First morning nerves?
Bollocks.
I was raring to go and get them.
I was usually smooth and sleek getting dressed. It was as if I was dancing in my own morning opera. Clean motions, twirls and hops.
Not this morning.
That didn’t take the wind out of my sails though and as Monika raced from traffic jam to traffic jam I imagined for the first time how I might greet them.
“They all speak English, don’t they?” I asked.
“All who?”
“The staff.” Obviously.
“We let all the people that Wally hired go. I just started Monday and my job was to clean house.” She replied.
Shit.
Wally was put in temporary charge of the project six weeks ago. It was first given to The Ice Queen by Mrs. Minkins. I had never met The Ice Queen but she was the kind of legend most big firms had. She had worked in accounts or legal for a lifetime and she was given the project, so I was told, as a reward.
It didn’t seem very likely so either she knew something she shouldn’t have or she had lost her touch and they wanted her out of the door.
I knew this because Wally had to be shifted from the training department because of sexual misconduct. Wally by name, Wally by nature had gotten drunk, come to work and proceeded to proclaim his love for a new trainee. She laughed it off at first and he was told to go home but when he returned at the end of the day with flowers and chocolates he didn’t want to take no for an answer.
Luckily he was stupid enough to do it in the foyer where the security guard could stop him. Everyone assumed he had been fired. Only on Wednesday did I find out the truth. Anyway The Ice Queen had gotten pregnant somehow and so she handed off the project and Wally got a shot at redemption. The HR rep told me there were mitigating circumstances and he had been a solid employee up to that point.
He hadn’t hit rock bottom though and after a month or so in Poland HR had noticed that all his hires had been young ladies who had questionable skill sets.
They fired him and suspended the project until HR had found Monika and that’s where the file ended. They didn’t say much about Monika and what her role was but obviously she had the power to fire whoever she wanted so maybe she was my HR manager.
“So if there isn’t any staff what are we going to do today?”
“Well first we need to get the office organized like you want. Then we will start to set up a new recruitment process and I think most importantly you will need a new PA.”
“PA?”
“Personal assistant.” She snapped back and pulled in, well tried to pull into a parking spot. She tried and failed several times, it was a very makeable opportunity but she seemed allergic to turning the wheel.
“Would you like me to try?” I offered.
“Are you sure you could? The wheel is on the other side.”
“I’ll give it ago.”
“At home I have a Spanish neighbour who does it for me.” She said as if it was the most normal thing in the World.
“He parks your car for you every time?” I asked sliding it into place at the first attempt.
“If he isn’t home it’s ok. He has the spot next to me so I park it then he gets my keys if I haven’t left him enough room.”
I decided to let it drop and looked around to see a sign for Minkins and Minkins. The roads were busy and there was a huge building with a clock on the top. I saw churches, a Mcdonalds, a row of shops with Marks and Spencers, H
and M, C and A, ha I thought they’d gone out of business in the 90’s.
“That’s The Palace of Culture.” She said.
“It’s nice.”
“It’s a Stalin gift.” She spat on the ground.
Note to self: Don’t complement anything until you know who built it and if it’s approved of.
“Where’s the office?” I tried to change the subject.
“Here.”
“Aren’t they flats?” They sure looked like flats.
There were about six, maybe more around a courtyard area. All at least 15
storeys high, painted dark green and a shade of the colour spectrum that Dulux may have named Dog Sick Autumn.
“Some are. Some are offices. There is a dentist there and a hair stylist over there.” She said pointing at different buildings.
I got envious as I spied some nice modern buildings which where yellow and black, they looked like office buildings with restaurant cafes on the ground floor. Our building had a man in a wheel chair with a comb over who tried to start a conversation with me.
“What does he want?” I asked.
“Ignore him. He is just a cripple.” She said striding towards the lifts.
Well I should say lift and this wasn’t the modern transporter that I had at Granny Towers this didn’t even have an automatic door that opened and closed.
You opened a door with a latch, stepped inside, pressed the floor you wanted then watched as the open side of the lift slowly took you past doors and walls, door then wall, door then wall.
Finally we arrived on the 11th floor and disembarked. I’d keep fit taking the stairs I thought. That was until I arrived at work one morning to find tramps sleeping in the stairwell on the third floor and hoping over them was a dangerous and smelly activity.
Monika opened up a decrepit wooden door and the despair I had been feeling subsided slightly as I saw more hardwood floors and a hall that spun off into seven different rooms. There was a tiny bathroom, a little kitchen, a room with a shower that really didn’t need to be there but it was so small we could only use it to store office equipment, an office that I decided would be mine, a big room with multiple desks and phones, a smaller office that Monika appeared to have set up shop in and the last door of all only led to the balcony.
“Where are the computers?” I asked.
“What computers?” Monika replied.
“Well I see you have one but I don’t and none of the operatives have computers at their desks.”
“Do they need them? I thought everything was done on the phone.”
“They still need to access the system.”
“We don’t have internet so they couldn’t do that even if they had computers and if we had staff.”
“So let’s make a list of things we need to do.”
We did and the list took us up to lunch time. Since we needed to visit a shopping centre I suggested that we get lunch in the food court while we were there. Monika seemed displeased as she looked at a little bowl of what I guessed was soup. It didn’t look very edible but she agreed to lunch as long as it was Mexican.
We sat at El Cactus and ran through our list again as we waited for service. I needed a phone. I needed a PA, I thought about suggesting Elly but I didn’t need another headache at work and the complications would have been immense. We needed the internet and I needed a computer. I could bring my laptop but without the internet it seemed pointless. We needed to start hiring new staff and then begin training them.
I had the training package and the call flow charts that they were expected to follow. I hated call flow charts. I thought of them as dot to dot drawing while I preferred to be a free hand artist. For the Poles though maybe dot to dot flow charts would be better. I know British callers hate the call centre experience and got very tense if they thought they were talking to a foreigner. Best stick to the script.
Over dinner we chatted about Monika’s passion for salsa dancing and she insisted that I give it a try. There was some sort of salsa festival at some club that weekend but I said that I needed to settle in. Then she quizzed me about me and Elly and I couldn’t help but smile. I didn’t know what she was doing, where she was or if she’d be at the flat when I got back.
We waited an eternity to get our bill then to get the change once we’d paid the waitress. It was strange because she had been so attentive and fast when we arrived but it was a fault I had to get used to. We went to get my phone and had a problem finding a contract phone as I wasn’t registered in Poland and I didn’t have a visa number. In the end we took a pay as you go phone and some credit. I now decided I needed to get on the internet and we searched for an internet cafe, finally finding a grimy hole in an underground walkway. I tried hoplessly to get through on Skype to someone at HQ but ended up leaving e-mails detailing my despair with my new mobile number.
I told Monika that there wasn’t much else to do today and once I bought a map and blue travel card that gave me access to trams, the Warsaw Metro which consisted of a straight line and all buses I said my goodbyes.
I saw her head into a shoe shop as I looked at the map and tried to decipher how I got from where I was to my flat. There was a massive road called Jana Pawła II and all I could think was if this is JP2 how long is fucking JP 1? It turns out the road was named after John Paul the Second, who was from Poland.
Who knew?
Anyway my trip home was easy enough. I just had to get a tram and it took me straight there. That was if I could figure out where to catch the bastard things.
All the underpasses weaving together various routes confused the hell out of me and once I caught a tram I ended up going in the wrong direction. The timetables were very unhelpful in that they listed all the stops and didn’t actually indicate which direction the tram was heading. You have to get on and see if it’s getting closer to the name you can’t pronounce where you get off or the name you can’t pronounce where you are totally fucking lost.
I got home and as I reached the door I thought I should go shopping. I wasn’t in the mood. Maybe tomorrow morning.