The Meet and Greet

Previously when I started a new job, I went through a training period.  You know, those couple days that are spent essentially ‘getting your feet wet.’  These days are always pretty stressful, whether I was working in retail, in a restaurant, or even sales (I still shudder at that last one).  Anyway, this is the time when I find my groove, and when one can shit all over them self, and it’s okay because they’re still in their training pants.  In this industry, there is no training period; accidents are not accepted as “she’s new, its okay” instead. You are allotted a ‘meet and greet,’ and that’s about it. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, this ‘meet and greet’ process is a good thing, and absolutely imperative for a new intern, but I of course, was lucky enough to have had mine occur on the dreadful, late Friday afternoon.  And because of this, I have learned that this process is most effective on certain days, or any day, but Friday.  So please learn from my experience and ensure that your meet and greet takes place on a more contented day of the week.   

There are only two types of people in the office at that hour on a Friday: the “tyrant” and the “dwellers.”  The tyrant is the most easily recognizable: this is the person who is shouting at others to get their work done; the dwellers are the unfortunates who do not get credit for completing the tyrant’s work.  So, naturally, the Friday dwellers are hands down, the most pissed off people in the office, and with just cause.  They are not so upset when this occurs on let’s say, a Tuesday evening, or even earlier on a Friday because there is still that glimmer of hope that they will not get screwed again; it is only towards the late afternoon on a Friday that the dwellers are truly cursing their own existence. 

So here I am, with this majorly important process being conducted in this cheerful atmosphere!  The office so painfully congested with this thick air of stress, which was apparent even to me, and I come in as the excited new intern whose introduction is just another road block between the dwellers and their weekend.  At this point, I don’t know who felt worse: the dwellers that were trapped in yet another realm of the tyrant’s hell, or me for having to interrupt them for my long anticipated meet and greet.  Needless to say, it was nothing like I had imagined…me going in each and every office and cracking a joke or my new co-workers and I breaking into song and dance about how wonderful this new experience was going to be and with each new office, came another eager participant in welcoming me and saying, “I like this one, she’s gonna be a great fit.  Welcome aboard Chloe!”  Needless to say it was nothing like I had imagined, and the tyrant made sure of that.

Before you ever see the tyrant, you hear her.  I knew right off the bat that she was the source of this universal irritation, and I got this chill down my spine that I now know was my body trying to tell me that she was going to make my life a living hell.  As my boss was trying to introduce me, I was trying my best to seem enthused even though the dwellers’ “good” spirits had really rubbed off on me at that point.  I put my hand out to shake hers and she literally looks at me like I am bum asking for some spare change, and walks away as she continues to bark orders at my boss.  Meet and greet is officially over; my boss, a dweller, has more work to do.  And I pocket this particular experience to later use to my advantage.

Again, I am escorted off the premises like some criminal who cannot be trusted to show herself out.  This time, I am told to return on a Monday, but because I barely had the nerve to look any of the dwellers in the eye, I had forgotten all but the tyrant’s name: Missy.