15: New Haven

The Monday was finally there. Bjorn Services Inc. was expecting a heap of young and fresh recruits to kick start their financial year. The Vice President of the company was ready to welcome the dozens of fresh faces as soon as they filled the waiting room. Mr. Lawson accompanied the VC which was only belittling for the latter. The company had fallen into his lap after his father’s retirement and nobody respected him because of that and even he had ceased to give a crap about it. He had grown to worry about nothing but results. Hence, the presence of the senior. As expected, the recruits started to pour in as the clock crossed half past eight. It didn’t take a lot of wait before the last one arrived. The executive duo arrived as soon as the room looked full enough and welcomed the recruits. The VC did all the talking. He stuck to the usual speech that was delivered annually, without much effort to not sound like a recorded message. The suit clad crowd in front of him hummed or nodded in agreement at the end of every sentence. The speech was a pile of cliché promises, tall tales and foreign proverbs. Mr. Lawson maintained a robotic smile throughout the event. His smile waned as he caught an unexpected familiar face in the crowd. It was Sophie. She caught him staring so she slightly bowed as a greeting. Mr. Lawson returned the gesture.
And finally, the speech was over. The VP motioned the staff to herd the recruits to their respective departments. Among the crowd, Mr. Lawson caught a hold of Sophie.
“A little early for lunch don’t you think?”, he asked with a smirk. Sophie was scrambling for words to respond. “It’s alright. I get it. you want to get acquainted with your work ASAP”, he added, putting her at ease and walked her to the elevator. There were long queues in front of all the four elevators. The crowed made way for the two of them. Mr. Lawson had that kind of respect at the place. They stepped inside the nearest one.
“You already know what we do. But we keep expanding and shrinking according to the market demands so even I don’t know how many departments we have as of today. Our investment company is our most valuable asset and it is working just fine so we can’t waste your skills by putting you there”, Mr. Lawson spoke staring at his reflection on the elevator wall in front of him. Sophie was also finding her own warped reflection somewhat amusing. The screen swiftly switched levels. “Our customer support departments are also doing fine except for one. Real estate. I arrived at the conclusion that the good for nothing supervisor was the reason behind it. So, I recommended your assignment there”. The elevator door bell chimed right on cue. They had arrived on the 17th floor. The floor was bustling with activity. A bunch of employees were huddled up, expecting the new batch to step out of the elevator. They promptly straightened themselves as soon as they saw Mr. Lawson. They greeted him and he responded with a nod and a smile. They walked past several computer workstations and cubicles. He led Sophie to a glass door office at the far end of the floor. The plaque on the door said, “Team Lead / Manager”.
“It arrived last night. We usually hire two for the two jobs but it was my idea to keep the manager grounded”, Mr. Lawson casually said as he pushed open the door and motioned Sophie to step inside. “And the best way to do it, is to keep the king among his subjects”, he added. As the door was gradually closing on its own, they caught a glimpse of a dozen or so fresh employees outside being herded into the conference room to get acquainted with each other. Her focus returned to her work station. It was a piece of art. A spacious room surrounded by sound proof glass walls, just opaque enough to maintain privacy. A huge table at the center with a bunch of tabletop supplies, a laptop and the monogram of Bjorn Services Inc. at the wall behind the table. Every wall had a file drawer or racks loaded with bulky box files and manilas. Mr. Lawson showed her around. She looked satisfied and excited.
“Alright, let’s not dwell on it. You wouldn’t wanna miss what’s going down in the conference room. You being the superior and all”, Mr. Lawson abruptly pulled her out of her daydream and walked her to the conference room. The cubicles that entertained the slacking off employees, were now deserted. The conference room was located at the other end of the floor but it was quite larger than the room allotted to Sophie. The two of them entered the room through the large double glass doors. Nobody acknowledged them. They were all too busy making friends. The room had a huge wooden table that stretched from one end to the other and had several matching chairs surrounding it with a larger one end.
“Let’s grab a seat”, Mr. Lawson said and walked to the two unoccupied ones. The room was filled with random indistinct chatter of over excited employees. A few took selfies with the leading chair. They all waited for some senior member of the company to brief them on their duties. Mr. Lawson’s phone buzzed. He answered it and immediately displayed irritation. He hung up and moved to the larger seat at the end of the table. The selfie freaks scattered. He pushed the chair aside, leaned on the table and took a minute.
“My dear future leaders!”, Mr. Lawson spoke and the chatter faded away. “I welcome you all to our esteemed company that has been the trendsetter in services sector for the good part of a century and we have a tradition of raising the bar with every performance”, he added. “You have received a vital opportunity to reach the top and it is on you to make it count. Well, you wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t shown potential to do it”, he expertly engaged the young employees. “This floor has been allotted to manage our real estate clients. America’s best realtors trust us with the task of managing their operations. You will entertain their potential customers and filter out the ones worth a direct audience with our client. Any questions?”, he announced. There were none.
“Your first week on the job will be of training. Your senior employees will assist you in anything you need help in”, he said and motioned to the employees standing at the corner of the room who were slacking off earlier. “This is Miss Sophie Rosenberg and she will assume the role of manager. She will decide what comes to you or stays with her”, he added and the employees greeted her. The older employees had a hard time swallowing it.
“I wish you all the best and hope that you will make the company and yourself proud”, he concluded his little speech. Sophie was impressed. He didn’t need any preparation to pull that off. He motioned them to find their work stations and they all rushed out after the senior ones who were allotting a cubicle or a desk to each one of them. Sophie also made her way to her workstation. As she was closing the glass door, she saw Mr. Lawson talking alone with one of the fresh employees. She had noticed the man in the conference room. He was the only one who didn’t take a selfie or looked super excited as the others. It wasn’t her headache to think what they were up to. She had a long, hectic and exciting week in front of her.
She moved to her table and turned on the laptop. She had just logged in when she heard a knock on her door. Mr. Lawson came in after the “Come in” from the inside. She was wondering who was going to walk her through her duties. He walked to the drawers, pulled out a manila and showed it to her. It was the record of one month’s entries from the desk of the manager. The file precisely showed her what she was going to deal with. New clients, board meetings, billings, performance evaluations, it was all there.
“Take your time. If you get hit by something out of the file, we’ll decide who’s gonna play with it”, Mr. Lawson said and left.

She studied the entries for an hour and by the time she finished the file, Sophie was confident that she was ready to take it on. But her brain was fuming with exhaustion. She stepped out of her room and found the new employees working on the basics. She walked to the small kitchen at the corner of the office to fetch a coffee. She found the guy from earlier who was having a rendezvous with Mr. Lawson. He was just finishing his coffee, leaning his back on a wall. Sophie turned the machine on. Nothing happened. She checked if it was plugged in and tried again. Same result. The guy stepped closer and gave the machine a little whack and it started whirring. Sophie giggled.
“I figured it out after wasting 15 minutes myself”, he said with a smile. The coffee was ready. “You’re Sophie, right?”, he added.
“Yeah, and you?”
“Aaron”.