Seven - In the Air

"So when is your last day?" Tom asked Will, sitting in a chair across Will's desk.

"I've still got another month." Will replied.

Tom grunted and looked out Will's windown. He would miss these conversations. He vowed to himself to not let distance get in the way of his friendship with Will.

"How's that lawyer from Oversight?" Will asked.

"Ok, I guess," Tom responded, "we haven't had a chance to actually go out yet. We've talked a few times on the phone and grabbed a quick lunch one day, but things have been busy. You know."

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

Episode Six was supposed to publish over the weekend. I started a draft, quit, started again and never could get into it. The thing is: I just don't really like the plot that was planned for the episode. I tried to force it, but the more I tried, the more I disliked it. So, I'm going to skip the episode and move on to episode Seven. There are elements of the overall storyline that I'll have to incorporate into later chapters, but I don't think the story will miss the plot that was scheduled for episode Six.

Next weekend we'll return with Tom struggling with his competition with Stacy, Will preparing to leave the Agency and settle down and Doug being Doug. Thanks for reading.

Five - Lunch

A chill went down Tom's spine. He fought every instinct he had to steal a look at Stacy. 

"Leaving?" Doug asked, incredulously.

"Yeah, I know it's a bit of a surprise..." Will started.

"You're Goddamn right it's a surprise." Doug said. "Have you thought this through?"

"I have. When Melanie and I decided to get married we had a serious conversation about the future and we decided that we didn't want to start our family in DC, so I started looking for jobs in Chicago."

Tom was conflicted. On on hand, his best friend was leaving; on the other hand, this would make him the most senior Senior Associate on the team; and on the other hand, his rivalry with Stacy just moved to a whole different level. He didn't know what to think, especially since that gave him three hands, which was never a good thing.

Four - Oversight

Tom had successfully avoided Stacy since their argument.  He was a little embarrassed by the way he had acted and a little because Stacy's criticism hit a little too close to home.  He did feel threatened by her, but not without good cause.  While he had not gotten the call to HR that he expected, Stacy had also not backed off of her 'comfortable' attitude with Doug.  If anything, she seemed to be pushing it even further.  It seemed to Tom that she was perpetually in Doug's office, using any pretense to stop and chat with him.

Tom decided to keep his head down and just do his job.  He had always hated office politics, believing that it was mostly a waste of time and that hard work would always pay off more than brown-nosing and scheming.  But it irritated him that Stacy seemed to so blatently get away with it.

Three - Fire Drill

Tom was focused on updating his monthly report when the alarm rudely interrupted his thoughts.  It took him a second to realize what was happening and then suddenly everything made sense.  It was the first Wednesday of the month - that's why Will and Doug were "offsite" this morning: it was the monthly fire drill.  Everyone knew that the drill happened on the first Wednesday of every month at 10:00 a.m. and everyone capable found a way to be away from the office during that time so they could avoid being herded like sheep into a parking lot about a half mile away from the building.  Tom was late in finishing his monthly report, which caused him to forget about the monthly drill.

He also realized that the only other people that would be in the building were the new associates and Stacy.

Two - Let the Games Begin

“I’m getting married.”

Tom sat behind his desk, shocked.  When Will said that he had news on a Monday morning, Tom assumed that Will had broken his personal record for pitchers of beer in a night at the hole-in-the-wall bar that he frequented in Georgetown called The Old Maid (Will’s record was seven – and he was very proud of it).  Will getting married was the last thing that Tom expected.

“Well, aren’t you going to congratulate me?” Will asked.

“Yes, of course,” Tom stammered, “congratulations.” 

Tom stood to shake Will’s hand. 

“It’s just…”

“It’s just that you didn’t think that I was the marrying type.”  Will said, grinning at his friend’s awkwardness.

Tom was suspicious.  “Are you fucking with me?”

One - Orientation

Thomas Shields stood in the back of a large conference room.  He wore a crisp navy suit, with a red and white tie.  When he bought the tie, the salesman asked him what kind of ties he liked.  Tom had replied that he wanted a tie that he could wear if he were the President and was addressing the nation.  He looked the part on this particular day.  The suit was perfectly pressed and not a strand of his brown hair was out of place.  Tom had a square jaw that would look menacing if his bright blue eyes didn’t look so friendly.  He certainly looked like he could be a Presidential candidate, if he was about fifteen years older.

The room was unnecessarily large for today’s purpose; there were only about twenty new employees sitting in the rows of chairs that could have seated seventy-five.  Tom’s boss Doug was standing at the podium at the front of the room, addressing the new employees.

“Congratulations,” Doug said, “as of today, your resume will forever be more impressive than most of the people you went to school with.  When you say you work at NASA, people are impressed.  It doesn’t matter that we aren’t astronauts or rocket scientists, working for the agency comes with a measure of prestige.”

Tom had heard this speech about a half dozen times, going back to his own orientation, and it never failed to amuse him when Doug called NASA “the agency.”  Most people, of course, used that term when referring to the CIA, but Tom noticed that Doug (and other senior officials in NASA) would use the term when they wanted to sound a little more important. 

 “In this room,” Doug continued, “are accountants, business analysts, IT specialists and human resources specialists.  The areas you’ll be working in form the infrastructure of NASA and are as crucial to the mandate of the agency as the astronauts and rocket scientists.”

Again, Tom had to smile to himself.  What Doug was leaving out was that the infrastructure was crucial, but the individuals were far more replaceable than any of the astronauts or rocket scientists.  Doug’s speech was well calculated, though.  He came off as a zealous supporter of NASA and that’s exactly what the wide-eyed new employees needed at this stage.  The turnover rate was extremely high due to the high workload and low pay, so sparking enthusiasm early helped stave off apathy for a little while longer.  It had clearly worked on Tom.