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There was no lying to herself. This interview would be much more demanding than the ones she had had at small doctor's offices or at the deli in her neighborhood. These people were clear professionals.
You probably needed a masters degree to scrub their toilets.
And she knew that, for once, her youth would be more of a downfall than an asset. She clearly could not compete with someone who had been working in the field for twenty years. There was no way a resume with only maybe one full year of office work would be considered over a more seasoned candidate unless she brought her A-game to this interview.
She felt her nervous energy like electricity just under her skin. She painted her nails. Then she repainted them a more dull color. She arranged her makeup and brushes over her bathroom counter for the morning. She printed out directions and placed them next to her keys. She hung her outfit in the shower after ironing the pants three times to get the cleanest lines she could manage. She set her coffee pot to start brewing at five-thirty in the morning. Then she set her alarm clock for five minutes after that. According to the directions, it would only take her ten minutes to get to EM Corporation, but she decided to allot herself three hours to go through her morning routine. Even though it rarely ever took an hour.
Finally, exhausted of tasks to do, she lay down in her bed and stared at the ceiling fan. She tossed and turned. Got up to get water. Turned the lights on. Turned them off. She checked her phone over and over and played the game of "well if I go to sleep right now, I will have six and half hours of sleep" and then six. Then five. She fell asleep somewhere after four hours and forty-two minutes and dreamed about having twelve phones to answer at the same time because if it went to voice mail she would be fired.
CHAPTER TWO
EM CORPORATION HAD an imposing headquarters. It was fifteen stories high- all shiny, flawless glass and white-as-snow stucco. It looked like money. And that was probably because it was made of money.
It seemed like it had sprung up out of nowhere just five years before where there used to be an old sub shop. What they did, exactly, was a matter of debate. It seemed as though they owned a lot of things. They were in the news all the time for buying a small, struggling companies, building it up, and then selling them for a fortune. Why that required fifteen floors and hundreds of employees was simply beyond anyone's comprehension.
Hannah pulled her beaten-up green sedan she had gotten, already quite used, for a present on her seventeenth birthday, into the parking garage and drove past row after row of gleaming BMWs and Mercedes and Jaguars. She felt as if she needed to give her car a pep talk so it wouldn't feel so inferior to all the late models and their shiny paint.
She checked her reflection in the mirror. Simple makeup. She had applied a layer of mascara and some pale pink lipstick after fussing over shades and eyeliners for nearly twenty minutes. Her hair was pulled into a sleek ponytail as she felt she looked too young when she left it to do its own thing and fall in straight strands to her waistline. She reapplied a quick coat of lipstick, grabbed her keys, and got out of her car.
She had worked in her share of office buildings when she worked as a temp in college. But never one quite like EM Corporation. The lobby was vast and open with cool black tile, gray walls, and an assortment of lush potted plants. There was a seating area through the front door and to the left. Numerous people sat there typing furiously on their laptops or talking into cell phones and looking altogether too important to be kept waiting.
Exactly how important was this company?
Hannah walked up to the security desk situated in front of the only two elevators. Behind the desk were two men in typical blue security guard uniforms. The older of the two men checked his computer, handed her a white credit card sized piece of plastic with a bar code and the word "visitor" across it, and waved her toward the elevator. She stood there dumbly for a moment before she realized she had to scan the card before the doors would open.
"Top floor," the officer barked, dismissing her.
As the doors slid closed, Hannah sank against the wall and took a deep breath. Interviews were always nerve-racking, but something about the vastness and frantic energy of this particular building was more intimidating than she cared to admit. The man to her right was on his phone negotiating what seemed like some kind of business deal for over two million dollars. She was glad when he got off on the eighth floor and allowed her to ride up to the fifteenth floor by herself.
As the doors slid open, she stepped out into the enormous space with a refreshingly open floor plan. The tile was flecked with shades of brown and red, the walls were painted tan on top then met cherry wood wainscoting half way down. Directly in the center of the space was a seating area with a leather couch, two striped captain's chairs, and a cherry wood coffee table over a large lush tan carpet.
Both sides of the room were flanked by four secretary desks made of the same cherry wood as the rest of the room. At the desks were women of varying ages and one man who looked to be about her own age. Each of them had a phone glued to their ear and were tapping furiously on their keyboards, making the whole room fill with clicking noises. All of them seemed to notice her but none acknowledged her presence.
Hannah stepped away from the elevator doors as they chimed and noticed that straight ahead behind the seating area, where the windows should have been, was a wall of red wood with a door on each end where, she assumed, the CEO or president or... whomever must have worked there. On either side of the elevators were rooms. One was closed off like an office, the other room was open on both sides with a small wall in the center like a passway in a restaurant. Maybe it was a mini kitchen for the staff.
Finally to her left, a woman in her late thirties with damaged blonde hair and deep brown eyes stood up as she hung up her phone. "Miss Clary?"
"Yes," Hannah answered, standing up straighter and smiling.
"Please follow me," she said, turning into the office near the elevator and leaving Hannah to scramble in behind her. "Alright," she said, sitting down and opening a file which, Hannah presumed, contained her resume. Judging by the thickness of it, it contained a few dozen resumes. "My name is Sally Jones. I am the head secretary on this floor. It's more like an office manager position. I am in charge of all the hiring and firing and office disputes." Sally paused and Hannah nodded, making her face appear impressed and interested. This one had a bit of an ego, apparently. "Okay, here we are," Sally said, pulling out the paper Hannah recognized as her fax from the day before. It had notes scribbled in the margins and had been highlighted in parts. "Well, Miss Clary. You certainly have an interesting resume. It caught my eye. For this position we generally look for someone with a long history of office work. But I thought that, perhaps, with your varied employment history, you might have something that all the people in this position in the past have been lacking, namely, flexibility." Sally looked up and Hannah felt the need to fill the silence.
"Yes, absolutely. I have learned invaluable things from each job I have held."
"I figured. As you can see... we are an extremely busy office. We are looking for someone who can multi-task and be at a high energy level from the time they arrive here until the time they leave in the evening. Lunch breaks are, well," she said with what could be perceived as a smile in her usually dry voice, "a laughable concept. On the off-chance that we have time to take lunch, we eat at our desks. We almost never leave our desks. The jobs are simple enough. We make calls, answer phones, make appointments, keep schedules so nothing ever accidentally overlaps. That sort of thing. That being said, we have had many a people quit within a week when they couldn't stand the pressure here."
"That's to be expected. Most people are used to a less demanding office."
"Exactly," Sally said, tapping her pen and looking pleased. "Now the personal assistant job is, of course, a little more than making calls and scheduling. Though all of that you are still required to do," she added firmly, "but you will also make the coffee and run the errands for the office and the boss. You will, essentially, be the boss's right hand. Anything he needs, you do. No questions or objections. Your main goal will be to make sure all his needs are met. Now if you feel you are unable to do that, please tell me now so you don't waste my, or your, time."
Hannah smiled. She was a real ball-buster. In a fairer world, this woman would be the boss and not just a secretary. "I believe I am fully capable of living up to that job description," Hannah said, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt.
Sally nodded, pleased. "Right then," she said, closing the folder. "The hours are... uncertain. Some days you will be able to leave at five like the rest of the office. Other days you can be held back here until eight at night when there is a need for you. You are expected to be here by eight-thirty every morning. Not a minute later. And there is often a need for you to come in even earlier. Punctuality is imperative at this company." She paused long enough for Hannah to agree with her. "Do you have any issues with the hours?"
"Not at all," Hannah replied. It's not like she had anything to do with her free time anyway. And a company this size was sure to hand out overtime to its employees.
"Do you have any more questions you would like to ask?" Sally inquired, looking at the clock.
"I can't think of any," Hannah said. Aside from... did she have the job?
