Just a Walk in the Park: Chapter 3
Thank you and dpga4625 for all you have done to help me edit my stories.
Thank you for reading my stories. If this is your first time reading one of my stories, welcome. I highly recommend that you read a series from the beginning as by this point, I am not going to spend time describing the main character. You may also miss some of the running jokes I love to use.
I had never been so nervous in my life. It was strange I could blow a guy in public but I was terrified of the woman that now stood before me. I'd started an internship at the Class Corporation's main office. Arthur had introduced me to Cara Reed, a very attractive blonde who was maybe 5'6" perhaps 130lbs in an off-white blouse, black skirt, off white thigh highs and black Mary Janes. She took one look at me and said, "I don't have time for this Arthur. We are having issues with our new accounting and inventory program and I have a quarterly report due in less than a week. I know you're the boss and Alexis does whatever you tell her to do but no Arthur. No, no, no, no, no."
"I hear what you are saying." Arthur started to say in his selling-ice-to-Norwegians tone.
"Not listening to you." She said literally put her fingers in her ears and started to hum.
I didn't know if Arthur was impressed or insulted by the woman's standoffishness. Maybe that was the trick to not giving Arthur everything he wanted. Maybe he was like the sirens in Greek mythology. If you could not hear him, he couldn't talk you into things. Of course, I was already his, mind and body, but maybe I could warn others.
These were the thoughts that were going through my head when Arthur walked over to Cara, breaking all HR policies that I am aware of, grabbed both of her elbows, and pulled her arms away from her head.
"I know that you're busy, my dear." His tone still sweet but also a little sterner as well, "I know about the issues you are having but don't worry, for help is at hand." He said with his winning smile and smooth voice while pointing at me, "That is why I brought you Jason. He will be able to help."
It might have been my imagination but her eyes almost seemed to glaze and I half expected her to say, 'These aren't the droids we're looking for.' What she did do, was take a deep breath and said, "Fine."
Cara started walking down the hall. Arthur motioned me to follow her so I followed her. I trailed Cara through a door and was almost knocked over by the white noise of typing and phone conversations. I had been expecting this but wow. Like every inch of Class Corporation property this room was covered by security cams but I thought the noise level had been a problem with the mic having too high of a pickup volume. It definitely made me miss the silence of my home office.
Cara walked me over to one corner of the room where an older man sat. Cara tapped him on the shoulder and he swiveled around and stood up. He was maybe 5'2" and about 220 pounds. To be honest he looked a lot like Santa Claus, in a very nice grey pin stripped suit. Cara put her back to the wall and introduced us. "David Bradley, this is Jason..." She looked confused for a minute, "I'm sorry I have forgotten your last name."
"Swift," I said extending my hand to David.
David took my hand and with an almost jolly smile said, "nice to meet you mate," in an Irish accent. "Very nice to meet you."
He looking me up and down like I was a side of beef. From the look in his eyes, he was into beef.
"Nice to meet you too." I said then looked over at a table covered with crockpots. "Is that food for anyone?"
Cara looked over and said, "Yes. We are having a food day. Everyone always goes way overboard."
David said, "Try the spinach and artichoke dip. It's mine and it's amazing."
"Hey thanks," I said heading towards the table.
Cara pulled David aside as I walked past. Then Cara, in a tone she thought was too low for me to hear said, "He's a new intern Arthur stuck me with. Arthur said he could help us but quite frankly I don't have time to play babysitter so, since you're stuck spinning your wheels with the rest of us, would you mind keeping an eye on him?"
"Not at all." I could feel his eyes on my back, "I'd love to, boss."
"You were not exaggerating, David." I said scooping more dip up on a chip and popping it into my mouth, "This stuff is ambrosia."
"Glad you like it," David said with a smile.
He pulled out the chair he had been sitting in and motioned me to sit. I sat down and he grabbed another chair from an empty cubical. It was still warm. I started to look over David's desk. I saw a couple of family photos but none that seemed to contain a wife or family. A few with people who were obviously relatives of some sort judging by faces and bone structure. Then I noticed a small thank you card that had been framed along with several photos and a very naughty idea came into my mind.
Apparently, I was not the only person that thought David looked like Santa. The card was from Hope House, a woman shelter that takes in battered woman and their children trying to get out of abusive home situations. David had obviously dropped in last year dressed as Santa and done the whole what do you want for Christmas little one routine. Then he had left gifts, provided by the Class Corporation, for the kids and mothers. He was a bit older than I usually liked but I suddenly had a daydream of siting on David's lap while he was dressed as Santa and telling him all the naughty things I had done and ask him what I need to do to get back on his nice list.
My hand nudged his mouse and his screen saver, A photo of a 70 Ford Mustang BOSS painted traditional Ford blue with black stripes disappeared and what he had been working on popped up on the screen. "Cool." I said my plate half empty, "You guys are using orange tree."
"Yes, we are," David said looking down. "Or at least we were."
"It's a great system," I commented, "I love it."
I don't think either of them heard me or was pay attention. I finished my dip and threw the plate in the trash can under David's desk. Then I checked my fingers to make sure they were clean. They were not so I grabbed one of David's Kleenexes and wiped them clean.
"Not to be a broken record but have we gotten any update on this mess." I heard David ask, "I mean I can convert everything to pounds but that is a lot of extra work and time lost. Plus, it is only a band-aid and what will happen if and or when we figure out how to get the bloody thing to work with dollars again?"
"You know orange tree defaults to dollars, right?" I asked trying to get into the conversation.
"Yes, we know." Cara said to me in a, not now the grownups are talking tone. Then to David "Right, we have reached out to the venders but everything is email and with the holiday weekend coming it could be days before we get a response. That having been said, I may have to have you teach an ad-hoc class on the foreign financial systems until we can get this figured out and then we can switch back to American units."
"Right Boss, but what about the jokers that have their set to Yen?" David asked.
Cara put her head in her hands and let out a sound that was a combination of sigh and grunt.
I raised my hand like I was back in third grade. "So, you don't want it in British pounds?" I asked for clarification.
"No, we don't." Cara turned on me a little terser, "This is America and we use Dollars. 99% of my team prefers to work in dollars but this stupid system is stuck on UK or MEX or China."
"OK. I'll put it back to the default." I said turning back to the screen and navigating to the settings screen. "David, have you saved recently."
When David didn't respond right away Cara looked at him and asked, "Have you?"
"Of course." David finally said after she elbowed him in the ribs.
"Cool. Make it so." I said in my best Patrick Steward voice. Which was very bad.
I selected US vs UK hit apply backed out hit ok. Nothing happened. "That was the first thing we tried," Cara said obviously a little insulted that I thought she would know how to do that.
"Right but since US is the default setting," I explained, "you then have to do a reboot within a minute or so or it doesn't work." I rebooted the computer. I knew it would work but they still looked very skeptical. The computer hummed and finally came back up. I moved to the side so David could type in his password and swipe his badge. I caught a whiff of his aftershave, lavender and mint. Sure, enough as I expected the program came back up this time showing everything with $ instead of pounds.
"How did you know that?" they asked in unison.
"I just spent a semester learning this program at the U. We ran into the same problem a few months ago when, after a few weeks of pretending, we were using the program in an Asian market we wanted to reset it back to the default." They looked at me as thought I was Sully Sullenberger and we had just set down safely on the Hudson.
