Elise was nervous to start her first day at her new job. It was like starting at a new school. Would her work be satisfactory to her "teacher"? Would the other "kids" like her?
She hated the first day of school each year as much as a child as she hated the first day at new jobs now as an adult. Not that she had had many since graduating college, but still. It was always nerve-wracking, especially being the giant introvert that she was.
Elise went about her first morning at the local INDOT fixated on the training/instructions her soon-to-be predecessor was giving her on filing paperwork. Other than all of the governmental b.s. labeling and micro-managing, it looked to be an exceedingly easy job.
Elise had spent her first year out of college working at a dentist's office in her hometown. Her employers had been great, the best bosses you could possibly dream of, but she just couldn't stand the sterile smell of the office day in and day out, let alone the noise of the drills, so she had moved on to an attorney's office in the city where she had gone to college at.
It was quite the opposite of the dentists' office. She was the frontline, the "face of the company", they called her. She was the first and last person any of the clients saw in their time st the office.
The other office ladies were brutal, constantly telling her to "smile more", "don't look so irritated all the time", "who pissed in your wheaties this morning?" and so on. The attorney his self was just as rude, if not downright harassing.
One day it would be, "Such a pretty face," he would say as he patted one of her cheeks. "What are you doing to run these people off?" The next it would be, "Hey, sweetheart. Why don't you run down to the deli and grab me a club sandwich?" as he slapped her rear end as he walked away.
She may have been young, but she wasn't dumb. Of course, she had nowhere near enough money saved up to sue him, as much as she would have liked to. Needless to say, that job had only lasted a year as well and it took all of the willpower Elise could muster to put up with it for that long. She was tempted to ask for her job back at the dentist office until a former roommate of hers mentioned a job opening in a quaint, but interesting little town located an hour south of where they had gone to school together.
Painton and the area surrounding it had intrigued her from the first time she visited it as a kid with her parents. It held everything she loved: Small storefronts with inviting displays by artisans and craftsmen, unique confections and homestyle cooking, and, perhaps her favorite of all, the biggest state park in the state a mere 8 minutes away.
If there was anything her parents had instilled in her as a child, it was a love of nature. They frequented state parks on vacations as a kid and they quickly became her favorite places on earth. No, Elise didn't long for such frivolous trips to France and cruises to Cancun. Give her a park with hiking trails and trees and she was happy.
Her experience in Painton thus far had proved as interesting as the town itself. Although she knew, in one way or another, just about every person she came upon in her small hometown of Pascal, instead of being greeted by the usual passive, conservative friendliness of home, the inhabitants of Painton welcomed her into their places of business as if they had known her for years, especially once they had quickly distinguished that she was currently a resident and not just another passing tourist.
