Confounded: Part II - 54. Chapter 54

CHAPTER 54 --==Tom’s POV==--

I don’t think I’ve ever had a better day than this one. Well, most of it anyway. Overall? Yeah, great day.

Not knowing what to expect, we arrived at BSL’s HQ, an older building with an entrance that had a kind of homey feel to it. Big high desk, plants everywhere, low lighting. Two girls sat there, one on the phone, which seemed to ring every minute, and another looking up with a reserved but welcoming smile, widening to a genuine one when Kit approached; I followed him. Uncle M. was already continuing on, wishing them ‘good morning’ in passing while speaking on his mobile. Some issue at the warehouse again, sounded like.

“Morning Tara,” Kit greeted the smiler.

“Morning Kit! How was your weekend?”

“Great, thanks! Can we have a set of tags prepared?” He asked, then stepped aside to introduce me. “It’s for him. Tara, this is Tom Slattery, he’s coming to work with us for the rest of the summer. Tom, meet Tara; hostess extraordinaire.”
She rolled her eyes at him and extended a hand to me. Oof, strong grip! Nice!

“Hi Tom! Welcome to BSL. Sure, I’ll call up when they’re ready to be picked up. Where’s he going?”

“Just call me, I’ll make sure he gets them. First day, so I’ll show him around but he'll probably end up in legal/HR.”
That was the plan. Whatever a company like this would need a legal department for was beyond me; they were distributors, as I understood.

“Alright, I’ll call you when it’s ready. For now, take these; temporary access tags. Blue for this door over here and green to access the printers. Return them when you get your own. Sign in here, for now. Once you have the tag, no need.”
Taking the bright-orange lanyard with the small disc type thingies on it, I wondered if I was supposed to hang that around my neck; I sure hoped not, I’d look like a total noob. Glancing sideways, I saw Kit produce his from his pocket so I stored mine in there, then wrote my name on the form she slid over, signing for them.

I thanked her, then followed Kit through the door he’d opened, holding the blue thingy on a reader-unit beside it; it beeped.

Wow, that was a bit of security. And then…office. But no office I’d seen before. I expected cubicles, phones ringing, all that sort of stuff. There was none of that. Well, sure, phones ringing, but in separate offices. We walked into a large space, an atrium of sorts, with a smaller office straight ahead.

“Rent,” Kit nodded, explaining, “some companies rent hardware. We own it and run it for them,” then another nod to the left, “There’s IT. Taylan worked there.”
Peeking inside, I saw a few guys sit there at desks, their hands rapidly typing on the keyboards. One working on three laptops at once.

Taking a right, we passed stairs.

“Us,” he said, nodding to the ceiling, “but I’ll show you around down here first, c’mon.”

Acquisitions was next; quite a big office, about ten people in there. No cubicles, just desks shoved together seemingly haphazardly but with some sense of order in the chaos. People laughing, joking around; quite a loose atmosphere. Plants everywhere, windows open. I could see myself sitting here, no problem! The dress code here was less formal, maybe pants and a shirt but no jackets or ties for the guys. I felt quite overdressed in here but no one seemed to find it strange, no whispers or weirdness. Many extended a hand in greeting; I shook all of them but forgot their names right away.

Kit introduced me to a guy, Brandon, in an office of his own, to the side of the main space, the head of the department. Quite young, he couldn’t be older than thirty? Nice too, all good natured ribbing with Kit, talking about the weekend. And also a warm welcoming handshake.

Then we got to Sales. Now that was a madhouse. Oh my god, at least thirty people sitting here, all talking over each other, headsets on; I evaded a ball of paper thrown in our direction, Kit flipping the finger to the guy throwing it, grinning from ear to ear.

“Yo! Kit! Who’s the new stiff!?”
Huh?

Oh no, you don’t. I am NO STIFF! Squatting, I picked up the projectile and threw it in the bin right next to his desk, from way over here. I got a wolf whistle for it from somewhere in the back, and grinned.

“New guy, starts in HR today.”
A few groans from here and there. Hey!
“Tom, meet Obi-Wan, he runs the Temple.”

“Fuck off,” this Obi-Wan replied, flipping him the bird in turn. Obi-Wan? Seriously?
He introduced himself as Scott Harris.

“They really call you Obi-Wan?” I asked, curious, extending my hand in greeting. “Why?”

“Because I’m the OLDEST FART in this place,” he chuckled, grabbing my hand and pumping it. He couldn’t be older than Uncle M. And then more paper balls, pelting us from all sides after he spoke part of that line quite loud. He spread his arms, welcoming the ‘rain’ like some boss, grinning wide.

So far, this seemed like a great place to work, everyone seemed to just enjoy themselves here, and it wasn’t even 9am! It didn’t feel like a workplace at all. The dress code here was T-shirts and jeans, mostly.

“Alright, alright you assholes; back to work. Cya ‘round, kid. A lot, I bet.”
Raising an eyebrow at Kit, who motioned for me to come along, we made our way back to the hallway. He chuckled, nodding his head at the door closing behind us.

“He means new hires; we’re expanding Sales quite a bit, getting new people in almost every day; paperwork needs to be filled out. You see the small office on the far side? They use it to do job interviews, negotiate contracts, tell them the rules, that sort of thing. He’s right; you’ll be seeing a lot of him in the coming week, there’s ten interviews lined up.”

“They have rules here?” I snickered. Coulda fooled me. As workplaces went though, this company seemed kinda cool. Not as stiff as I’d imagined and lots of young faces.

“Nah, not really. Dad likes a good atmosphere. As long as they show up on time and do the work, he doesn’t mind them goofing around. You should hear what Scott calls him. ”

“What…?”

“Yoda.”
Oh piss off…really? Uncle M? To his face? Ha!

“Well, he is Obi-Wan…”
Kinda made sense. Seriously though; Uncle M. allowed that? I wondered if I’d pegged him wrong. It wasn’t the first thing I'd been wrong about, I came to find.

“Exactly,” Kit grinned. “Come on, this way.”

Taking a left in the atrium, we got into a long, small hallway with more offices, some ten, all pretty small, only containing a desk and a desktop computer. Kinda sparse. Not all were filled either. Here it was more quiet.

“Consultants. We send them out in case of trouble at some place where we sold hardware. Sometimes, getting a consultant from the actual manufacturer is more expensive than our rates. They’re always on the road. We have five currently; we’re hiring.”
I counted only one in, at the moment.

We backtracked down the hall, shaking the hand of the one guy here, who’s name I forgot right away; it was a bit much, after meeting all these people here and shaking many hands. I’d lost track in Sales after just the first few, getting up as we left and just coming forward to introduce themselves; Joey, Carina, Daryll, Erwin, Kenny, Joelly, Karen, etc etc. We headed upstairs and there it again went too fast with the names to keep track.

Controllers (two, nope forgot), Admin (four, Andy, Michael, Tiffany & Janis), HR/Legal (two, now three with me added, Rob & Bruce and their head, Kelly Benning), Advertising (two, nope forgot), Account managers (five, none in the office currently), CFO (Justin Desjardins) and CEO (Uncle M.). Kit’s office was two over from mine, where he sat together with Uncle M’s assistant, Brian.
Mine wasn’t actually called HR/Legal. It was Human Resources / Corporate Counsel, providing info on fed/state employment laws as well as handling employee disputes, contracts and all that stuff.

By counting in my head, I was already at around 70 people. Together with that lot over at the warehouse, that came to about a hundred.
One. Hundred. People. That Uncle M. employed. Holy shit. You hear about companies, and sometimes see a bit (us going to the warehouse on Saturday), and you hear numbers; it’s just so weird to attribute that to one person owning the thing. Or at least, I think Uncle M. did. As far as I knew, he did.

“Your dad owns this?” I asked as we walked back to his office. I hadn’t noticed another door in there, opposite of his desk.

“The building? No, we rent it. We should own it, though; then we could expand.”

“No, I meant the company.”

“Oh! Yep. Well…grandpa owns part of it because he was an original investor but yeah, we own it. Not bad huh? He started with three employees in 2000. ”
Going over to the door, he knocked and opened it on a curt ‘yes’ from inside.

Just like that. ‘Yep’. How, man, how?

“Hey guys,” Uncle M. greeted us, glancing up from his desk.
This office was nice; not as big as I thought it’d be and almost a copy of the one he had at the house. The desk was the same size but there was a sitting area with comfy couches and art on the walls that, to me, seemed like the real deal. And not that modern slashes and swipes stuff, either. Landscapes. It felt cozy in here.
“How was the tour?”

“Great, showed him around. Met Obi.”
Uncle M. chuckled.

“Ahuh. Yoda says; get your butt over to Kelly’s. She’s itching to get you all set up, Tom.”

“Yes sir,” I answered, smirking.
Nice to find out the whole ‘loose’ thing worked all the way up here.

“You better get over there,” Kit commented, “you remember the way?”
Nodding, I left them.

**********

I’d never actually done this whole filling-out-forms-on-your-first-workday thing. Not officially, anyway; I’d worked over at my Dad’s (and granddad’s before Dad took over, in the weekends and vacations) but I’d always been paid cash-in-hand, none of this bank account stuff, ID copying and getting asked all sorts of experience questions. I spent the first hour alone with Kelly, filling out all sorts of forms, while she hovered around, swapping filled-in ones for new ones and just yapping away with all sorts of needling questions, trying to get information about me.

Now I’m not one to immediately divulge any sort of private information, to anyone, but she tried anyway and didn’t even seem to notice the whole ignoring of her incessant yammering I was doing. It pretty much went in one ear and out the other.

Until she dropped Kit’s name.

I began to pay attention; then I sat there and listened to her gush about the boss’s son. How she’d had the hots for him from the moment she laid eyes on him, her and many other girls here at BSL but, she was the only one that got him to go on a date with her the other day.

Say what?

She sure had my attention now; when had this date taken place?

“You done with that form?” She asked, nodding at the paper in front of me, reaching for it, a new one ready to replace it.
I shook my head quickly and resumed filling in more details.

“Not yet. Sorry.”

“Take your time.”

And she went on again, how he’d been a total gentleman, dropping her off at home, walking her to her door.

Yeah, real nice mister. I’ll show you a door!

And then gently telling her, when she was expecting a goodbye kiss, that he’d had a great evening but that it would not go beyond that. Bit of a bummer, finding out he was gay. As his friend, I knew that, of course?

Yes, hon, I’m intimately familiar. And no, not so much of a ‘friend’ right now.

It wasn’t so much as me feeling threatened by her; she was harmless. It was more me being annoyed. Kit could’ve told me. Nothing happened yet my mind went ‘mine!’, ‘hands off!’ right away, while clearly I had no reason to. But Kit could’ve told me. Very annoying. I didn’t like it, having my mind immediately go territorial. That’s so not me!

I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that we were a couple. That seemed like adding insult to injury and she didn’t deserve that. I liked Kelly, right away. Sure, she was yap-happy and oversharing quite a bit, but I found it disarming. She was sharp, quick and I could easily see guys going for her in a heartbeat. To find out Kit had been one of them, that I didn’t like so much.

Ugh! He should've told me!

Asshole.

**********

“So I put my foot in it, didn’t I,” she remarked while we were sitting at Ed’s desk, working on the roster. Kit and Ed had just left, after my remark that I could hear them.

“Little bit…” I answered, sparing her a quick glance. Dammit, why didn’t this code work. Ah! Semi-colon. Right...there.
Ha! There we go! Come to Daddy Tomcat! The code worked; cells turned red, blue and green automatically.

Beside me, even knowing her for just a few hours, it was uncharacteristically quiet. I risked another glance; Kelly was looking down at her hands, biting her lip. And now it was actually my turn to do just that. Aww man…I kinda had to make that up to her.

I nudged her with my shoulder.

“I coulda said something. I’m sorry. You didn’t know, and I let you go on and on…”
She was clearly embarrassed.
“Want me to spill the beans on his kissing prowess?”
Her eyes widened with a sharp intake of breath. She looked at me, her eyes searching my face. And then she began to laugh when I smirked at her, winking.

“You’re horrible.”
I nodded.

“Yep, I am. I’m also pissed beyond belief at him, for not telling me you guys dated.”

“One date,” she corrected, seeming more relieved now, “one. And I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, well…he did. He shouldn’t have led you on.”
We made eye contact for a second, then she looked away before seeking it again. Hers softened.

“He didn’t, not really. He told me…”
I held up a finger.

“Don’t make excuses for Mr. Perfect. He told you at the end of the date. That makes him a dick, letting you think there might be a chance for a smooch at the end of it.”
She chuckled.

"Didn't you just do the same thing? Letting me ramble on and on..."
Motherf...see the splinter in someone else's eye, you don't see the big wooden beam in your own! Dammit, she was right.

"I totally did, didn't I? Wow, I'm so sorry!"

“It's fine, don't worry about it. But you now owe me some deets; so how’s he in the kissing department?” She winked.

“You got 911 on speed dial?”

“Oh my,” she giggled. “That good, huh?”
Very, as far as I was concerned.

“Ahuh. But you seem like a great girl. Someday soon, some guy is gonna come and totally kiss your socks off.”
Her smile expanded.

“Aww, thank you. You think so?”

“You’re cute. And when you do, do me a favor?”

“What…”

“Make him effing work for it.”

**********

So enroute during lunch break, I took my own advice and had Kit ‘work’ for it. A little. But he got me back in kind, recognizing my…annoyance. He called it jealousy. Whatever. He was still a jackass for leading her on and for not telling me. No nookie for a week. Half a week. Okay, fine, one day. Oh, who was I kidding.

**********

We got to Armani and asked for Antoine. The guy actually flinched when he saw me. And that was the second time I felt bad, that day.

Kit was no help. None, whatsoever. So I stumbled my way through an apology. Not my first, but I hadn’t done that many of them, so smoothly it did not go. But we got there. I apologized.

And I got him to take my number and text me, if they got new undies coming in.

Finally someone who spoke my language, regarding those. I hate that stretch fabric, always rolling up on you. Or that loose shit, your dingdong going bingbong. Tighty whities for the win! Well, maybe not white. I like the neon ones we got the other day. They’re so spicy. Love em!

**********

We returned home a little after 7pm. And I’d had a great day, even with feeling bad, twice. So many new impressions, my mind was really going all over the place.

This whole work thing, the 9-to-5 stuff…well, 8-to-7 counting travel, really…but even so; I got it now. Because if you had fun there, of course you’re gonna go do this stuff daily; you feel useful.

Not that I was suddenly won over with this crap; I still didn’t like the whole mass sheep thing. That still rankled with me. Why spend 70%-80% of your life that way? Ludicrous. But if it’s a fun place of work, like BSL, I guess something could be said for it. If it stays that way. It rarely does, I believe.

Coming into the kitchen, we were greeted by the smell of burned rubber. Something had incinerated in here.

“Oh no,” I heard Kit comment right behind me.

“I’m sure takeout is on the way,” Uncle M. said, in response. He didn’t even sound alarmed. Resigned would be a better word.

And Taylan? He was sitting like a prince on a throne, swapping channels on TV while simultaneously texting on his phone, just casually looking up as if it was the most normal thing in the world, arriving home in post apocalyptic smells.

“Hey guys!”

Hey guys? What the f….where’s the food, man! And what’s with the chipper ‘hey guys!’?
The oven window looked blackened and in the sink sat a dish that was what; charcoal? Some smoke was still curling up from it.

“Let me guess,” Kit spoke up, “tried for lasagna again?”

“Ahuh! Still can’t make it. Pizza’s on the way.”

“Told ya,” Uncle M. said.
I just groaned.

Lasagna is not that hard to make…and I was starvin’.

**********

I barely got the noose off when the pizzas arrived, the guy honking all the way from the gates up to the house. Very obnoxious, that. Who honks anyway, in a gated community?
Stepping into the living room, I then halted.

Why were the three of them lined up by the door? And if they were that hungry, I’d have expected plates and cutlery at the ready. Perhaps even banging with said cutlery on said plates, screaming ‘feed me!’. But they were just standing there, looking at me coming in and grinning like idiots.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Pizzas here,” Tay said, way too enthused for pizza. He was hopping like he was overdosing on poppers.

“So? Go pay the man, bring it in! I’m starvin’.”

“We thought you’d pay,” Kit piped up, “seeing as this was your first day and you can definitely afford it now.”
Seriously?

Sighing, I went for my wallet, only to remember I gave all of it to Toine. Well fuck…

The guy had earned it. He had, seriously. And at the time, it’d felt really good to do that. But now I was hungry and I wished I hadn’t. He probably didn’t even need it, working at Armani and all. Now what…

“I got no green,” I said, frowning.

“Same,” Kit said, turning out his pockets. Taylan just shrugged and Uncle M. apologized; he apparently never carried cash. He did know what to make someone else do, though.

“Well, go on! The guy’s waiting!” He said, motioning at the kitchen door.

Yes! Waiting for money! Jesus, what did they expect me to do: give him a blowjob for a couple of pizzas? Come on; Domino's isn’t that good and I sure am not kneeling in Armani for a delivery guy. Sorry, but that’s just wrong economics.

“Just work something out.”

“Work something out?” I repeated.
Like what? Growling, I went outside, and then stopped dead in my tracks.

There was no way that Domino’s delivered pizzas in a giant-pink-ribboned yellow Pontiac with my mom behind the wheel. No. Fuckingl. Way!