Though Angela had mentioned her hopes that Meredith would soon be fired, Meredith quickly became my favorite. Her hair was dyed jet black at the time and she definitely gave off that biker vibe. Later I would find out the biker act wasn't an act at all. Her love of leather fringe paired well with the cracked vocal chords she had earned from decades of smoking Virginia Slims. Her gravely voice made her an odd choice for receptionist, but that's what she did and she did it with a smile.
Of course Angela and Meredith would be at each other's thoats, they were exact opposites. Angela's drink would be prim and proper, Meredith's drink would be scotch on the rocks. If you asked Angela what she did the previous weekend, her answer would include gardening and playing with her cats. Meredith wouldn't have to answer the weekend question, the smell of alcohol on her breath would tell quite the story.
Meredith was the type of girl who wouldn't wear panties on casual Fridays. Meredith was the type of girl who got a virus on her computer and had to admit that she probably downloaded it while, "shopping for shoes," which we all knew was code for, "looking at pictures of cock." One bite past the rough edges of Meredith's personality would reveal a truly genuine woman, a wonderful mother who had been through it all and had done her best to give her children a life she never had. The fire in her eyes would ignite passionate conversations about anything and everything. Soon she became my cubicle confidant, she would come over to my house after work and we would drink cheap white wine and talk about work. She was my mother's age and I was the age of her daughter who lived too far away for weekly wine and cheese visits, so we both helped each other out.
Meredith and I shared a love for alcohol, probably because we both shared the burden of working two jobs. Her second job was around the corner at the local mortuary. She would come to work, eyes ablaze, telling us all about the newest cadaver. She lived in a little apartment above the funeral home and whenever I would visit I would have to walk by the cremulator before reaching her door. The embalming fluids would dizzy my senses and always threw me off a bit, but this was all a part of Meredith's story.
My theory is that no one truly knows the job they're in for until a few paychecks have cleared the bank. This would explain my nauseating optimism on my second day of work. After arriving at my desk and fidgeting with some papers, my boss arrived with a huge PC looking console and placed it in front of me. "This is the 'Telewave POS', it's a system you'll be selling. This is the operators manual, read it."
This wasn't the measly 300 page operators manual that would come along with a cell phone, no this was much heavier than that.
"And I want you to program this system until you know everything about it."
I knew immediately what had happened. My boss was the father who throws his child into a cold lake with no luxury of arm-floaties or life jacket, trusting that his kid's inner instincts will kick in and miraculously start swimming. I was the child, with the 100 pound manual tied around my ankle. A good salesperson can bullshit their way through any interview and now he was trying to call my bluff. Maybe Michael really did have good intentions and really did believe that I could figure this puzzle out in under 8 hours, but in my 2+ years working here I can confidently say that is NOT what he was thinking.
I wouldn't step down though, I couldn't. I had dabbled in some programming before, nothing this extensive, but I had something up my sleeve. Perhaps Michael had forgotten that almost any woman in the workforce has spent her first few years caked with flour and egg yolk as she reads a recipe in her mother's kitchen. Even a young girl with aspirations of chocolate chip cookies must learn that you can't get overwhelmed by the entire recipe but instead take it one ingredient at a time. So I heaved a heavy, overwhelmed sigh and started with the first ingredient.
I wish I could go into more detail about the system I was instructed to assemble, but that would just make this story dry and boring. Perhaps that's why I'm a good saleswoman now, because I understand that most people don't want to hear about wattage and voltage. Picture a science fair project with wires going every which way, telephones, speakers, sirens, modems, and all of those other nerdy things all in one giant ball of confusion. After much sweating and second guessing I finally had this system programmed to the best of my abilities; the only thing left was to turn the sucker on and see if all of the lights came on.
After flipping on the power came my worst nightmare. Suddenly and unexpectedly a plume of smoke arose from the Telewave POS, and with it all dreams of finally getting my life together evaporated. Oh, the lights came on alright, but only to tease me, since they turned right back off in just one second. I didn't have to be an uber programmer to know that was a bad sign. Meredith was the first one out of her chair to come help, this was how I knew she wasn't as bad as Angela said she was. Meredith knew that if we didn't get this smoke cleared before Michael came barging in, that I'd be toast.
We followed the smoke stack to a power supply. I fumbled through the dictionary-sized manual and finally came upon the power supply in question. Everything seemed right, wattage was correct, all except for one thing. The manual called for a DC power supply, I had used AC. Could that have been it? Was AC verses DC really that big of a difference? Just then Michael walked into the office only to see Meredith and I wide eyed and confused. It felt like we had just shipwrecked and finally got our smoke signal going to call for help, but when we saw our rescuer we knew we were in for one wild ride.
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