Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
TIA
T his morning has been a roller coaster ride already and it’s not even a quarter past nine in the morning yet. I came in less than a half an hour ago – it feels like so much longer than that - and met my boss, Luke. He’s younger than I thought he would be, definitely not out of his twenties. And he is smoking hot, although he’s an asshole to boot, so good looking or not, at least I don’t fancy him. No, really, I don’t.
I used my coffee joke, where I tell the boss my order when he tells me his, and I have found that in most of my work experience placements throughout college that all of them have laughed. The better ones actually bought me a coffee at some point. Luke just basically told me I wasn’t important enough for him to need to know that about me. And then the way he described me as a general dog’s body to Mel made me want to punch him. I did see Mel look briefly shocked before she covered the expression with a more neutral look and that definitely made me lean towards liking her. She’s almost certainly loyal to Luke, but she isn’t one of those mindless employees that don’t have their own thoughts and opinions.
She’s almost as tall as me, and she has black skin and black hair that she wears in a funky updo. She’s really pretty, with eyes of a golden shade that I would kill for. She looks sophisticated in her form fitting dress and bolero jacket, especially next to me in my black pants and white blouse. Could I have chosen anything more boring? I am going to have to up my fashion game here. At least it’s not like the placement I went on where I wore a full skirt suit and smart blouse, only to find out the rest of the staff were wearing jeans and oversized hoodies and sneakers. At least my boring outfit doesn’t stand out and make me look silly.
I’m glad when Luke leaves Mel’s office and it’s just the two of us. I feel some of the tension go out of my spine and Mel smiles at me warmly which helps too. I want to quiz her about Luke, about why he is being so mean to me for no reason, but I figure that even though she’s being nice to me, her loyalties obviously lie with Luke and she’s not going to bitch about him with me, and there’s also the possibility anything I ask about him will get back to him, and I don’t want him to think I even noticed he was being mean. I want him to just think I’m unaffected by him.
“Are you ready for the tour or do you need a moment first? It’s a lot isn’t it, that first few minutes in a new job,” Mel says.
“It is,” I agree. “But I’m ok. I’m ready for the tour.”
Mel nods her head, and I follow her out of her office, down the hallway and to the elevator car. Mel presses the call button, and we wait. I hear the rattling sound of the car getting into motion and soon enough, the doors ping open, and we get into the elevator.
“You’ve obviously seen the lobby and met Elenor, the receptionist there?” Mel says, and I nod.
“Elenor introduced herself to me when I told her who I was and why I’m here,” I confirm. “She seems nice.”
“She is, but seeing as you’ve already met her, there’s not much else to see on the ground floor, so let’s start on the next floor up then,” she says and she reaches out a perfectly manicured, purple colored nail and presses the button marked one. We reach the floor and get out of the elevator. This floor is very different from the fifth floor. Where that floor has a long corridor and lots of offices, this floor is mostly an open plan with people working in cubicles alongside each other. Mel points to the right. “That’s the customer services team.” Then she points to the left. “And that’s the sales team. Half of them sell advertising slots on the site and the other half try to boost up the number of site users we have. To be honest, I don’t think you’ll have much need to be down here unless you want to try your hand at sales?”
“God no,” I say with a shudder and Mel laughs.
“My feelings exactly,” she says.
Mel leads me back to the elevator and we get in and go up one floor. This floor is more like the fifth floor with individual rooms, although the rooms here are larger, and each have multiple people working in them. Mel leads me to the first door, and we go in.
“This is the HR department,” Mel says. She leads me over to a desk where a woman smiles a greeting at us. “Susan Hall, Louisa Sanchez, our new intern.” I smile and Susan and I shake hands and exchange pleasantries. “I’m sure you won’t need to, but if you do ever need to lodge a formal complaint, Susan is your point of contact.”
“I’m sure I won’t need to lodge a complaint,” I agree. “Unless of course I don’t get long enough lunch breaks.”
I risk another joke, smiling to show it’s definitely a joke and this one pays off. Both Mel and Susan laugh.
“You will get long enough, as long as five minutes at your desk, eating with one hand and typing with the other one is enough,” Mel says.
“Obviously,” I agree and the three of us laugh some more and then Mel leads me out of the room and to the next one. “This here is the payroll department. I’ll show you later how to complete your time sheets and when and where to send them to.”
We head back to the elevator, and we go to floor three.
The first part of the hallway shows a decent sized room with two men working in it, beside a huge, glass walled room filled with servers.
“That’s our IT department,” Mel says. “Obviously everyone here is pretty tech savvy, but these guys know more about the workings of computers than anyone, and if there is a problem with any computer that you can’t fix, call down to them. They also set up new employees on the systems and stuff, which again, I will go through with you later.”
We are still walking, and the corridor opens out to a large open space where five people sit around a good sized pod of desks with dividers between them that are low enough to still be able to speak to each other. One desk is empty.
“This here is the web development team. I believe that’s your main focus?” Mel says. I nod, and she smiles. “Well, that empty desk might become yours if you can prove yourself.”
“I really hope so,” I reply.
Mel introduces me to the team. I know I will never remember all of their names, but it’s still nice to be introduced to them. They seem like a friendly enough bunch, and I definitely think I would fit in here with these people. When we’ve chatted for a while about my degree and what they are working on and a few other things, Mel clears her throat.
“I think it’s time for us to head back up,” she says.
“Oh, sure, sorry,” I reply.
“It’s ok,” she says, and we say our goodbyes and she leads me back to the elevator. She presses the button for the fifth floor. “The fourth floor is all conference rooms where we mostly hold team meetings, but sometimes potential advertisers and what not want to come in and have meetings. That all takes place there. I won’t show you yet because there’s really nothing to see except a bunch of empty rooms. There will be a meeting later on though so you will see the conference rooms then and at least now you know where to find them.”
We get back onto the fifth floor and Mel walks over to a desk that was previously empty but now has a woman sitting behind it.
“Rachel, this is Louisa, our new intern. Louisa, this is Rachel Whittington, Luke’s personal receptionist,” Mel says.
Rachel and I greet each other and then Mel continues down the hallway with me behind her. She points to a few closed doors as we pass them.
“That’s the men’s bathroom, and that’s the ladies’ bathroom for this floor,” she says. “And that there is the breakroom, and beside it, the kitchen. There’s a fridge, coffee machine, and microwave in the break room for the use of staff. Please don’t use the kitchen for personal use.”
“Ok,” I quickly agree.
“That’s the mail room for our floor and that one there is for photocopying, scanning and shredding. We also keep all of our current files in there. And that one is where all of the old files are archived,” Mel goes on, pointing at more doors.
Finally, Mel takes me to one of the last doors before we reach Luke’s office. It’s directly opposite Mel’s office. She opens the door, and I’m ushered inside of a room that is basically a storage cupboard, but instead of supplies, there’s a desk and a chair crammed into the room. On the desk is a computer and a telephone, plus two empty trays marked in and out. The walls are grey, and the paintwork is white. A small window lends some light to the room. It’s tiny but functional and as an intern I’m just happy to have an office at all.
“This is where you’ll be based until Luke says otherwise,” Mel tells me.
I look around again, more critical this time now that Mel has made it sound like I could be here for a long time. It’s still tiny -there’s no getting around that - but the décor looks new and fresh and it’s not like I’m wanting to host parties in the space. It’s big enough for a desk and a chair and I can’t see what else I might need at this point.
“Sit down and switch your computer on,” Mel says.
I move around the desk with a small degree of difficulty. The real Louisa wouldn’t have gotten through the gap without going up on her tippy toes, but I have no ass, so I manage it without too much contortionism. Just. I plonk down in the chair, waiting for it to break or something equally bad, but nothing happens, and I switch the computer on as Mel directed me to. Mel perches on the edge of the desk and points to a sheet of paper on the top of it. It should be in the in tray I can’t help but think. Naturally, I choose not to point this out to Mel in case she is the one who left it there. Or worse, Luke left it there. I stop obsessing over the sheet and turn my attention back to Mel as she begins to speak again, pointing momentarily at the sheet again as she does.
“That’s your logins for each system. Even if you don’t know the system or how to work it yet, please enter each one and make sure the logins work. Don’t do anything else. You will be shown how the systems work as and when you need them. You will also find details of how to get paid on the sheet. Once you have done that, you can go back to Luke and see what he wants you to do today,” Mel says. “Do let me know if there are any issues.”
“Got it,” I say. “Thank you for the tour and for making me feel welcome.”
Mel smiles at me and goes to leave. She stops at the door.
“If you want to impress Luke, don’t go to his office without his coffee,” she says.
I nod. I really don’t like the idea of being the dog’s body, but I know I have to suck it up and prove myself before I’m trusted with anything else. And at least there’s a coffee machine. It’s not like I have to do much, just put a cup beneath the spout and press a button. I’m sure I can manage that easily enough.
Mel leaves and I quickly go through the list in front of me and log in to each system. Each one works perfectly well and then I get to the bit about how to be paid. I go to the page on the company intranet that I’m directed to and download a timesheet. I need to fill it in every day and email it to the payroll department at the end of the week, which again, I’m sure I can manage. I set a reminder on my cell phone for Friday to send the time sheet just in case I forget all the same.
With all of that done, I go to the breakroom, grab a mug and put it beneath the spout on the coffee machine, and then I hit the button for an Americano. The machine rattles to life and while it makes and pours the coffee, I find the sugar and the milk. When the coffee is done, I add milk and two spoons of sugar. I give the drink a quick stir and then I rinse the spoon and return it to the drawer where I found it and then I head to Luke’s office with the cup of coffee in my hand.
I take a deep breath to steady my nerves and then I knock on the door.
“Come in,” Luke calls and I open the door and step into his office.