Alice rapped sharply on the door, privately wishing she was anywhere but here. In general, working in Human Resources wasn't that bad of a job; she liked to think of herself as being good at solving problems in ways that made both Future Technologies and its employees happy. But sometimes you couldn't have it both ways. Times like those were filled with ugly confrontations, people shouting or weeping--or, on one memorable and terrifying occasion, hurling small objects across the room. Those were days when Alice had to be the villain. Alice hated being the villain.
For some reason, Doctor Claudia Burkitt seemed to draw those kinds of incidents to her. She seemed to enjoy them, in fact; Alice always felt like Claudia privately reveled in the tension between her and the rest of the staff in Research and Development. She never overtly showed it, though. Alice felt certain that part of the enjoyment to Claudia was the way she never did anything quite wrong enough to prove that she was being difficult on purpose. But whether it was part of some secret head game she was playing with her co-workers, or just the way that she was a spiky, arrogant--Alice vigorously censored the rest of that train of thought, knowing it wouldn't help her one bit in the coming confrontation--whatever it was, Claudia's file crossed her desk way too often, and in ways that usually led to unpleasant meetings. Alice always dreaded dealing with Claudia. She suspected the woman hated her, and was punishing her for some imagined offense by making her job difficult. And today was probably going to be the most difficult yet.
"Come in!" Alice heard brightly from inside the office. She opened the door to see Claudia sitting behind her desk with a sweet, cheerful grin on her face, dressed in a stylish floral dress. "Alice! So lovely of you to stop by," Claudia said, beaming. She gestured to a small jar on the desk. "Care for a lollipop?"
Alice almost did a double-take. It took all her professional composure not to dart back out of the office and check the nameplate to make sure she was talking to the right person. "Um, sure," she said, her brain functioning on auto-pilot as she pulled a grape sucker from the jar and unwrapped it. "Thank you." Was this like that 'Sliding Doors' movie? Had she accidentally stepped into a parallel universe where Claudia was her best friend or something?
"Please, please, sit down," Claudia said, waving towards the other chair in the office. "I got your email. You said there was something you wanted to speak to me about?"
Alice had just popped the lollipop into her mouth when Claudia asked the question. Awkwardly, she pulled it back out again. "Um, yes, Doctor Burkitt," she said. "It's about your research project." Alice chose her words carefully. No point in antagonizing Claudia on what seemed to be the happiest day of her life. "Frankly, your supervisor has been having a very difficult time getting any kind of status report out of you. You've been spending company money at a fairly alarming rate--according to our books, you've already spent the entire year's budget for your project, and it's only March."
Claudia looked contrite. Perhaps a little too contrite, Alice mused; she looked like a bad actress in an employee training film on solving disputes. "Oh, I understand completely," she said. "I do wish Frank had come to me with these issues, of course, instead of having to involve you, but now that you're here, let's go ahead and set your mind at ease."
Alice looked down at the file she'd brought, suddenly flustered. She pretended she was just sucking on her lollipop again, but she was actually scanning through Doctor Marlen's reports at a frantic pace. Finally, she took the sucker out and said, "Um...Claudia, according to Frank--um, Doctor Marlen's reports, he has tried to come to you with these issues. But you've been either sequestered in your lab--" Alice tried not to think about the number of confrontations she'd had with Claudia about her obsession with privacy, and her habit of installing additional security systems to keep her bosses from snooping-- "or doing work at an off-site facility." Which was strictly forbidden, too. "And you've been...a bit defensive in your emails to him."
"Well," Claudia said, smiling wryly, "let's just say that I haven't seen much point in explaining the details of my work to Frank. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure he's a wonderful administrator, and it is nice to have a supervisor who can understand the rudimentary concepts behind the projects he's assisting with..." Alice mentally winced at every single veiled insult, while simultaneously being surprised that the insults were at least veiled this time. "...but he's a bit limited in some ways. If I were to spend my time boiling down the ideas behind my new breakthrough to the point where he could understand them, I'd never have time to actually work on it."
Which, once you stripped out the niceties of it, was the same complaint Claudia always had whenever Alice had one of these little meetings with her. 'Why should I have to justify myself to tiny little minds?' She'd never actually added the 'like yours' at the end, but Alice knew it was always implied. If that was what she thought of Frank, who had a PhD in molecular biology, what could she possibly think of Alice's MBA?
"I understand your point of view," Alice said, once again trying to placate the temperamental genius. "But unfortunately, I can't support it. You're using company money, company facilities, and company equipment, Claudia. That means that the company has the right to know, and more importantly the right to approve of what it is you're doing."
Claudia stood up abruptly. "And they will," she said, crossing over to the window. "I promise, Alice, soon enough this company will know exactly what I'm doing. And I guarantee, they will approve." Alice blushed bright red as Claudia stood silhouetted in the bright beam of afternoon sunlight coming into the room; perhaps it was the other woman's inexperience with dressing in something other than frumpy sweaters and utilitarian slacks, but she'd chosen a dress that was far too sheer for the office. The light passed through it in a way that made her look like she was wearing nothing at all over her underwear.
Alice must have coughed or something in her shock, because Claudia turned away from the window to face her. "Alice? Are you alright? You look flushed."
"Um, I..." Alice clamped her mouth around her lollipop for a moment to hide her momentary consternation. "Nothing," she said through clenched teeth. "Just swallowed funny." She looked down studiously at her notes, more than a little embarrassed on Claudia's behalf. The poor woman tried to dress nicely for this appointment, and the least Alice could do was not let her know how badly she'd failed. (Well, failed as far as propriety was concerned. There were quite a few men in the office who'd be pleasantly surprised to find out just how shapely Claudia's body was without all those dowdy clothes in the way.)
She took the sucker back out of her mouth again. Still looking down, she said, "I'm sorry, Claudia, but we can't operate on promises here. Especially not given your, um...past history with your colleagues." She blushed even harder, making her face feel hot and tingly. She'd been trying so hard not to bring up all the other incidents in Claudia's file, hoping that this miraculous stretch of calm politeness would last, but she should have known better.
"Oh, let's not discuss past history, Alice," Claudia said, patting her on the shoulder. Alice looked up sharply; she'd been so intent on not looking at Claudia that she hadn't even noticed her crossing the room. "It's so unfair, really, to put you in the middle of all this. You're just doing your job, and Frank always has to come and ask you to arbitrate our little disputes? Honestly, if he was really performing his managerial duties properly, you wouldn't even have to get involved."
