Company - Max Barry [1]
On one side of the lobby is an arrangement of comfortable chairs and low-slung tables, where visitors browse Zephyr's marketing literature while waiting for whomever they're meeting. Sitting there with his hands in his lap is young, fresh-faced Stephen Jones. His eyes are bright. His suit glows. His sandy-brown hair contains so much styling mousse it's a fire risk, and his shoes are black mirrors. This is his first day. So far he's been shown a series of corporate induction videos, one of which contained glowing buzzwords like TEAMWORK and BEST PRACTICE rocketing at the screen, and another of which featured actors from the late 1980s talking about customer service. Now he is waiting for someone from the Training Sales department to come and collect him.
He accidentally catches the eye of the receptionist for about the fourteenth time and they both smile and look away. The receptionist is GRETEL MONADNOCK, according to her nameplate; she's quite young, has long lustrous brown hair, and sits on the right side of the desk. On the left a nameplate says EVE JANTISS, but Eve herself is absent. Stephen Jones is a little disappointed about this, because while Gretel is nice, when he was here for his job interview and first saw Eve, he almost dropped his brand- new briefcase. It would be an exaggeration to say he took a job at Zephyr because of the beauty of its receptionist, but during his interview he was very enthusiastic.
He looks at his watch. It is eleven o'clock. His videos finished twenty minutes ago. He folds his hands back in his lap.
“I'll try them again,” Gretel says. She smiles sympathetically. “Ah . . . sorry, it's going to voice mail again.”
“Oh. Maybe something urgent came up.”
“Ye-e-e-s.” She seems unsure if he is joking. “Probably.”
“The thing you have to remember,” Roger says, “is that it's all about respect.” Roger has one elbow on Freddy's cubicle partition wall, his lean frame blocking the entrance. “The donut itself is irrelevant. It's the lack of respect the theft implies.”
Freddy's phone trills. He looks at the caller-ID screen: RECEPTION. “Roger, please, I have to pick up the new grad. They keep calling.”
“Just a moment. This is important.” Roger knows Freddy will wait. Freddy has been a sales assistant for five years. He is quick-witted, inventive, and full of ideas, so long as that's okay with everybody else. Freddy is a participant. A member. He is happiest when he's blending in with a crowd. In any group of people, the one you can't remember is Freddy. He has wriggled so far inside Zephyr Holdings that Roger sometimes has difficulty telling where the company ends and Freddy begins. “I'm explaining why I want you to go to Catering and find out exactly how many donuts they gave us.”
Desperation enters Freddy's eyes. “If I get this new grad, he can do it. He's your assistant.”
Roger ponders this for a moment. “He may not appreciate the need to treat a situation like this delicately.” This means: Keep it from Elizabeth and Holly.
“I'll tell him. Please, Roger, you're getting me in trouble with reception.”
“All right. All right.” Roger holds up his palms in surrender. “Go get your graduate, then.”
“Your graduate.”
Roger looks at him sharply. But Freddy is not being disrespectful, Roger realizes; Freddy is just being accurate. “Yes, yes. That's what I meant.”
Stephen Jones ignores the ding of the elevator, because it has dinged plenty of times over the last twenty-five minutes, and none of those ended with him meeting new co-workers. To stretch his legs, he has taken to wandering around the lobby and reading the plaques and framed photos. The biggest of the lot is a huge, gleaming thing complete with its own light and glass case.
MISSION STATEMENT
Zephyr Holdings aims to build and