It’s a surprising little world I fell into when the temp agency sent me out to interview where I now work. The place is full of keeners. I have never worked anywhere before where I was surrounded on all sides by sweet, scrubbed-clean, young people who all want to do the right thing. They sit up straight on the edge of their chairs at meetings, eyes bright, pens poised. They open doors for one another and always say, “How are you today?” They seem to mean it, too.
One day I was in the deli looking around for a place to sit with my book. There were no more free tables, but there was a bank of tables with some empty seats at the end, so I asked the young women if I could occupy one of those seats. They perked up and said, “Don’t sit there, sit over here with us.”
“Thanks, no. That’s okay,” I said and sat down at the very end with The Introvert Advantage, eager to disappear into the non-fiction work and slurp my cream of broccoli soup.
The younger one with glossy black hair asked me, “Are you the one with that cute car? Do you have a new black Volkswagen?”
I looked up from my book and smiled. “Yes.”
“Well, I noticed it the other day. It’s so cute. I just wanted to tell you,” she said.
Then her friend with the creamy white skin and ruddy cheeks, brown hair and blue eyes started asking me questions. Was I new and what department did I work in.
“I guess I will sit closer,” I said, putting my book down and scooting into the seat across from them so I didn’t have to ask them to repeat each question. Soon we were comparing notes on having moved to Windsor, which neighbourhoods we each lived in and how we were adjusting.
Another day a tall young man stopped on his way out the door at five and stared at me as I was putting on my coat.
“Excuse me, Miss? You have that new VW, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Great car. My wife and I are thinking about getting one.”
I recommended my salesman, but my new friend Chris said he’d already met him.
“Isn’t that guy great? Doesn’t he just make you want to give him your money?”
Obviously he does because I did.
“He’s a poet,” I added.
“I know. There was an article about him in the Star the other day,” Chris said.
It feels quite amazing to be working somewhere where there’s no gossip, no whining, no complaining. People show up on time or early, stay a bit late just because they want to finish something up.
I think the biggest sign for me that I was on a different planet was the fact that somebody had put up a sign asking us all to keep the washroom tidy, wiping up our splashed water and so forth and… well… everyone heeds the sign. Everyone wipes up their splashed water.
Yeah, I know. This is twilight zone stuff, isn’t it?
There’s an exception, as you know. The first time we met, she wanted to draw me into a session of bashing a place we both once worked at back in Waterloo, though we’d worked there in different years. I had to interrupt her.
“I have to be careful, I’m participating in a Complaint-Free challenge and I’ve gone eleven days. I’m shooting for 37 days.”
Things were strained between us after that. It seemed to get better after I put up Jen Lemen’s poster on my bulletin board. The hardest part was knowing how to deal with her listening in on my calls and popping her head up over the partition to make a scary face and mouth, “NEVER tell a client that!!!” Somehow it stopped bothering me. I think the ego-diminishing work had a lot to do with it, but mostly I was buoyed up by the energy and attitudes of everyone else, from my manager to my trainer to the other claims examiners. I was the new kid on the block who didn’t yet know the ropes, yes, but somehow I sensed that I wasn’t the one who was out of step.
I’m not really going anyplace with this story. Not yet, anyway.
I do want to let you know that today was a good day. Strange things are going on. My supervisor pulled me into a private meeting yesterday to ask me some odd questions about my preferences when it comes to duties. Would I be able to take over certain reports for him since I have advanced Excel skills, and would I be interested in a certain other position on our team were it to be available. I said I was willing to do either or both.
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Also today the moment of truth came in that case I’d been worrying about. I knew what I had to do. I had to come clean, I had to trust my manager. And so I did. I told him, “First I want you to know I lose sleep over this one.”
He covered up a little laugh, perhaps not sure if I was kidding.
“There’s a note on the file saying the incident might have happened inside the waiting period.”
He put his face in his hands for a second, then emerged again from his hand mask.
“I have the clinicals now, as you requested,” I said.
I can’t go into a lot of detail, but I can tell you that I wiped my tears away while D was looking at the file and he pretended not to notice them when he turned back toward me. And I can tell you that this manager of mine was all protocol and seriousness, telling me about the other hoops I now have to make this man go through before we can consider the claim, like getting past medical history from the home country so we can rule out pre-existing condition. Mostly I wish you could have been there when I got the response from the bereaved son of our late client.
“Can I put you on hold while I consult with my supervisor?” I asked the young man with whom I am now on a first name basis.
I stood up, let out a big breath, gave my face another squeegee job with my hands and sneaked back to D’s office.
“Mr. S is on hold. He says his father didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t eat meat and was in the army. He was never sick a day in his life and doesn’t have a doctor.”
I saw my supervisor trying hard not to break into a grin as he said, “Okay, then.”
I still don’t know if I’ll be able to pay this one, but I do know we’re already starting to find the sweetness.
Click to enlarge.
