"You've gotta be kidding! Unbelievable!" I shouted into the phone. "She's gonna be out of work for three months! And this is our busiest time of the year!"
"That's what I just heard," replied Gillian, our HR director, trying to be calm (which I appreciated). "If she heals quickly, it might be 10 weeks maybe."
"She's gonna be all right, isn't she?"
"Oh, yeah. But she won't be back until first of next year."
"Christ! Jesus H. Christ!" I muttered as I began to think up a plan.
As General Manager of a design and manufacturing company, you can always work through absenteeism, strikes and walkouts, supplier delivery problems, and sales slowdowns, but when your lead shipping coordinator is put out of commission for three months, your company becomes "constipated" you might say. You can build all the stuff you can, but if it doesn't get out on time, you're screwed. Lorna knows everything about picking orders for shipping, dealing with the freight companies, working up the customs paperwork for foreign shipments, and a million other things that no one else in the company knew well. And now she would be out for the final three months of the year, our busiest time. That's what I get for dragging my feet about implementing that cross-training project.
"Get a hold of the agency and see if they can get someone over here. Someone with experience."
"Which agency?"
"How about the one we used when Charisse was out?"
"QualTemp? Their people usually are pretty good. I'll see what they can do."
"Great. Keep me posted," I said hanging up the phone quickly.
Great indeed! Things had been going too well since the summer slowdown. I knew it wouldn't last but you can always hope. And with all that had been going on in my personal life, the last thing I needed was another problem, another headache, or another ulcer. I had lost--in order--my parents in a car accident, my longstanding girlfriend to a bleached out, beach bum bartender, then my apartment when my roommate got married. But what hurt as much as anything was when I lost my dog, just a couple of days after. Old Kelsey Dog had been my best friend through everything and now I had no one. Thank God I had my work to keep me going. And just when everything else was settling done and falling into place, another pot began to boil over. First things first, I went over to the sales office to select a "volunteer."
"I've been informed by Gillian that Lorna will be out until possibly the first of the year," I announced. "It's a recurrence of the problem she had a couple of years ago and required surgery. She's at Eastlawn Memorial if anyone is interested." I paused as the news sank into the half dozen staff members gathered about. "So who wants to take over shipping for the next three months while she recovers?" I asked, not at all surprised when no one stepped forward.
"We'll be bringing over a temp in the next couple of days, but we really need someone to fill in until then. Any volunteers?"
"Lorna is the only one who really knows it all," remarked Sandy. "I've helped her a little bit but I don't really know anything too well."
Sandy would have been my first choice, but she was a little indecisive and would probably struggle with the responsibility. The others looked around, shrugging their shoulders or trying to disappear from view.
"It's only for a couple of days," I added again. "We just need someone to fill in. I could just volunteer someone for the job." My last remark produced a look of fear on a couple of faces.
"I'll do it," said Terri in her Southern Belle voice. "I worked with her on a couple of the shipments to Mexico last month. I'll give it a try."
"Thanks, Terri. I really appreciate your help in this. Stop by my office when you're ready and we can review the open order list."
One crisis dealt with. How many more to go? As I strolled back to my office, I wondered about Terri. She was a steady worker, always here, always on time, and now volunteering for a special project. She was a nice girl who worked on the phones in customer service. With her sweet southern accent she was able to charm all but the most difficult customers, and those just took a little more time. There wouldn't be any problem with her working alongside Derek the lady killer, our Sales Manger, for Terri was the kind of girl that people would compliment as having lovely hair, a great phone voice, and a wonderful personality. In short she was a big girl, fleshy as my Dad used to say. Not that there was anything wrong with carrying a little weight. But Derek's taste had always been for tall, slim women, so he would be thrilled when he was back in the office on Monday.
Monday afternoon found me in the conference room interviewing the last of three candidates sent over by QualTemp. The first was a real young girl who had worked in receiving at a shoe warehouse: neither very experienced nor very bright. The second was an older guy who had been out of work for a while and seemed real shiftless: not at all what we needed as a temp. We needed someone who could jump right in and take over without a lot of training and handholding.
That brought us to Number Three. Michelle was kind of plain looking with old-fashioned large glasses and light colored hair pulled back and pinned severely behind her head. Her lumpy nondescript business suit was a size too big and hung on her like a grocery bag. No makeup, no fingernail polish, and heavy functional shoes. As I reviewed her resume, she was content to sit quietly legs crossed primly and her hands clasped together in her lap. In her late twenties with several years experience in various warehousing and clerical jobs, she seemed knowledgeable, smart, and competent. Derek wouldn't be too excited but she was only a temp and Lorna would be back before we knew it.
Gillian and I looked at each other and smiled.
"When can you start?" I asked.
"As soon as you'll have me," she replied quite matter-of-factly. I finished my last assignment last Friday."
"Gillian, I think we've found our person," I said.
Gilliam nodded in return and we started the paperwork rolling. There was a physical exam (if you were warm and breathed in and out you passed), and some forms for the agency and we had our temp signed up.
She dug right in the following day, working with Terri all morning. By the afternoon, Terri was back at her desk in the sales office, and the Temp had taken over the shipping office. I stopped by Terri's desk to see how it went.
"She knew more about it than I did," Terri said, somewhat impressed. ""I showed her how to log onto the system and some of the quirks about it, and that was it. She took right over."
"Great, Terri. Thanks for helping out."
"Sure, Kevin. Anytime," she cooed in that soft Southern Belle voice. "But only for you. By the way, where did you find her?"
"One of the agencies we use. QualTemp I think. Why?"
"Well, I don't know," Terri began, lowering her voice and leaning toward me.
"But she seems a little strange. I don't know what it is. It's like there's something going on behind those big old glasses and it kind of put me off."
"Hmm, thanks for the tip. We'll keep an eye on things," I replied. "And thanks again for the help."
There turned out to be little to keep an eye on. Over the months she worked real hard at getting ahead of shipments, staging paperwork and shipping boxes a few days in advance. Jerry the shipping clerk often remarked that she was great to work with, always helpful and prepared.
"If only she wasn't so, so ... so vanilla," he remarked one day.
A couple of the girls remarked how she dressed like a man and hinted that she might be a lesbian. Michelle had worn her business suit just for the interview. Most of the time she wore bulky sweatshirts or sweaters and baggy blue workpants. I met with her on a couple of occasions when Derek was out of town to make sure that important shipments were getting out. When I asked her about some missing paperwork for an international shipment, she got all flustered but quickly found the documents.
"Sometimes I am so blond," she said in a disgusted voice.
It was the closest that any one came to seeing her display a sense of humor. But it got me to thinking about her. I hadn't noticed that she was blond. She kept her hair pulled back all of the time and with the large glasses and no makeup, she seemed to sort of disappear into the background. It wasn't as if she was unattractive or anything, and maybe if she dressed up a little she would look quite nice.
I started to notice how she would always be out in shipping whenever I came in after lunch, which was part of my routine, and especially in the afternoon when I would go out for my run. She would always greet me and give me a little report on how many shipments we made and their value. I would stop and try to engage in conversation, but she was so very businesslike and never revealed any personality or femininity. She got the work done so well and her reputation was so widely communicated throughout the company that Lorna found out and decided that she was recovered enough to come back early just to hang onto her job. Gillian and I set it up so that Lorna would spend her first day back with Michelle to catch up with things. At the same meeting, I approached Gillian with an idea that I had been mulling over for a couple of weeks.
"So, Gillie, you know how I've often suggested that we could use an extra person for special projects if the right one came along?"
"Yes, Kevin," she nodded with a smile. "Has the right one come along?"
"Well, I've been noticing Michelle, our temp. She seems very dependable and businesslike."
"She tests out very well in the reviews I've had with her. Would you like me to talk with her?"
"I'll handle it if you don't mind. She may not want any part of it."
Gillian agreed and we set up an interview for the next day, although we didn't call it an interview.
"Well, Miss Robinson, tomorrow is your last day in shipping," I began. "I'd like to say that we were lucky to get you when we did. You've been a real hard worker and become an asset to the company."
"Thank you," she replied evenly. "You can call me Missy if you'd like. The other employees kept getting me confused with Michelle Monroe in marketing. My Daddy always called me Missy."
"That's cute," I said somewhat distracted by the personal reference. "Well, okay, Missy. I was wondering if you'd consider staying on with us in another capacity."
"What do you have in mind?"
"We've been needing someone for a while, someone more than just a secretary who can take on special projects. You're very dependable and organized and efficient. You volunteer to stay late and finish the job. I think you would be a good fit for the job."
"Would this be a front office job?"
"Well, yes. I was thinking of putting the person in the spare office a couple doors down, you know the one everyone call the broom closet."
"Just what kind of special projects?"
"A number of things really. The benchmarking surveys, the warranty registration program to name a couple. I also want to look closer at coordination efforts between sales and production. Maybe even some efficiency evaluations with engineering and production."
"Although I'm flattered, I'm not really sure that I'm qualified for something like that. I've always done warehouse management, shipping and receiving, that sort of thing."
