On the Job (closed)

[JD Paerson]

First day of work. Not only for this job, but basically any job since that newspaper route a few years ago. Which didn't really count.

That probably explained some of the nervousness JD had.

Aside from the fact that he wasn't exactly qualified, he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing for a job here. But he had gotten accepted, so now it was time to actually show up. Also, it was paying decent, which would be nice considering some of the new expenditures he was building up.

He pushed open the door to the dojo and took a look around.

"Hello?" he called out, not seeing anyone immediately. "My name is JD. I'm here for the job?"

He stepped in and closed the door behind him. The place looked pretty nice, not too shabby and dangerous-appearing. He could do this.

[Josef Muller]

Josef knew he was disobeying all the advice that he’d received about hiring assistants. He only knew Ann; he hadn’t even bothered to interview any of the candidates, and had just randomly assigned them all sorts of jobs and hoped that some of them would stick. He was even paying them more than minimum wage. But this was because Josef was just desperate. He needed help. He was sleep deprived and strained and losing more weight and he might have had someone he actually wanted to impress…so it was time to get help. So after taking in the job applications, he’d sent a message to everyone who had applied saying they were hired. It would be interesting to see who trickled in.

Right now, Josef was currently in the bathroom. It was a break between classes, so he was rinsing out his hair, rubbing his scalp and trying to wake up.

And then, of course, the bell had to ring, announcing he had a guest. He sighed, turned off the water, then brushed his hair back and tugged back on his tank top to walk out to greet the person.

“Hello,” he said with a smile. Other than the wet hair, he looked relatively composed. He really should have set a time for this. “JD, you said? I’m Josef Muller. Nice to meet you.” He offered his hand. “Now, you mentioned you had filing experience?”

Not that he was eager or anything. Nope. But Josef had no talent for filing and his current system was, in a word, a disaster. There was a reason his wages weren't low.

[JD Paerson]

JD was confused when he saw the man, presumably his new boss. Was there a shower back there? Okay, that might make sense, since this place was all about exercise and that sort of thing. But was the teacher usually showering just in between classes? Was everyone expected to shower?

"Nice to meet you," JD said, shaking Josef's hand. He was still glancing around, trying to get a feel for the place, so he almost didn't catch that last comment.

"Wait, wh--? Filing?" Wasn't this a dojo? It was all about action and exercise, right? But apparently even that had paperwork. And it wasn't really like JD could complain--what experience did he actually have with any sort of self-defense other than running faster than anyone else? He supposed he shouldn't complain.

"Um, yeah. Okay." His shoulders drooped as he realized he'd just been given a desk job. It could've been worse--he could've been stuck on janitor duty or something like that. So at least it wasn't too horrible. "What sort of organization system do you have? Filing cabinets? Boxes?" Please say computer, please say computer...

[Josef Muller]

Clearly, this wasn’t what the boy had been expecting. Josef wracked his rather weary brain, trying to figure out if he had said he’d had any physical training experience. He rubbed his forehead, then offered the man a smile.

“I’m not allowed to let anyone under a brown belt teach,” he said. “At least, any karate classes. If you want to teach kickboxing or any of the fitness classes, I can teach you. I’ll give you free classes, maybe take a half-hour out of your work schedule to teach you. If that’s what you’re interested in.” He shrugged. “I know filing isn’t the most interesting job in the world, but I’m more than happy to add some perks to make it better.” He needed it done that badly. He crossed to the desk as JD asked the question. “Well, I have a filing cabinet for the paper contracts—the legal documents and stuff. That’s just in alphabetical order—not too much to deal with. The rest is on the computer.” Paper and ink was expensive enough that Josef, in spite of his general incompetence with computers, had found it beneficial to learn. “Who paid the fees, who is currently paying for what and how many classes, attendance…” he waved his hand. “That general thing. I’m guessing you’ll find that preferable.”

[JD Paerson]

"No, it's okay, it makes sense," JD said, putting up his hands. "I was a little surprised I got the job anyway, to be honest. I don't have any experience, and so I was wondering what sort of thing I would be doing. I guess I just thought...whatever. But maybe the kickboxing would be cool sometime." He could make time for a kickboxing lesson. It would be good practice for him, and should provide some nice exercise.

JD made a face as he looked at the filing cabinet, relaxing only a bit when he heard that it was all in alphabetical order. He walked over and pulled open one of the drawers. It still looked a bit messy, but it shouldn't be too difficult to deal with.

Then he looked over at the computer. Thank goodness it was electronic--he could work with that much easier than all the papers. "Yeah, that'll be great. What sort of system do you work with? Is it mostly scanned documents, or do you have a special program that you like to use to keep things updated?" He would need to know some of the basics, then he could go in and straighten things up. And, if absolutely necessary, he could redo the entire system, asking for help from some of the techno people he knew.

"So who else is going to be coming in? Or am I the only assistant?" He started going through the filing cabinet--better to start getting a feel for things now, so it would be easier later.

[Josef Muller]

Well this was starting out well, wasn’t it? Josef wanted to groan or just hit his head against something—not necessarily because of JD, but just because he obviously hadn’t been clear. Or maybe that wasn’t even the case. But he wasn’t going to worry about it. He’d give him the lessons anyways and see what happened with that.

He settled down on the desk as he went to the computer, and watched him pull up things much faster than he could ever manage. “Well,” he said, “right now I try Excel.” He rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t work well, so I have previews for some of the other programs on some disks down there.” He pointed to one of the bottom drawers. “Feel free to take a look when you get a chance. Or I can.” With any luck, he wouldn’t be the only one here and he’d be able to have more time to do simple things. Like sleep!

“You’ll be the one doing most of the filing—for now.” He smiled at him. “Then I have two teaching assistants coming in to help me with some classes. And that…” He shrugged his shoulders. “That is really it. I might get more help if I need later, but for now I’m just going to try three. So, first job, you said? Or do you have any other experience?"