it, and catch the falling crumbs.
Mika seems to sense my mounting discomfort. “I like girls with healthy appetites,” he says simply.
I glance over at Ingeborg. She’s munching on a celery stick. Nothing else is on her plate.
Great. Now I feel like a ginormous pudding.
Humph…Mika may like girls with healthy appetites, but he certainly doesn’t date ‘em.
The training class has never been this quiet. Like sitting ducks, we await our fates.
Glenn fixes me with a steady look. “Maddy…”
My stomach is in knots. Please let me be on Dawson’s team.
“You’ll be on Hillary Hildegard’s team.”
A sharp pain twists in my gut. Noooooooooooooo. I bury my head in my hands and make a muffled cry of despair.
“Ingeborg,” Glenn bellows. “Hillary’s team as well.”
She squeaks with terror and turns sheet white.
“Karsynn.” Glenn pauses for a beat and looks straight at her.
Her eyes are clamped shut, almost like she’s dreading what’s coming her way.
Glenn lays it on her gently. “Hillary’s team.”
Kars bashes her head against the desk.
Unperturbed, Glenn continues roll calling more names, poor unfortunate souls, all doomed for Hillary the Not Ready Nazi’s labor camp.
Sometime later, the tide begins to shift when we hear Glenn say, “Mika, you’ll be on Dawson Darling’s team.”
Mika shrugs with a casual expression of indifference.
Kars glares at him resentfully. “You lucky duck! You get your freedom while the rest of us take the train to the Gulag!”
Mika shoots her a feeble smile and apologizes with his eyes.
When Glenn is finished roll calling, he distributes printouts of our schedules. As it turns out, most of us will be working a crappy shift from noon ‘til 8:30 pm, right smack in the middle of the day. I won’t have time to do anything in the morning, afternoon or evening for that matter.
The best shifts by far are: 8:30 am to 4 pm—so I still have the whole evening left to enjoy, or 3:30 pm ‘til midnight—so I can have the whole morning to myself. But since I am the low man on the totem pole, I am stuck with a shift where my whole day is wasted at work. Bummer!
Before dismissing us from our final day of training, Glenn shepherds us to our cubicles. They don’t look like much, but what more can you expect from a cubicle? It’s a six-by-six foot partition without a view.
And although Kars and I are on the same team, a row of cubes separate us, like the Red Sea. Ingeborg’s desk is just two cubes away from mine, so we can still holler at each other.
We’re curious to see where Mika’s cubicle is, so we traipse over to his desk. Standing by his cube, I scan the floor for mine. “You’re quite a distance from us Mika,” I point out. “I’d say you’re about eight rows across.”
Ingeborg pulls a face, slightly miffed that she and Mika won’t be joined at the hip.
Mika gives a playful grin. “Ladies, don’t worry. I’ll come over and visit.”
Glenn rounds us up like sheep one final time. “All right guys, so you’ll report to your supervisors on Monday. You may bring in pictures and plants to decorate your cubes if you wish.” He pauses and glances around, as if trying to memorize all our faces. “And although you’re no longer in training, please don’t be a stranger. My office is right next to the exit stairwell on the north side, so feel free to stop by and pay me a visit anytime, okay?”
We nod and murmur our goodbyes.
Glenn glances furtively at his watch. “Oops, it’s time. Must dash. I have a meeting with HR.”
As he prances away, I overhear some snippets of conversation, something about how the shit hit the fan after word got around that Glenn executed a back flip and encouraged Mika to perform a stunt on company property. I guess if Mika had gotten injured, the company would have been liable, and so Glenn had violated some sort of code in the Employee Handbook.
Poor Glenn...I hope he’s not in any hot water.
Four
“Hurricane Katrina has struck again!” Karsynn surveys the pile of clothes strewn across her room.
My suitcase is empty but my stuff is everywhere and the room is in utter chaos. To be honest, Karsynn’s room was pretty much a pigsty even before I moved in, but I did sort of take it to a new level today.
Looking helplessly around, I cry, “I have nothing to wear.”
Karsynn seizes me by the shoulders. “Look, it’s just work—at a call center, remember? We don’t have to dress up since