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.

 

Tom looked to his right and shared a smile with Will, another Senior Associate that reported to Doug.  Will was also dressed in a suit, but he wore it more casually than Tom did.  With his tie loosened and the top button of his shirt undone, you might think he was headed off to happy hour, as opposed to just starting the day.  But somehow, Will pulled it off in a way that Tom knew he never could.  Will carried himself with an air of confidence that Tom envied. 

Tom and Will had joined NASA at the same time and had come to be Doug’s right and left hands.  They would each be giving a portion of the orientation speech once Doug was finished and would later compare notes on the new recruits.  They had gotten pretty good at guessing which of the new employees wouldn’t last more than six months on the job.

 

***

After the orientation meeting concluded, both Tom and Will had separate staff meetings to welcome the employees that would be reporting through them.  Tom and Will were Project Managers, which meant that their teams were comprised of an assortment of roles, which were shuttled in and out depending on turnover and the needs of particular projects. 

Tom was generally satisfied with the new members of his team, although he did get Dale, the employee that both he and Will had identified as the first of the new batch to wash out.  It wasn’t just Dale’s nervousness – it was natural for new employees to be nervous on their first day – but there was a touch of desperation in his eyes, something that announced to the world that even Dale didn’t think he belonged at NASA. 

After the staff meetings, Doug had scheduled a meeting in his office for Tom and Will.  They assumed that he would want to get their opinions on the new employees, but when they entered Doug’s office, a woman was sitting across the desk from Doug.  Tom and Will hesitated and motioned to Doug, asking if they should leave.

“No, no, come on in,” Doug said, “there’s someone I want you guys to meet.”

The woman stood and faced them with a smile on her face.  She was pretty, with shoulder length blond hair and an athletic build, but something about her angular face wasn’t entirely friendly.  Will took two steps across the room and extended his hand.

“Hi, I’m William Thomas,” he said, as she grasped his hand.

“Stacy Ames,” the woman said, shaking Will’s hand.

“Stacy is joining us from the Department of Agriculture,” Doug said “she’s a new Project Manager that will be reporting to me.”

Tom felt uneasy.  He and Will had been the only senior level Project Managers in the group for the last three years and he was wary of what this addition would mean for the balance of power.  Will seemed unfazed.

“Great to have you,” Will said, covering the awkward space of Tom’s failure to introduce himself.

Finally, Tom stepped forward and extended his hand.

“I’m Thomas Shields, it’ll be great to work with you.”

Stacy paused a moment and laughed.  “Thomas Shields and William Thomas?  Are you fucking with me?”

Tom blushed, both from embarrassment and at the notion that Stacy already was comfortable enough with Doug that she felt she could curse in front of him.  Doug and Will were both laughing with Stacy.

“Yeah, feel free to call them ‘the Toms,’ I do,” Doug said.

This was true – Doug thought it was terribly clever to say things like “The Toms advise me that we are going to go over budget on that project.”  Tom thought it made Doug sound like a dipshit.

Doug sat back down behind his desk, Stacy sat in her chair and Will sat in the second chair in front of Doug’s desk, leaving Tom to awkwardly drag a chair over from the other side of the room.  Tom had been there for six years and Stacy had been there for six minutes, but somehow he felt like the odd man out in the conversation.

“I’m giving Stacy Project Trumpet as her first assignment,” Doug said.

NASA infrastructure always used musical instruments for their project names.  It always seemed absurd to Tom, but the rationale was that they wanted to pick things that would never be confused with NASA operations projects.  In Tom’s six years they had gone through all of the string instruments in the orchestra and now were on the brass instruments.  He and Will derisively called each other’s projects things like “Project Kazoo” or “Project Slide Whistle.”

“Project Trumpet involves building a usable database for the Section Three lab in Houston.  Brass thinks that there might be some commercial applications for the database structure, so she’s going to have a patent team involved.  Stacy did some database work for the Department of Agriculture, so this should be right up her alley.”

The rest of the meeting was small talk between Doug, Stacy and Will – mainly seeing if they knew anyone in common in government.  Tom tried to stay engaged, but he couldn’t shake the thought that Project Trumpet sounded like a pretty sweet first assignment.

After leaving the meeting, Tom went to Will’s office.

“So, what did you think?”  he asked, slumping in a chair across Will’s desk.

“Pretty hot.  Did you see those legs?”

Tom shook his head.  “Of course that’s what you think.  But what about…” he began.

“You worry too much,” Will interrupted, “she seems ok and your track record is impeccable.  You’ve got no reason to feel the way you look.”

“Gee, thanks,” Tom said, “that database project sounds like a pretty good gig.”

“Yeah,” Will said, “who was that guy that was working on Section Three data before?”

“David something.”  Tom answered.

 
“Yeah, that’s it.  I wonder if he’ll be pissed that Stacy is moving in on that.”

“Nah, he committed suicide last year, remember?”

“Oh yeah,” Will said, “Whatever happened to…”

“David’s girlfriend, Allison?” Tom finished Will’s sentence.  “You’re fucking terrible.”

“I’m not that bad.  I meant for you, I’m already taken.”

“Well, I heard she left DC and moved back to wherever she was from.”

“Too bad.  She was hot… and deserved better than that pathetic David guy.”

Tom stood up with a sigh and started towards the door.  “Ok, I’m gonna get to work.  I haven’t even had a chance to read through my email yet.”

“You better swing by Dale’s desk on your way to your office, just to make sure he hasn’t quit already.”

Tom kept walking and gave Will the finger as he left the room.  Will made him feel somewhat better about things, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Stacy and Project Trumpet the rest of the day.