“Good morning,” he greeted the moment he reached me.
“Good morning,” I replied, standing to my feet.
“Follow me and I’ll show you around the building and where you’ll be working.”
I nodded and followed him down the hall. He pointed to every glass office we passed, letting me know whose office it was and what role they played in the company. We walked over to a huge black desk with a black leather chair sitting behind it.
“This will be your desk. Our clients will see you before they see either me or Crue. Here, you’ll handle calls, scheduling, basically anything that comes through before it reaches us. You think you can handle that?”
“I know I can,” I replied.
“I know you can too. I have faith in you. It might seem like a lot at first, and that’s to be expected. However, I know once you get the hang of things, it will flow easy.”
“Yeah, I’m not worried. I told you that I was a fast learner, so I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
Kadeem nodded then continued to show me around. He showed me my own private bathroom, which was down a short hall behind my desk, letting me know that I could put anythinginside the bathroom, and no one would touch it because it was only mine. I’d never had my own bathroom at a job and had never even heard of anything like this. I was already thinking of ways to decorate it in my head. Lastly, he showed me the restaurant which was on the top floor of the building and had a wonderful view of the water. He told me that we got free meals for lunch at the restaurant and could order anything we wanted.
After he’d shown me everything, we went back to my desk. Crue was standing there, leaned against it with his arms folded. He wore a black suit that I knew was more expensive than anything that I owned. His locs hung freely and stopped at the middle of his back. He looked at me for a moment before he finally spoke.
“Good morning. I see that Kadeem has already shown you around. I have a stack of folders, clients that need to be inputted in the system.” He pointed to a stack of manila folders that he had neatly placed on my desk before he continued. “I’m sure Kadeem will teach you how to do it, and you should have these all in the system by the close of the day.”
Crue didn’t even wait on a response before he walked away. Kadeem motioned for me to have a seat and showed me exactly how to use the system. It took me all of an hour to get it down, and I was good from there. He’d already given me a phone script so that I would know what to say when I answered the phone, and from there, I was good.
By the time I made it down to the last folder, it was two-thirty in the afternoon. I hadn’t taken a break or eaten anything yet. I wanted to show them that I could get the job done even with it being my first day. By two forty-five, I was done and decided that it was time for me to eat. I set the answering service up to take the calls. Kadeem told me that any time I was away from the desk, even if it was just to go to the bathroom, I had to set it up.After that, I took the elevator to the top floor and walked into the restaurant.
I was shown to a table immediately and began looking over the menu. A waitress dressed in black pants and a white button up walked over to me and placed a glass of ice water with lemon on the table.
“Can I start you off with something to drink, while you look over the menu?” she asked.
“No, thank you. Water is fine.”
She nodded before letting me know she would give me a moment to decide and would be back shortly. She walked away, and I continued to look over the menu. I was debating between a seafood pasta dish or the grilled chicken when Kadeem walked over to the table.
“I thought you might be up here when you weren’t at your desk. Do you mind if I join you?” he asked.
“Sure.” I nodded to the empty chair.
He sat down just as the waitress made her way back to the table. She looked at him and smiled.
“Mr. Price, how are you today?” she greeted. “Will you be having your usual?”
“Yes, I will,” he replied.
Then, the waitress turned to look at me, ready to take my order. Now that Kadeem was sitting here having lunch with me, there was no way I was going to order either of the two meals I was debating over. I wasn’t about to look greedy in front of him. So, I ordered a salad before handing the menu back to the waitress. She told us she would be back with our order shortly before walking away. We sat there in silence for several moments before he finally spoke.
“How’s your first day coming along? Are you getting the hang of things?”
“Yeah, I’m done inputting the folders, so I just need to know what else I’m supposed to do until the end of the day.”
“You’re done?” he asked, clearly shocked.
I nodded. “Yeah, I got done right before I came up here to get lunch.”
“That’s impressive. I for sure didn’t think you would get all of those done in one day. Well, after we have lunch, Crue wants to see you in his office.”
The look on my face must have said it all because Kadeem chuckled slightly before he spoke again.
“Relax, you haven’t done anything wrong. Crue is not as bad as you think. He’s a little rough around the edges, but he don’t mean no harm.”
