First Day of Work

“What are you?” the man standing beside me staring at me asks. It’s a good question. At least he isn’t just a starer. Those are the worst. Make you do all the work in the conversation.

I do my best to smile and shrug. “Nothing special,” I lie. Maybe he’ll think he’s just been hallucinating or something. Always easier than the alternative. Less messy, too.

“Crazy bastard,” he mutters as he walks over to the other side of the subway car. It isn’t like he could possibly explain what he’s seen. Hell, I’m the one who did it and I can barely explain. Best I’ve been able to figure, I can somehow visually manipulate quantum states in order to entangle my surroundings with other similar particles in visual range, then entangle my own state with my surroundings and use the imprint to transmit myself to the second location. I think. I’m not a scientist, though, so don’t quote me on it. Transmission leaves a mess of particulate in my wake and clears the new area of some air and whatnot, but it seems to work well enough to get me where I’m going. Especially useful when I’m about to miss the subway. Doors were closing and I am not about to be late. Not today. So, in a blink of my eye, I got myself into the train. Normally people don’t care enough to question the logic of what happens on public transport.

I seat myself in the half-empty car. Transmitting myself takes a lot more effort than I like to admit to, so sitting down afterwards is generally good. Also, an energy bar. Unfortunately, I don’t have snacks. Silly me. I settle for an altoid as a holdover until I reach the aboveground land. And I hope it’ll be enough.

As the subway pulls into my stop, three stops after getting on, I stand back up. My head gets a little dizzy. Lightheadedness. Always the first sign of needing food. Next comes my guts deciding to get a little woozy, then the vomiting hits. I hope I don’t get to the third sign. It’s rather less than pleasant. And I’ve never waited to see if there’s a fourth. Pretty sure that’s just collapsing. The doors open and I rush out as fast as I can manage, power walking through the stop to the turnstiles. Swiping my card, I’m out and onto the street. Fortunately for me, there’s a McDonalds or Starbucks within a block of anywhere in every city in existence. The gilded arches are closer, but opposite my new office. The Starbucks is on the way to my office, so I punch in for the food and coffee on my phone as I head that way.

I chose wrong, as it turns out. The light changes as I approach. That’s just unacceptable. Seeing the alley near the Starbucks is shady enough to deal, I check my surroundings. No one’s watching me. Focusing on the alley, I transmit myself there.

Upon coming together in the alley, I vomit. It’s a painful, dry vomit, because I haven’t had enough to eat yet. I hate vomiting on an empty stomach. There’s a homeless woman on the ground near a dumpster, staring at me. I did appear out of nowhere to her, I suppose. The staring is to be expected, if irritating. Shaking my head in her general direction, I head back out to the coffee shop, to pick up my coffee and breakfast. She remains staring, if the hairs popping out of the back of my neck mean anything.

Smiling as I enter the shop, I politely say, “Hi,” to the barista, putting out the online orders. One of them is my breakfast, at least. The barista mostly ignores me, keeping on doing their job. Picking up the breakfast sandwich, I start to eat. Nip this damned vomiting in the bud before it causes any real problems. As a different barista puts my coffee out, I, with my mouth full, say, “Thank you,” and grab it.

“No problem,” the barista says. He’s much more polite than the other. Good to know, considering I’ll be passing this ‘bucks on every commute. Carrying my coffee in one hand and my breakfast sandwich in the other, I use my back to push through the door and back onto the street. Never stopping my eating. Eating breakfast is important. Especially on days like today when I’ve gotten so much exercise.

As I reach the front doors of my office building, I’m through the sandwich. It’s a good thing, too, because I’m not entirely sure I want to be chowing down on an admittedly delicious sandwich in front of my coworkers. I’m not exactly the most dignified eater, especially when I’m hungry. After taking a moment to lick the buttery remnant off my fingers, I head into the atrium of the building.

The security guy at the desk smiles and says, “Hey. New here?”

I smile back, trying to hide the fact that I’m scanning him for a nametag. “Yeah, first day. How’d you guess...” I finally spot it. Mitchell Richard. I take a guess. “Mitch?” I pull out my badge for him to scan.

He chuckles. “You’ve got that deer in the headlights look. Don’t worry, most of the offices here aren’t as bad as you think.” He scans my badge and nods, handing it back.

“Most?” I reply, “That’s not exactly comforting.” I take back my badge and put it into my inner jacket pocket.

He laughs some more. A very happy person, evidently, this Mitch. “Alright, good luck,” he says, waving me through the metal detector.

“Well, thanks,” I say with a smile, “Have a good day.” I head through the arched scanner.

“You too,” he replies with a wave. I wave back before I rush to the elevator. I press the button and check my watch. Still early. Exhaling deeply, I start to relax. Some lady walks up, looks at the button, and then starts staring at the indicators. One of the elevators dings. The left one. The woman enters first, and I follow suit. She’s pressed the button for the tenth floor. I hit fifteen and move to the back of the car. Just as the elevator doors start to close, a flustered man in a wrinkled suit slides in, briefcase first. I just sip on my coffee as he presses floor seven and starts really poorly flirting with the woman. She doesn’t even take out her headphones. Gotta respect that level of I don’t care about you or your life.

Because of this, soon enough, his attention turns to me. “What do you want?” he asks in that hyper-aggressive way that you just know he’s been unhappily married for years and compensates for his perceived emasculation within his marriage, given the suit likely his wife having a higher earning job than him, by lashing out at anyone he perceives as vulnerable.

I slowly lower my coffee. “Nothing much,” I joke with a smile. “I used to want a pony, but they cost too much to maintain.”

“You messing with me?” he asks, trying his best to get in my face.

I nod, taking another sip. “Yes.”

The woman starts laughing, which serves only to piss the guy off more. Don’t know whether it’s the fact that a woman is laughing at him or that she was ignoring him out of intent rather than ignorance earlier that bothered him more. The car stops. “I think this is your stop,” I say to him with a smile.

He looks over at the opening doors, grunts and starts to leave. But not before slapping my coffee out of my hand. Unfortunately for the bully, that only serves to make me look cooler, because I catch the cup on my shoe. It does spill a bunch from spinning about during the fall, but a catch is a catch and I look good doing it. Bending over as the door closes, I grab the cup and take a victory sip.

The woman takes out an earbud. “Sorry about him,” she says, “I promise, not all of us are like that.”

I wave her off and chuckle. “Do I have some tattoo saying ‘new guy’ that I don’t know about?” I ask.

She laughs. “No,” she replies, “I’m just usually here early and I’ve never seen you before. Took an educated guess.”

“I’m Norman,” I say, sticking out my hand.

“Jane,” she replies, shaking my hand as the elevator stops again.

“Good luck on your day, Jane.” I give her a farewell nod as well.

Putting her earbud back in and smiling, she says a curt, “You too,” before leaving me all alone in the elevator.

The doors shut again and I’m on my way up. I enjoy what remains of my coffee, checking for a camera. I don’t want to get blamed for that other guy’s actions. There is one, offset from the corner by an inch or so. Should’ve seen everything. Good. The doors open and I head into the office. The boss’s door is shut, which is good. I think. Means I got here before her. Looking around, I see the person who hired me, the boss’s personal assistant, sitting at one of the nearby desks, writing something down. I approach her. “Hey, Erica,” I say.

“Oh, Norm, good to see you,” she says.

I smile. “You too. I was wondering where I should set up and if there is anything I should have done before the boss-lady gets in.”

She gestures to a tiny cubicle thing in a corner near her desk. “You’re gonna be there. Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s smaller than it looks.” Then, she hands me a sticky note. “And here’s a list of everything you need to do as of this morning. Get as much done as you can before Ms. Pryor comes in, and if she asks, you’ve done everything on the list. Understood?”

“Yes ma’am,” I say. Not sure how I feel about lying to the boss so early on in my tenure here, but since my direct boss told me too, I think it shouldn’t be too bad.

Heading over to my small cubicle, I settle in as fast as I can. Erica is right, it’s definitely smaller than it looks. Putting the sticky note on my monitor’s edge as a guide, I get to work doing all the administrative tasks Pryor’s personal assistant doesn’t have time to deal with.

I get about a third of the way through my list when the elevator dings and the boss enters the office. I stand up and smile. She walks right past us to her office, giving Erica a nod. She follows the boss in, and I fall in behind her.

“Erica, cancel my,” she begins before noticing me. “Who’s this?”

“You said I could hire an executive assistant for myself,” Erica answers, “This is Norman.”

“I did, didn’t I,” Ms. Pryor notes, then turning towards me, asks, “And do you have any thoughts?”

“I prefer the term ‘lackey’, but other than that,” I joke.

She doesn’t laugh, instead turning to Erica, “And today’s workload? Did you finish crosschecking the quotes and estimates?” One of the six tasks I have yet to finish.

Erica turns to me. “Well, Norm?” she asks.

I smile and nod. “Did that just before you came in,” I say confidently. A lie is always more believable with confidence behind it. “I can send it to you if you want?”

“A summary should be fine,” Ms. Pryor says. “Now, back to the point, cancel my meeting with Senator Hellerson. My sources in his office say nothing I can do will sway him. Leak something about him. Anything that stains his rep, but just enough to make him feel bad about stringing me along. Not worth losing the relationship over, but I don’t want people to feel they can get away with it.”

Erica nods. “Right away,” she says, giving me a look to get to work on the summary.

I shoot her a nod. As the boss-lady begins her next set of instructions, I head back to my desk quickly and set to work on the crosscheck.