4. Meeting

Today is my first staff meeting, it's a Monday and I'm guessing we are going to go over the progress we've made though our callers are supposed to remain anonymous...

I'm not one of the first people to sit but at least I'm not tardy. I take my seat and look around, I don't recognise anyone. I am a bit relieved about it because I don't think this job would do my little social life any favours...

Melissa finally arrives. She's wearing a pair of black skinny jeans with a white blouse and a peach blazer, I must admit it really suits and compliments her body. I always pictured the boss, of any firm, as someone old with a bad personality complemented by a crappy sense of style but instead I am introduced to this beautiful Latina with killer legs and a sweetheart personality.

"Morning everyone," she says with a big smile on her face. She sits down on the last vacant chair, biggest one. It's clearly for meant her and it makes her look more important, grand. "First of all, for those who haven't met her yet, this is Tessa. She joined us not too long after our last staff meeting." I can feel my cheek heating up a bit as everyone greets me and a girl does a head-to-toe visual inspection, judgy are we? "So how is everyone?"

Apparently, we all give monthly updates and report progress and deliver papers with everything from complaints to client progression written on them. After collecting all of them, she introduces something new to the whole team. We're the staff but we're all a team, right? I hope so... I should really get to know these people!

"There has a big change to our interaction with our callers. I've taken the opportunity to improve it by purchasing mobile phones for our more serious clients." She uses her hands to make air quotations marks since they're not exactly our clients but, at the same time, they are... "I understand your enthusiasm however this is your work phone. Every time you use this your activity will be recorded and stored in our company's server. Now when I say they are for your most serious callers, I mean they are for the people who are in deep problems, emotional, physical or social problems. This means people with anorexia, bulimia, severe social awkwardness, bullying victims and specially depression and people with recurrent suicidal thoughts. Those are the hardest to deal with and please if you can't help them, if they are out of your league please do everyone a favour and tell them to call professionals and direct their calls to me if things don't go the right way. I'm sure some of you aren't aware of it but I have a PhD in Phycology and a degree on Sociology. So if anything gets out of hand, please bring it to me!"

She takes a second to breathe before continuing. She speaks at quite a fast speed like me when I'm nervous... She then closes this meeting with a little question: "This will also only work when the most frequent client with red or red-yellow tags call, it will allow you to not only check up on them but to also be available to them more often. So do any of you have something to say? Any problems or simply something you would like to share?"

Everyone starts shaking their heads and looking around, trying to find someone ready to share and say something. However nobody did, everyone stayed pretty quiet until Melissa dismissed us all.

As I was leaving I hear Melissa call my name. "Tessa, could I please talk to you?" I nod and follow her to her office. She opens the door and stands by it, ready to close it after I enter.

"Wow" Her office is nothing like I expected it to be! It's filled with floor to ceiling wooden bookshelves and cabinets with old and big books and tiny decoration items in a very monochromatic palette. For the desk, she has a monstrosity of an also wooden desk with a black top, is that granite? It looks like it! On top of it is a big Mac computer with several stereotypical and old-fashioned items including the old green desk lamp... It's so unlike that I thought she would have!

Just kidding!! Her office is amazing though! The wall on the left of the door and opposite to the windows is covered with simple and quite modern wooden-looking shelves with simple light strips underneath them. These were actually filled with books, I wasn't lying about that, however they aren't all old and big books. They are related to her field of expertise and her interests, yes that means there are a couple novels in there. Her glass is a generous size with a glass top with a modern white lamp, a vase with pink roses and a simple iMac joined with a simple white notepad. I think the décor is amazing! I love it, I want this for myself and all of the chair look so comfy especially the armchairs!

She then makes me stop looking around at the design of the room and at the wonderful sights and asks me a simple question that I still did understand, I'm that stupid...

She only asked: "Do you like it?" to with I answer "What?" with an awkward smile on my face "Sorry what are talking about? I was distracted..."

She is so nice that she just giggles a little and gives me a reassuring smile and then tells me she wants my opinion on the décor of her office. "I love it, I really do. I think you have an amazing style" I lift my hands up to state my defence, "I'm not kissing ass or anything, but I am... jealous, I want this in my life! Badly!" I start laughing at my own statement and Melissa doesn't hesitate and joins me. We would probably look like fool if someone walked in but who cares...

She then heads to her desk and sits, asking me to sit the armchair before it. I do as she requests and immediately feel my muscles tense a bit. And it only gets worse when she starts another speech.

"So I asked you here to discuss your settling here and I hope I won't keep you too much. Therefore how are you? Do you feel comfortable here?"

"Uhm" I froze a little after those questions, I didn't really know to be honest... "I... I think so, yeah. It's a nice office and the job is uhm, good..." I straighten my hair a bit, as if that was possible! It's so straight that it's unbelievable; if I want to style it the result will either be straight or straight as hell!

"Could you define 'good' for me, I reckon that some people say that just to please their employers but I don't want to do that right now. I want you to feel comfortable enough, at least with me, to be frank and excruciatingly honest if necessary." She plays with her rings and ends up intertwining her fingers.

"I'm good, I like it here. I haven't really gone around and started getting acquainted with everyone else but I like it here. If I'm being completely honest, it's... different from what I thought it was going to be."

She looks confused at my statement and asks me to clarify my answer. She wants to know what I expected and what I got... "I thought this would be a super complicated and stressful job with, probably, bad facilities and rude people, both around the office and the callers themselves. But I didn't find any of that in here, it's been good and I think I'm becoming more confident and not so afraid to talk to others, especially strangers."

She smiles at me and I nervously return her gesture, we both end up sitting back at the same time, relaxing... "I'm pleased to hear that." She quickly sits up straight again and starts looking at me with a concerned look, "I wanted to ask you something else, it doesn't have anything to do with you being new here but it's about the caller you blocked. What happened? Blocking people's numbers are the last resort, if it's not serious but I mean dead serious you don't do it. Some people have a strange way to handle pain, sadness, grief... They turn it into bad attitudes and tempers because they don't know anything else besides that sometimes..." She gets up and heads towards the chair next to mine, "it's our job to help them and to teach them healthy ways to express their feelings and frustrations." She sits right next to me and asks me politely what happened.

"He... uhm... At first it looked like he had called to chat, no depression and no hint of problems in his tone, he seemed fine. I played along, until the conversation went south." She frowns her face and tilts it slightly, "He deserved being blocked, he really did. He was a, pardon my French, dick. Firstly he sounded nice but then he wanted to... hook up?!" I lean back, once again, and close my eyes. "When I said that I wanted no such thing he immediately started screaming at my ears that I was turning him down and asking me if I had any idea who he was... He called me everything you can think of and that includes fat, gross, a desperate cat lady...

She laughs at my answer and then makes an awesome comeback to break the silent. "Sounds like he must have a God complex...! It's inevitable in some guys, it's an ego thing and it also makes them feel manlier, like they're the alphas and all machos..."

We end up laughing and, when we end, we both get up and end up hugging it out. "You did the right thing, I'm glad I hired you." She makes me look up by lifting my chin up with the tip of her fingers and then confesses, "Tessa, you are going places girl! You are a great person with a good intellect, use it to your advantage."

We finish this private talk with another hug, this time a short one, near the door. And then I walk straight towards my desk and get ready to answer some calls.

{AN}

Hey hey! What did you think of Melissa? The sexiest latina ever! I would like knowing someone like her in real life to be honest, oh and I would love to steal that outfit by the way although I don't have the body to pull it off.

And now it's time for that weird tradition of mine (and probably quite a few others writers):

There has to a call between Tessa and ______ about ___________________________. 

Please leave your answer and I might make a chapter around that idea!