Exponential Page 2

  Chapter 2

  Another day of cold November morning peering gloomily into her windows. Pulling herself out of bed was perhaps the most difficult task of the day. Especially when the chasm between her bed and the thermostat seemed like traversing the arctic tundra in bare feet. Her brief morning workout held the chill at bay and ignited the fuse of motivation to get showered and dressed. She often skipped breakfast, but today she had a minute or so to grab a couple of slices of toast and peruse through yesterday’s mail, if you could call it that. So much of it addressed to “resident” or “occupant” she began to feel a pedestrian veil of conformity fall upon her. The usual credit card pre-approved offers, advertisements, a phone bill, nothing interesting. She felt guilty being the consumer of so much waste.

  It was time to meet the day head on.

  She cloaked her trim figure in a warm, full length winter coat and eagerly greeted the icy morning air. She briefly savored the crisp early chill as she strolled to her car parked on the street next to her apartment building. It took longer than usual for the overtaxed dashboard heater to shove aside the stubborn reach of the morning frost. Just as she pulled through the security checkpoint of the office parking lot, the heat began to make a significant impact making it a shame to park the car.

  Mara had been working with the company for two years now. It was hard to believe that much time has gone by. She enjoyed her work for the most part, but work was work and she was not the type to become a slave to her career. She used her encoded ID card to pass through the employee entrance and headed toward the elevator for the ride to the third floor. She noticed that a surprising number of others had beaten her to work today.

  The layout of the office was typical of many in the modern corporate world. Offices were located along much of the perimeter so the people who occupied them could boast a window seat with a view of the other buildings with their respective people who has similar window seats. The majority of the floor space of the wing was covered with “Work Stations” which amounted to nothing more than a maze of tiny, identical work locations constructed of fabric coated dividers to provide some level of individual privacy. Desks look more like countertops with built-in areas to house phones, computers and the like.

  Mara’s particular spot fell somewhere in between. She did not merit the level of tenure to achieve “office” status, yet, as a supervisor by title, she was awarded something more than the standard 6 by 7 “cubicle”. An office constructed of the same fabric coated divider material with an extra seat and room for a guest to sit, more file space and a bit more “work surface”.

  Officially her Title was “Staff Development Supervisor”. As with most corporate organizations, others in the company had mixed feelings toward human resources in general. The department title “Human Resources” itself seemed rather cold and impersonal to begin with – treating people as if they were a commodity to be mined like copper or coal. And human resources, or “HR” as it was typically referred to, was often considered both a champion of the employee as well as a spy in the organization.

  As staff developer, Mara cared for a variety of tasks. She was involved in most areas of the employment process for the company. She or one of her staff would routinely interview potential “new hires”. She also provided assistance to those leaving the company, whether by choice or by force, to ensure their employee rights were protected, that they received the appropriate “vested” retirement benefits, health benefits and so forth. Also, “HR” was responsible for managing any potential layoffs, though none had occurred lately due to the tremendous success of the company. She actually felt fortunate to be working here given the weak economy and poor employment statistics in general.

  Today, like most days, she went through her normal daily routine. It was a Wednesday, so she would have to meet with the “team” as the staff she worked with was most often referred to – Although it was hard to imagine what sort of sport her “team” would venture to play. She checked her “messages”. The term Message sounds innocuous, much like a rat – seemingly insignificant. One rat could be dealt with, a thousand rats would be a much bigger problem. Messages seemed to be devouring her life sometimes. E-mail, voice-mail, interoffice mail, postal mail, pagers, cell phones it was a wonder that anyone could get any real work done with the constant interruption of “messages” one was forced to receive.

  The voice mail light was off, so that was good – no messages there. Postal mail from the previous day was distributed and routed by the corporate mail room staff. Her mail in-box had nothing more that some offers from a training company for a discount on “efficacy” training. Human Resources was primarily responsible for managing most of the “non-technical” training for the corporation. Even on-the-job she was a guilty consumer of more wasted junk mail.

  She booted up her desktop computer and went to get some coffee while her machine initialized. In the coffee “nook” she met Jan, one of her benefits administrators rinsing out her mug making it ready to receive a fresh day’s worth of the office elixir.

  “Hi Jan! Don’t forget, it’s Wednesday…”

  Jan replied with a sleepy look. “I’ll be there, I just need a little wake up first.”

  Mara thought it was amazing how much some people couldn’t seem to function without that first cup. Upon returning to her desk, she selected her e-mail program from the choices available and skimmed through the items in her e-mail “inbox”. Nothing really important. An message from executive management to all employees about the promising results of this quarter’s corporate earnings, a request from one of the marketing managers for a training program schedule for new marketing representatives course all new sales employees received.

  Here’s a good one: A new message that slipped through the corporate junk email filters from a person who claims to be a77624@anonymous.fi. The subject field was blank. Even mail of the electronic variety seemed prone to fall victim to the “junk” category. Why would anyone even bother to open, much less read, a message from a person or place identified as “anonymous”? She highlighted the message and hit the delete key. At least getting rid of junk e-mail was as easy as blinking your eye.

  She had to spend a few minutes preparing for the 9:30 meeting with the team. The department was getting an increasing number of complaints from employees expressing dissatisfaction with the current health benefit plan. A key topic would be discussing the issues and determining if seeking an alternative health insurer would be a viable, if not a little radical, solution.

  She wondered why she hadn’t heard from Chris in a while. Usually they had contact about once a week. She called and left a message at his apartment but he had not returned the call. Lately he seemed a little preoccupied. Probably some big work project keeping him busy. Should could call his office phone, after all, he worked in the same building, just down on the second floor. But she hated to interrupt. She didn’t want him to beef up the teasing about having his big sister still baby-sitting her little brother. That he was a big boy now and didn’t need help from her.

  Of course it was all just playful banter. But she had to be careful. With her working in human resources, some could misinterpret his employment as favoritism on the part of his sister. She knew that he landed this job all on his own. She merely suggested that he apply here. In fact, she couldn’t even understand half of what he did. Graduating with honors from MIT was certainly his achievement and getting hired by the software development group was also something that he could only do by impressing the department with his clear math skills and evident knowledge of internal computer operation.

  She decided that if she doesn’t hear from him in a day or so, she would give his office number a try. Meanwhile, she dashed off a quick e-mail:

  “Lunch?” was all it said.