for his son, Doc, who ran the place into debt with his gambling, womanizing and drinking. Rose smiles but doesn't say much—probably spies on employees to keep her job.
George asks me to stop by before I leave today so he can give me my employee ID and cards for parking and insurance. Liz has her door shut.
Louise walks in to find us chatting, so she welcomes me. "Would you like to meet some of the executives or see your office first, Jill?" she asks.
"Let's see the digs," I tell her and wave to the HR staff, feeling like the grim reaper. Sharpen up your resume, everybody, because heads are gonna roll.
"Right this way," says Louise. We walk out the Personnel door and into the executive hallway. "Frankly, I'm glad you don't mind waiting until later to meet the executives, Jill. These guys can be grumpy until they have their coffee and make sense of the weekend numbers."
"Thanks for the tip, Louise."
"This is the Marketing area and your office is with them. Looks like they're all in a meeting. Probably a teleconference with Paul, who is in Las Vegas with the rest of the executive team making a big pitch to Ferro." Louise stands near the doorway of my office, which'like everything else'has Tuscany-yellow wallpaper and tan carpeting. The furnishings have walnut veneer except for a black steel filing cabinet with a lock. A desk with a standard-issue chair faces the wall.
"This won't work," is my declaration. "Who dispenses office furniture?"
"Put the request through me," says Louise. "Anything weird?"
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License