He stood, still from the cold, with his satchel at his side. Elliot moved forward carefully as he checked the time on his watch. An internship at some pet supply company that his father worked at. What college junior doesn't want to spend his Summer vacation interning? "It'll be an experience," his father had said. Don't get him wrong, Elliot loved working with people. He had even talked to them once or twice, well, ordering pizza on his own had to count as some form of social skills.

            Inside the tan cement building, he approached the elevator. Pressing the button up, he heard a woman laugh. It startled him so much he nearly fell backwards. At this, her laughter returned.

            "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, its just, you might as well be waiting for the second Ice Age with that old thing." She opened up the door to the stairwell. He glanced back at the elevator, then to the blond haired woman, clad in a charcoal dress.

            "Thanks." he muttered, following her up the stairs. Her heels clicked the cold steel steps, all the way to the third floor.

            "Don't mention it." Her smile was quick as she turned away from him a moment later.

            The two ascended in silence until halfway up the stairs, he cleared his throat. It seemed to get her attention.

             "So, my name is Elliot, what's yours?" He sounded like a second grade schoolboy that was trying to make friends on the playground. "God, I'm so dorky," he thought, when he saw her stop for a second.

              "Casey." It's all she said, making him feel more awkward, if that were possible. Her strict demeanor did not lessen his nerves. "Can you die from a lack of confidence?"  he wondered.

               At last, the fourth floor,  exactly where she was going...Great, love this uneasy silence we have here. She flipped a stray hair over her shoulder. Even such a slight movement made him twitch.

               "Hey, you aren't following me, right?" Her chuckle seemed untrusting as if unsure. Which he wasn't, he really wanted as little to do with her as possible.

                Elliot stopped in his tracks, "Uh, no, I mean, I was going to the fourth floor." The single golden hair from her tightly wrapped bun bounced in her face once again, when she covered her statement with a lie.

                "Right, I was joking clearly." The 21 year-old stared at the back of his new acquaintance when she stepped into the exact room he was interning in. My word! His brain screamed at this point. Could this morning get any worse?

                He entered the office, surprised that Casey was nowhere in sight. The room was spacious, but nothing appeared unusual. He was expecting at least a touch more color, maybe some exciting décor? There were simply cubicles, everywhere; here a cubicle, there a cubicle, everywhere a blasted grey box of solitude. At the front, there was a secretary desk, Paul Thomas. Huh. One poster hung at the front of the desk, a cat on a tree, 'hang in there' was written above the animal. Besides the obvious atrocity of the clichéd saying, was it really necessary to use Comic Sans as the lettering? Just the font alone was enough to make him, "Hang in there" himself, emphasis on the hanging.

                Now, he went off to find the boss. A closed off room, something that was not a cubicle for once. Elliot knocked on the oak door, being that the light was on; someone had to be in there.

                "Just a minute!" That voice, it couldn't be.

                "Yes?" A familiar woman with flaxen hair in a ballerina bun greeted him.

                "Oh, sorry, I'm interning here starting today. I had no idea you were..." She held up her handing, stopping him.

                "You had no idea that a woman could be the manager of a branch of a company." Her face was taut. No, that was not at all what he thought. He shook his head fervently. But he knew she would not listen to what he had to say now.

                "Yes well look here, this is the 21st century. I. Am. Your. Equal." It was his turn to intervene. He did not want to start off on the wrong foot.

                "No, that's-" She cut him off.

                "I understood what you meant perfectly." Um no you did not, he wanted to run from this confrontation immediately. "Your desk is in the back cubicle, closest to the window. Put your stuff down there. Then, when you've done that, you can get me a non fat skim milk mocha latte foam free, with extra caramel." How was he supposed to remember that? Elliot was lucky if he remembered to walk out of his apartment with pants on each morning. On his way to the tiny cube that he would call home for the next few months, Casey touched a hand to his shoulder and said, "Welcome to Pet Particulars. And Davis..." Now, she decides to be formal, he thought. "It's Ms. Jordan to you."

                What had he gotten himself into?