AllFreeNovel
Share Us
33
It’s Over Now, Trolley Girl
The guy standing in front of the big screen was trying to convince us that even though he didn’t make his budget this year, he was still a genius and loved by his customers.
I wondered if this was going to be a theme.
“You’re not paying attention,” Michael whispered at my side.
“I am,” I whispered back. “He was 16% short on his quota because the supplier failed to ship his order in time.”
“The order he failed to place in time,” Michael added.
“Exactly.”
Pie charts and bar graphs. Dollar signs and percentages. Promises and excuses.
I smiled.
The next guy blew his budget out of the water.
“You’re fidgeting,” Michael said half an hour later.
I realised my hands were wringing and my breaths were fast. I counted to three slowly inside my head.
Ducks and geese in a house in Belmont. Lights and sirens and parting the traffic. Weet-Bix boxes.
“Just nervous,” I whispered back.
“Don’t be,” Michael said. “Just be yourself.”
“What if myself is nervous?” I asked.
He smiled.
“What have you got to be nervous about?” he said. “You don’t have a quota yet to have failed to meet.”
I’m coated in blood.
“Right, you lot,” my boss said. “That’s it for the budgets. Next, we’ve got a surprise. The new girl’s going to do a presentation on being a paramedic.”
I smiled. My hands were wringing. I’d stopped counting.
“This is me,” I said, indicating a picture up on the screen.Can you see the blood?“In the back of A 1-8,” I said. “Looking after a child who had febrile convulsions.”
No blood.
“It wasn't always life and death,” I said. “Sometimes, it was just a tummy bug.”
Wiping brows and holding hands. Cheese sandwiches and cups of tea. Weet-Bix boxes.
“I worked on the road and in the call centre,” I said. “I’m not sure which I preferred best.”
Ambulance Emergency! The pager going off. Tired eyes and sore backs and empty stomachs.
“I was a qualified paramedic, that meant I could administer some medicines specific to patients requiring pain relief, in shock, or who were continuously fitting.”
Oxygen bottles and nitrous oxide. IV lines and bags of saline. Weet-Bix Guy.
