Chapter 5

“Lois.” Adam stormed out of the room and down the hall.

Marcy realized his voice was the one she had heard yelling. She wondered what was wrong, feeling bad, like she had messed up. When she picked up her printed pages, she realized he had stepped in to get a printed document. There was a four-page report after hers. She didn’t know whether to leave them or take them to hand to him.

“Lois. What the fuck.”

“Adam, you do not need to raise your voice.”

“I do when you show your incompetence. Why isn’t she getting phone training?”

Both Lois and he were returning to the printer room. Marcy grabbed his report and held it out for him. He took it and rapped it against one hand to emphasize his point.

“I hired her to work in the call center, not do your job.”

“She has no experience in the call center.”

“She has the language ability. Anyone can learn to answer a phone, but not everyone can learn a foreign language.”

Marcy winced whenever he spoke because of his volume. He looked furious.

“I don’t interview fucking clerks,” he said, continuing to rage against Lois, who also winced whenever he spoke. “I interviewed her for the call center. No wonder Nancy thought I was insane when I asked her about the new person. She has no idea there is a new person.”

“There are people in-house learning languages. We need to hire from within for the call center. We need people who know the company,” Lois said, trying to sound reasonable.

“I need fucking reps now. Not six months from now.”

A man was trying to tiptoe by.

“Like Ricardo, here. Sai ancora parlare italiano?”

Ricardo looked at him blankly.

Even Marcy knew what he said. He had asked Ricardo if he spoke Italian yet.

“No, of course not. How long ago did I ask you to learn Italian?” Adam glared at Ricardo.

“I’m taking a class,” Ricardo said in a meek voice.

“A class. Six months of class and you can’t speak a damn word. Get out of here.”

Ricardo took off at a fast walk.

“I can’t wait another six months. We’re ramping up now. I need people, now.” He yelled the work ‘now’ at Lois. “Get her over to Nancy. And fucking make sure her job title is an International Representative and not a clerk. What the fuck are you paying her? Get her in the middle of the pay scale. NOW.”

He stormed off.

Lois looked flush in the face. “He has a bit of a temper.”

“Yes, so I hear.” Marcy was trying to make light of it, but Lois wasn’t paying her any attention.

Lois spun on her heels toward her office. Marcy followed as fast as she could.

“I have the handbook printed out.”

Lois took it and threw it on her desk without looking at it. She sat and clicked on her computer screen.

Marcy stood there, unsure about what she should do.

Someone walked fast past the office. A moment later, the cologne told her who had passed.

“I have your title changed and your pay rate,” Lois said. “Annual salary is fifty-five thousand. Sometimes they give out bonuses to the reps. Nancy can tell you more about that.”

Marcy nodded, feeling a little numb that she had just doubled her salary on her first day of work.

Lois picked up her phone, but her display revealed she had dialed a conference room.

“Nancy. I have a new hire for you. Yes. Yes. It’s the one he’s yelling about. Okay, thanks.”

Lois hung up.

“Nancy is up here for a meeting. She’ll come and get you. The reps are one floor down.”

“I do need a key for the elevator.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Lois opened a drawer and pulled one out to give her.

“Thanks.”

“Hello. Hello.” Nancy proved to be a tiny four-foot lady with a brilliant smile. “This is who?” She sounded cheery and upbeat.

“Marcy Albright,” Marcy said, beating Lois to the introduction.

“Bring your stuff. Come with me.”

Marcy grabbed her bag, almost delirious about leaving Lois’s office.

“Have you gotten toured around?”

“No. I found the break room and the restroom on my own.”

“That’s how it goes. I have a meeting to go to. I’ll have you sit in on it.”

Nancy led her to the same conference room where Marcy had her interview with Adam. It wasn’t empty. People already sat around the table. Nancy gestured for her to sit by a gentleman with a laptop. From what she could see, he was pulling up a presentation.

There were two women and two men who sat on the other side of the table from her. The two women, who sat with their chairs huddled together, were well-dressed and wore too much makeup. The men wore nice suits. On her side of the table was the man next to her, also in an expensive suit, and Nancy on her other side.

No one sat at the head of the table, and she found out why a second later. Adam entered and sat there.

“Where’s Tang?” Adam looked to Nancy.

“Tang. Tang. He’s out today,” Nancy said. “His wife is having her baby.”

Adam nodded, then he glanced at her, then at the man sitting next to her. “Commence, Louie.”

Louie looked nervous as hell. He was trying to start his presentation, but wasn’t clicking on the right icon. Marcy reached over to point at where he needed to click.

He finally click the right place, however, the presentation that began on his laptop wasn’t showing up on the big screen on the wall at the other end of the table where everyone was looking.

“You need to plug the laptop into the screen,” Marcy said.

He nervously looked around, as if he wasn’t sure what to do. Marcy pulled the needed cord from a slot in the table and plugged it into the port on the laptop. She had to hit a few of his keys to get the laptop to project its screen on the big screen.

Adam was tapping a pen against the table, not looking pleased.

Because the presentation had already started, she clicked the button to have it restart. Louie was letting her do it, looking totally lost.

“All yours,” she said to him in a low voice.

“Ummm… okay. These are the projections for… Ummmm… the market numbers...”

He fumbled through the presentation, doing a terrible job. Marcy learned that the company was targeting a small European niche for engineering consulting. She knew, based on the website, that they were a consulting company specializing in the field of electromagnetics. The website listed a lot of government agencies as their customers.

“You need to talk about this like you know what you’re talking about,” Adam said in a low voice.

“Yes, sir.”

“I know you’re not an engineer, and you’re also not a computer professional, but you should still know how to use one.”

Adam’s words were a blatant reprimand toward Louie for both his poor presentation skills and his inability to use his laptop.

“Yes, sir.”

“Memorize this stuff. It’s what you need to know. What you all need to know.”

Everyone nodded.

His eyes shifted to her.

“Welcome aboard, Marcy.” He rose and left the room.

Everyone around her breathed a sigh of relief.

“Piss poor. Piss poor,” Nancy said.

“He makes me nervous,” Louie said.

Marcy felt surprised to find him sweating.

Nancy gesture around the room. “Everyone. Everyone, this is Marcy. Marcy, this is Charis, Sonya, Morgan, Franklin, and next to you is Louie. Tang is out, like I said.”

Everyone nodded at her.

“What languages?” Morgan said.

“French, Spanish, and Portuguese,” Marcy said. “Some Italian.”

“Around here it’s all or nothing.” Charis straightened her blouse. “If he finds out you know some of anything, he’ll quiz you every day and you better keep learning.”

“What are your languages?”

“French,” Charis said.

“Same,” said Sonya.

“German and Spanish,” Morgan said.

“Same,” Franklin said with a nod.

“Spanish,” Louie said.

“Tang. Tang knows Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Malay and Tamil,” Nancy said, rising. “I’ll show you the forty-ninth floor.”

Everyone else rose to leave the room as well. They all took the elevator down the one floor. Marcy wondered about the stairs, but decided to wait to ask.

She expected to find a large open area with cubicles, but everyone scattered into offices.

“Office, office. This is your office,” Nancy said. “I’ll call Breeanna. She does all the IT work. She used to be a receptionist until she helped someone with their computer. Now that’s all she does.”

Marcy thought the office was large. The oak desk wrapped around two walls and contained cabinets. There was an overstuffed office chair with two smaller chairs across from the desk. She could see a monitor, keyboard and mouse, but no CPU box.

“Have a seat. I’ll be right back.”

Marcy put her bag in a drawer, which was empty. In fact, all the drawers she checked were empty, and so were the cabinets. She also checked to see if there was a CPU under the desk, but there was nothing but a network cable and two power cords, which were plugged into a power bar.

There was a phone, but its display panel showed the word ‘Available’ on it.

She stared out the door, still not sure which emotion she should be feeling. The one thing she was sure about, she was going to speed up finding an apartment because of her larger paychecks due to the increase in her salary.

Nancy returned with a woman that Marcy felt was around her age.

“Breeanna. Breeanna. She’ll get you hooked up.” Nancy left.

“Are you computer savvy?” Breeanna said in a dull voice.

“Very.”

“How so?” Breeanna was a bleached blond. Her makeup was less severe than most of the other ladies Marcy had seen. She still wore a skirt and suit coat, looking more like a receptionist than an IT professional.

“Video games.”

“I love how much notice they give me, but I happen to have a spare laptop. I’ll go get it. Give me about twenty minutes and I’ll get the phone up and running, too.”

“Thank you.”

Marcy watched her go. After five minutes of sitting in her office, she rose to explore the floor. However, a few steps out the door, she stopped to let an older woman pass. Marcy found her the most professionally dressed person she had seen, with just enough makeup. Her jewelry consisted only of a wedding ring, a necklace, and earrings. Her shoes were the same color as her suit.

However, when the woman saw her, she stopped.

“Who are you?”

“Marcy.”

“What are you?”

“International Rep as of today.”

“Huh. Did they tour you around?”

“No.”

“Follow me. I’m Justine. I’m Adam’s admin assistant.”

“Nice to meet you, Justine.”

“This is the break room on this floor. Keep going down the hall and you’ll see the copier room, and then the restrooms.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you have an elevator key?”

“Yes.”

“Have they shown you the entrance?”

“You mean for employees?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Marcy caught her rolling her eyes when she spun on her heels.

“Nancy.”

They weren’t far from an office. Marcy saw the nameplate by the door had Nancy’s name on it.

“Justine. Justine. What?”

“Make sure you show Marcy the employee entrance.”

“I will. I just got her, like five minutes ago.” She sounded snooty. “Breeanna is getting her set up.”

“Okay, thank you. I’ll leave you with Nancy.” Justine left.

Marcy liked her and how she kept her voice even, not letting any of Nancy’s attitude rile her up.

“I just needed a restroom,” Marcy said apologetically.

“Down the hall,” Nancy said without pointing in which direction.

Marcy was glad to find the restroom empty.

“I will get a paycheck,” she said to remind herself why she was there. “I will get a paycheck.”

So far, she didn’t know what to think of this crazy place.

When she returned to her office, Breeanna was there hooking up a laptop.

“There is your login information.” She gestured toward a sheet of paper. “It will prompt you for a new password.”

“Okay.”

“There is a laptop bag. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s all I have at the moment.”

“It’ll work.” Marcy wondered if she could take the laptop home.

Wait. Was there Wi-Fi at Crystal’s apartment?

Her desk phone now showed her name.

“Your extension is 4909. There is a folder called Corp Info. It has all the documents with phone numbers you need to know and all the HR info you need to know. Browse through it.”

“Okay, thanks.” She was still thinking about internet at Crystal’s, but knew she could use her cell phone as a hotspot as long as she didn’t use up all her data. Her mom hadn’t set her up with an unlimited plan.

“If there are any applications that you need on the laptop, please let me know, even if you feel you can install them. We have to keep with corporate approved applications.”

“I understand.”

“Most of the company applications are web-based, so you just need to know how to get to them. When you log in and open a browser, the home page displays most of our applications, so don’t change the home page.”

“Got it.”

“Have a seat.”

Marcy took her seat. The laptop sat at a login prompt. She used the username and temporary password and changed the password when prompted. Everything worked on the first try.

“Good,” Breeanna said. “I’m glad you know computers.”

“I have a nice one back at my parents and I’m going through withdrawal.”

Breeanna laughed. “If you need anything, I’m extension 4801.”

“Thank you.”

Breeanna left.

Marcy pulled up a web page to look at the applications, but didn’t go into any of them. She expected Nancy would give her an overview. In the meantime, since she had to wait, she hopped over to her favorite language site.

“I have the feeling I better learn more Italian.”

While a lesson loaded, she checked her new office email and felt surprised that there was a lot already. Belatedly, she saw the message that notified everyone about donuts in the break room. However, she saw that the message didn’t say which break room.

“I better figure out who works on what floor.”

She saw the folder that Breeanna mentioned and opened up the Directory file. It listed all employees and their phone numbers. Lois had said they had the top four floors, so it was easy to figure out which floor people were on by their phone extension numbers.

Donuts had been on the forty-ninth floor based on the person, a salesperson, who had sent out the message.

She also quickly figured out that top management was on the top floor. Customer service was on the forty-ninth with the salespeople. Accounting, IT, mail clerks, and some engineers were on the forty-eighth, with the forty-seventh being all engineers. She also noted a lot of engineers had full phone numbers from around the country and not an extension.

“Remote workers.”

“Hello. Hello. Oh, good, Breeanna has you set up. You saw the break room and restrooms?” Nancy walked in.

“Yes.”

“Good. Good. There is only an hour left of the day. I’ll walk you down at five and show you the employee entrance.”

“Okay, I have HR stuff to read.”

“Excellent. I’ll come to get you.”

Marcy flipped back to the language site. Since she had worked on the employee handbook, she already knew a lot, and decided to end the day with the language stuff, which seemed more interesting anyway. She was about to play the lesson when she realized she didn’t have any earphones. Her phone earbuds wouldn’t work on the laptop. She decided she could stop at the drugstore on the way home. They probably had a cheap pair.

Instead of listening to the lesson, she just read through it, feeling more like she was taking a refresher course. Maybe she knew more Italian than she thought.

She had almost finished the second lesson when a whiff of cologne caused her to look up, but she didn’t see or hear Adam. She wondered if he was down on this floor to speak with Nancy.

She glanced at the time and felt startled to find it was after five. To prepare for Nancy’s arrival to show her the way out, she swapped shoes. When Nancy didn’t appear after ten more minutes, she stepped out of her office with both her bag and the laptop. The floor felt eerily silent. She knew she was alone. The only lights were in the hall and in her own office. She flipped her lights off.

She passed the elevators to peek into Nancy’s office. The office was empty, and the lights were off.

“This place has problems.”

She retraced her steps back to the elevators, figuring she could find the employee entrance herself. Wasn’t she doing everything herself already?

The elevator opened, wafting her with cologne.

“Marcy.”

She didn’t know if she should say his first name or stick with Mr. Rory.

“Going down?”

“Yes, sorry. I was deep in thought.” She stepped into the elevator.

“How was your first day?”

“Interesting. Lots to learn.”

He was a head taller than her. His suit fit him well. She figured he had it tailored to fit him. Crystal probably would even know the designer label name if she saw it. He also sported the fashionable watch on his left wrist. It was a fad even with the guys back home, but she suspected his watch was real and not a knockoff. However, his watch was silver. Most everyone else she knew wore the gold. She could see no rings on his fingers.

She felt rather dumpy, wearing her athletic shoes.

“This is a very tall building.” She felt as if the elevator was taking forever to descend.

“There are taller, but they have express elevators. Much faster.”

The elevator finally arrived on the ground floor. She stepped out first and looked toward the front entrance. That way wasn’t an option. She could see double doors that were closed.

“Employee entrance is this way,” Adam said. “I take it no one has shown you.”

“Nancy said she would grab me on her way out, but it looks like she forgot.”

She followed him out a door and into a parking garage.

“You’re on the opposite side of the building.” He gestured the way she needed to go.

“Thanks.”

“Adam.” A well-dressed woman approached him and fell into step with him.

Marcy headed out of the garage.

“We should go get some dinner,” the woman said to him.

That was the last Marcy heard before she stepped out into the noise of rush hour.

Yeah, she thought, a guy that nice had to have a girlfriend or a wife.