The Replacements

The next day at work I had a full day planned and wasn’t entirely looking forward to it. Since Vicki was let go I had to start scheduling interviews with potential candidates to fill her position. Finding Vicki was a chore by itself and I celebrated after I hired her. I knew that it would be a long day so when I got to work and checked my e-mail, I realized it was probably going to be a lot worse than I had expected.

I had an e-mail from Kevin asking me to meet with him in his office when I got in. I grabbed my cup of coffee, took a deep breath, and prepared myself for one of the most awkward situations I expected to ever have in my life (and considering that I had to have a conversation with two people about how they were being fired for having sex on our copy paper last week, that’s saying something, right?).
I timidly knocked on the door and waited for Kevin’s invitation.

“Come in.”

“Hey, Kevin, I just got your e-mail. What would you like to talk about?”

“Uh, well….I just wanted to put it out there that I really don’t want you to have to feel awkward or self-conscious about what happened the other night. I mean we were two complete strangers and I’m prepared to be completely professional about it and not let it affect my perceptio nof you or your work.”

“Uh...well I guess this means I’m off the hook for having to call you?” I said trying to break the tension. He laughed, shook his head and thanked me for my time.

Finally my mind was at ease and I walked back to my office with a different outlook for the day. I had three interviews to take care of and the first one wasn’t due for about an hour, so I stopped by to talk with Dina and Suzy. They were in their shared office talking about George’s mysterious exit from the paper. Suzy is the Entertainment writer for the Newspaper and Dina’s job is to help research and investigate source tips that come in.

“Hello ladies.”

“Faith, you’ll never guess what the new theory running around the office is,” Suzy loves to hear about all the office gossip which makes her job as our Entertainment writer more fitting.

“Yeah, it’s a doozy,” Dina wasn’t as much into the gossip, but she worked with George fairly closely and much longer than most of us so she was avidly trying to figure out why he left too.

“No one’s been able to get a hold of him or his wife but Hector, the blonde guy who works in the mail room, said that George was at the grocery store and had a sparse amount of groceries in his cart. Based on the contents: A jar of pickles, microwaveable pizza, and beer; we have come to the conclusion that his wife has left him,” Suzy finished with a glance over to Dina and a head nod.

“Well, “ I began, “That’s really unfortunate….if it’s true. He probably just needs some time to deal with whatever is going on, I’m sure it’ll turn out okay for him. Anyway I just came from Kevin’s-“

“OH! You’re so lucky! Isn’t he super hot? His eyes are gorgeous and he has a great smile,” Suzy always did have a flair for judging our male employees. I smiled and looked at Dina, who heartily agreed and bragged about getting to send more time with him than Suzy. I bid my friends adieu and went to prepare for my interviews.

Unfortunately, none of the potential secretary candidates fit the credentials:
The first one was a young teenage boy with facial tattoos and an affinity for vulgar words, the second was a woman who brought her very old and nervous dog with her, and the third was an older gentleman who used his entire interview to compliment my breasts.

On my way home from work I stopped by a bookstore and noticed a guy checking me out from one of the opposite aisles. I smiled and went to purchase my book when he came up to me and introduced himself. His name is Dean and he seemed really sweet, I gave him my phone number and we decided to get some coffee this weekend. I’m really looking forward to this weekend, now, first shopping with my friends and then a date. This day went a lot better than I thought.