femmejosephine | Getting a job

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kenya

Getting a job

The city was still mostly empty, but it was probably just a glitch in the sim. Some poor tech group was being informed that they were all going to be cancelled one by one if the glitch continued much longer.

That wasn't what she was thinking about today though. She needed a job. Her sleazy landlord had stopped suggesting alternative ways to pay her rent fairly quickly, but that meant she needed to find another way to do that. The problem was that she didn't really have a resume or any skills that were worth putting on a job application. Not if she didn't want to work for one of the criminal organizations in town, anyway, and she didn't. Let Madeline see that she truly didn't ever want to be in Section or do Section's work, no matter how well Madeline thought she'd begun to "fit" within it.

She went to the library, which had always been a welcome source of warmth for her, and found a book on making resumes. Then she carefully used one of the computers to create one, listing a few odd jobs she'd had in the months and years before her arrest and transfer to Section. She'd have to hope that someone would take a chance on her, although she didn't really believe they would.

She dressed as nicely as she could from the thrift stores and started walking, hoping to pass out resumes at anywhere that said they were hiring. The first five said they weren't anymore now that the population was smaller, so she went on to the sixth. It was a little restaurant on the same street as her building and she pushed the door to the converted gas station open with her best friendly smile on her face.

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Running both businesses is hard on Kenya, and she finds herself at the Filling Station less than she should be. It's meant pushing back onto the staff and expecting them to do more. In order to prevent a revolt she needs to hire more people, but good people aren't easy to find. That's a lesson she's learned as well.

She's just spilled coffee all over the counter when the bell above the door rings. Kenya glances up, smiling at the woman even as she grabs for a towel. "Hi, come on in. Just me being a bit of a banggo."

[Idiot - Castithan]

She didn't know that particular word, but it clearly wasn't a compliment. It was equally clearly not directed at her, so she wasn't going to worry about it.

"Not a problem," she said politely. "D'you need any help with that? Extra towels or something?"

"No, I'm fine," she insists, waving her hand toward the stools. It's not in her nature to allow someone to help when there's no call for it. "You sit and I'll be with you in a sec."

"Seltzer'll get that coffee out of the towels once you're done cleaning up," Nikita noted. She'd only had a few sets of clothes for awhile, so she'd learned to take care of them, and seltzer was usually pretty cheap. The woman might know that trick already, but then again she might not.

It’s something she knows, but a bit of well-intentioned advice is never unwelcome. “I’ll make sure to do that,” she says with a smile, finishing with the counter before turning her attention back to the woman. “Now, can I get you a coffee? One that I don’t spill?”

"Yeah, thanks, that'd be great," Nikita replied as she slid onto the stool and glanced around. There weren't any other staff here right now that she could see, which meant either they'd disappeared or they were really short handed. Maybe both. It might be a good sign for her chances of getting a job here.

Kenya tosses the rag in a bucket and washes her hands before pouring the woman a cup of coffee and one for herself as well. She slides it over along with all the accoutrements, and a menu. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before. You’re obviously not from Darrow,” she adds, knowing that if the woman was she wouldn’t be here at all at the moment. “Newarrival, or looking for somewhere still open?”

"Combination of both," Nikita said, taking the coffee and sipping it black. It was decent coffee. The menu was fairly basic, but had good prices and decent choices. "Ta."

"I've been here a couple of weeks, I think."

Kenya adds cream and sugar, the decadence of having both readily available never growing old. "Welcome to the Filling Station, and to Darrow. Is it much different here for you "

She'd gotten used to terrible shelter coffee and then not quite as terrible Section coffee, although the tea was much better. Madeline's doing, she suspected. It meant she could drink any coffee black and generally did.

"Well, I'm not really used to most of the population disappearing in a moment," she said seriously. The population on the streets and in Section did disappear, but not generally quite so quickly.

"I don't think many of us are." At least what she's used to people vanishing always had a cause, and was less them disappearing completely and more them hiding away from arkfall or razor rain. "I admit, this is new, even by Darrow standards."

"That's what I hear," Nikita said. Whether she believed that was something she'd keep to herself. If it was a sim, anything could happen.

"As far as I've heard from everyone, though, this place likes to do strange things. This is just more of it."

“People keep telling me that too, and I’ve seen my share of strangeness.” On top of what Kenya thought was typical, which was saying a lot. Her Earth had been vastly different to the one that most people here knew. “Now what can I get you?”

"I guess that depends on what you've actually got," Nikita shrugged. "I've seen other places having problems with suppliers now that everyone's gone."

She could have said that she wanted a job application right at that opening. It was probably put in the sim so she would, actually, but she'd been greeted so much more nicely here that she wanted to work around to it.

“I have a girl who makes most of our baked goods who’s one of us. Daphne.” She shrugs, knowing that she’s probably one of the luckier ones. “I can make coffee and fry eggs.”

Even if frying eggs was about all she could do, cooking never something she’s spent much time on. “Maybe it’s the need to cling to a semblance of normality.”

"Maybe," she agreed, although it was interesting to hear herself described as an "us". She'd always been a them. That child, that kid, that Operative. Always a them. Never an us.

"I'll have an omelette, then, if that's alright."

To Kenya, it's similar. She grew up being one of them, and only when they went to Defiance did she find her place and make her us. Here, that's continued, the bond of being displaced one she doesn't brush away lightly.

"One omelette coming up. If it's not pretty it's on the house." And frankly, Kenya is fairly sure that it won't be attractive, her attempts at flipping them never successful.

"I'll pay either way," Nikita said firmly. She wasn't going to start a potential employment by mooching off the boss.

"It can't look worse than some of the food I've cooked for myself, and I'm not cooking it."

Kenya only smiles, knowing that she's thought the same thing herself a number of times. After her early life so poor and without anything, she treasured luxuries like having a meal cooked for her by someone else. "I'll only be a minute," she promises, leaving the coffee pot within reach.

It's closer to ten by the time she has everything together, and the omelette is even mostly in one piece. "I didn't ask you what kind of bread you wanted, but we're down to wheat."

"Wheat's fine," Nikita agreed. And the omelette actually looked good, too, although she would probably have eaten it even if it hadn't. She might not be as poor as she was before Section, but she didn't turn her nose up at good food just because it didn't look good.

"Thanks, this looks good."

"Let me know if you need anything," she says, planning on giving the woman some space. Standing over someone and watching them eat was generally unwelcome. "I'll be over there."

She'd eaten while being watched and didn't enjoy it much, so she appreciated the owner's discretion in not doing that. She ate the omelette carefully, remembering not to gulp it like it was her last meal or stuff it in before someone stole it from her.

When she was done, she pushed the plate away from herself slightly.

"That was good. Any chance you need any help around here?" She couched it as a joke, but of course she was serious at the same time.

The question is a surprise after all of their preamble. It's usual for people to ask these things right away, but usual is often boring. Kenya considers for a moment, pushing her coffee cup and the pot toward the other woman. "That depends. Lets see you pour a cup of coffee."

She had good upper body strength and steady hands thanks to Section and she knew they'd be watching that as they analyzed her response to the request. At the moment, though, she was more concerned with the owner's response.

She smiled as she poured the coffee cleanly, steadily, and with no unnecessary flourishes or raising and lowering of the pot. That was just showing off, and this wasn't a showing off kind of place. When the cup was almost full, she paused and said, "Room for milk?"

"Please," she says, and tries to look as if she's still making up her mind, though she's already decided. Kenya waits til the cup is full and then nods. "I could use some help."

Nikita paused and tilted the coffee pot back up at just the right moment to avoid drips on the counter, then set it down next to the cup. She was secretly pleased that she'd done it so smoothly since she hadn't actually been a waitress since at least a year before Section.

"I've been a waitress before. Pouring coffee's the first thing I learned," she explained herself.

Edited 2014-12-07 00:34 (UTC)

'Then you'll do fine here. When there are people around all they want is coffee, and maybe a conversation about the weather or the news." She likes it like that, Desire takes enough of her energy that it's good the Filling Station doesn't. "Most of our customers like keeping to themselves."

"Works for me. I'm not the small talk type," Nikita admitted. "The weather and the news is about all I'm good at."

She couldn't very well talk about her past, after all. Not most of it, anyway.

"Perfect. Can you start tomorrow? It won't be very busy, not unless everyone suddenly reappears,' she adds with a laugh, never sure if that's completely unikely or not.

"Yeah, sure, that's fine," Nikita replied, a little surprised. She hadn't expected her new boss to want her to start so soon, but it was fine. She didn't have much else to do with her days. Might as well earn a little money, right?

"I'm Nikita, by the way. Is there a uniform or something I should get?"

"Kenya," she says, laughing. "White shirt, black pants or skirt. We're pretty informal around here." She looks down at her own non-standard all black outfit and shrugs. "You'll just need to put on the apron and everyone will expect you to bring them coffee."

Nikita nodded. The owner wore what she wanted, and Kenya was clearly the owner. White shirt and black pants was easy and cheap.

"I can do that. What time would you like me to come in?"

"11," she decides. It would be the time the lunch girl started had she not been a Darrow resident who'd vanished. "If there's a lunch rush it's in time for it."

"I'll be here at 11," Nikita agreed, and she meant it. She liked Kenya, or at least what she knew of her so far, and she intended to do a good job. Not that waitressing was rocket science, but it had its quirks.

"How much do I owe you for the omelette and coffee?"

"You don't." Kenya won't take money this week at least, not when so many people seem stuck between things. "It's the least I could do."

Nikita wasn't sure she agreed with that, but she'd find her own way to solve it. Extra money in the till or something. There were ways around most things, and Nikita was good at finding them.

"Alright. I'll see you at 11 tomorrow then," she agreed. "And thanks. Everywhere else I tried said they weren't hiring."

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Getting a job

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