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The only peace came from getting a head start on the work. She sat up, doing searches, comparing icons and logo histories of iGo and other successful apps. If she were to stop, she would dwell on a kind of lightness she saw in Harlan which seemed to make his intensity so approachable.
Someone had been knocking at the door, apparently for some time, Tory thought, based on the aggressiveness to the knock. She had passed out on the bed scrolling a tablet and had a mark from the corner of the tablet pressed into her forehead when she opened the door to let in Ms. Kalinski, who had a black medical grade mask and black latex gloves on to match her usual severe appearance. The stern young woman refrained from entering, yet looked around the small room before speaking.
‘Today, Ms. Stadler, you and the other design contest winners are welcome to join Mr. Dawes and Mr. Linder. The facility has been sanitized for your protection. We have especially prepared workstations to ensure appropriate social distancing is followed at all times.”
“Thank you,” Tory said, yawning as Ms. Kalinski passed her a big plastic shopping bag.
“Further, after breakfast, you will report to the design studio wearing the masks and gloves in this plastic bag. You will also find a hand sanitizer you can keep in your room to use for any incidents prior to interacting with Mr. Dawes. Next week we will have the test kits here. Until then, we are in full quarantine and taking full safety precautions until we are notified otherwise.”
The difference in what the Design Studio looked like when she toured it during the workshops shocked her. The sterile emptiness made her feel the new set up’s cold severity to be an example of Ms. Kalinski’s range of power and influence over Dawe’s efforts.
Workstations set up with a bright ergonomic work perch were spaced far enough apart to prevent casual communication between them, more than satisfying the prevalent social distancing protocols.
At one end of the studio, opposite the huge picture window to the city below, a 120 inch screen displayed a slideshow of Trace Linder’s current concepts, previous icon designs and other icon designs the iGo executive’s would be fond of emulating for one reason or another.
This slideshow played on each workstation, she noticed, passing Dan Enning’s station
Who waved weakly at her from behind his mask, eyes bloodshot; clearly just hanging on.
As she approached her designated station a loud synth tone broke the silence otherwise occupied by some of the blander works of Brian Eno that shuffled unobtrusively in the background.
A window in the corner of the huge monitor expanded and brightened into view revealing Harlan Dawes smiling at them.
“Good morning, crew. And I mean that. Welcome. Consider yourselves members of our team here at Nextthing.Net as we call upon you for your input. No idea is too small, too big or too crazy to consider around here.”
A second box split off from Dawes, to show Trace Linder in his mask.
“Good Morning, gang. If you take a moment to look at your desktops you will see a link and password for a Zoom session that will start in an hour. Take some time to familiarize yourselves with the resource the workstation offers then Haran and or myself will come on to moderate discussion and listen to ideas,” Linder finished and Harlan took advantage of the moment.
“And remember. This isn’t rocket science. You don’t even have to explain or justify a visual idea as long as it works. I want to apologize for this unorthodox setup. The Coronavirus is touching us all one way or another. I would have preferred tossing ideas back and forth across a conference table over take-out foods and industry banter. Industry banter is high underrated. A lot of great ideas are born in the midst of careless conjecture. Take advantage of Zoom. Banter is encouraged. Take out guaranteed. Ms. Kalinski has the menus of restaurants she’s decided to support that are still open for pick up an…”
Another tone interrupted Harlan.
“Ok. I have to take this. Good luck, everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines,” Harlan announced in a casual yet celebrative tone all at once as his window collapsed to a pinpoint of light and disappeared.
Disappointed but in some ways relieved, Tory looked over to Mahira, who was having trouble getting comfortable in the odd shaped modern chair and grinned in unobservable amusement. The social distancing experiment wasn’t exactly what she had expected after the night by the pool, but it might give her a chance at actually being able to apply herself to the iGo App efforts.
When the Zoom session commenced it was led by Trace who started out by asking Dan about what his initial take on the group of visual concepts he had come up in the last two weeks. Even in the smaller Zoom window, Tory could see something collapse in Dan at the prospect of going first.
