Mana Dissociation

by Christopher George

  I dutifully clicked save on my laptop that was displayed onto the screen behind me. My afternoon training session wasn’t going as well as the previous session with this group. I was about two hours into the three hour session time and so far I hadn’t gotten much interaction from the group. Sure the module I was training on was boring and simple as all hell, but still SOME interaction would have been nice. I’d done this so many times I could almost do it in my sleep. I had the internal script down so well that I barely even needed to look at the screen to tell where I was up to.

  “Any Questions?”

  The crowd of people in front of me stared slack jawed at the screen. I sighed inside without letting it show on the outside. I’d managed to perfect this over the past few months. Remain professional outside, whilst mentally cursing people on the inside. I’d had such high hopes for this group. The other sessions that I’d run with them had gone so well. This one was not, or at least it looked that way. It was often difficult to know how a session was going until it had finished and the questions came pouring in.

  Our company produced detailed document management software for large companies and as such was pretty complicated to learn. When I first started I’d thought I’d never pick it all up. After a while of pouring through the various support manuals I’d managed to figure out the underlying logic and was able to figure out the rest.

  I glanced around the room and could see various levels of understanding on their faces.

  “Let’s move on.” I replied after the requisite level of time had passed. I’d long learned that if I didn’t keep the training moving, we’d end up getting bogged down in stupid questions or worse – they’d start arguing amongst themselves. It happened every time.

  The rest of the session continued pretty much as the start had. No questions. No requests for clarification. I could have been talking to myself for all the interaction I was getting. I hated the silence more than getting stupid questions. Give me something to work with. I needed something back from them to tell if they understood. The stunned silence wasn’t any help. Total silence could mean that the participants understood everything perfectly and didn’t need to ask questions. The silence could also mean that the content was sailing right over their heads and everyone was too nervous to ask questions lest they reveal that they didn’t understand something in front of their workmates.

  I finished the presentation in record time, though that often happened when no questions were asked. I timed my training to allow for at least fifteen minutes of questions throughout the session. As I always did, I finished up the class with a summary. I’d almost flicked over completely to autopilot as I prepared to close down the laptop and clear up the glasses and mugs of coffee that were usually left behind.

  “Miss Wright?” a voice brought me back to the present.

  “Yes? Lloyd, isn’t it?” I replied sweetly as I gazed at the man up and down. He was middle aged, slightly balding and his whole demeanor screamed middle management. He seemed pleased that I had remembered his name. He clarified several points of the software that we had already covered last week. I knew this type. He was simply trying to let me know that he had been paying attention. I quickly re-clarified his points for him and sent him on his way.

  “Are all the sessions like that?” a voice cut in from the doorway. I turned to see Karen standing in the doorway with a bemused expression on her face.

  “No,” I replied firmly, “Normally you get more interaction or at least questions. This was like talking to myself for an hour and half.”

  “Lloyd seems to like you,” She continued.

  “Let me guess,” I murmured dryly, “he was the one who emailed you?”

  “You got it.” Karen smiled as she moved to help me clean up. The training room consisted of four rows of tables each with a laptop workstation. I’d need to go through each station and ensure that the previous user had remembered to turn off the device, clean up any cups or glasses that had been left behind. The cleanup took almost as long as the training sessions.

  “I much prefer doing webinars” I grumped as I turned off the fourth laptop that the user had ‘forgotten’ to turn off.

  “Thanks for the help,” I murmured as Karen and I headed back to the kitchen with an armful of dirty coffee cups and glasses.

  “Not a problem,” Karen shrugged, “I was actually sent to retrieve you for a meeting.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yep,” Karen nodded, looking pleased with herself.

  “Now?” I was amazed. I’d never been summoned for a meeting before.

  “Yep.”

  “Right now?”

  “Well, we can load the dishwasher first.” Karen said with a grin as she pushed the door down and began to stack glasses inside.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I hated the boardroom. It was where performance reviews, and hiring and firing took place. It wasn’t somewhere that I frequented. We tended to have team meetings in the training room so it was rare that I ever had the need to enter the boardroom.

  I couldn’t figure out if it was a good thing or not that I was being summoned here now. The only thing that I had to reassure myself was that Karen would be present. It was unlikely to be a HR matter if sales were involved. Unfortunately, Karen didn’t follow me. She simply waved at me in the direction of the board room and make a shoo’ing noise. I pushed open the door to the boardroom and wasn’t pleased to see the HR manager’s smiling face sitting on the other side of the table.

  She was perfectly nice, but I just couldn’t get over the role. She had been responsible for hiring me and I knew that she would be the one to fire me - if things went that way. She couldn’t have been more lovely, but I just wasn’t comfortable making small talk around her.

  Unfortunately for me, she wasn’t the most concerning thing in the room. Sitting next to her was the dour expression of the customer service manager – my boss. He looked pissed. Shit. Something was wrong.

  “Ahh, Jessie. Please close the door.”

  “Oh, it’s going to be one of those types of meetings huh?” I murmured softly, more to myself than to anyone I particular but I was surprised to hear someone reply.

  “Not at all,” Gerald the sales manager replied with a reassuring chuckle. I hadn’t even seen him from the doorway. I closed the door and sat down on the other end of the table.

  “We’ve got a proposition for you,” Gerald began, “How do you feel about travelling?”

  “Travelling? Where?” I said, my eyes alight with curiosity. If they were going to fire me then this seemed to be an odd way of going about it. Maybe this was a funny way of telling me to pack my bags. I couldn’t help but smile at that.

  “London.”

  “London? England?” I replied somewhat stunned. I hadn’t expected that. I’d heard from Curtis and some of the other customer service guys that occasionally they’d need to travel to some small country town of regional area to do localized training, but Overseas? Never!

  “One and the same.” Gerald confirmed. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

  “Yes! That would be amazing!” I leapt at the opportunity. I’d never even left the country before! This was the chance of a lifetime and I wasn’t going to let it go.

  “I’ve been hearing some very complementary things about you from your clients and Karen seems to think that you’d be perfect to accompany her.”

  The cogs were turning now. This must have been what she was talking about when she said that she had something big in the works. This sounded like an amazing opportunity and it also explained why the Customer Service manager looked pissed. He would have much preferred to give the role to one of his more senior staff. I’d come up against this before.

  “Thank you sir,” I replied keeping my voice intentionally calm. I didn’t want to appear too excitable or nervous. I could have already made a bad impression from my early gusto.

  “Have you ever travelled for work before?”

  “No.” I said q
uickly, “Well once, but it was only for a day.”

  We’d had to travel into the city to do a session at the client’s offices. It really wasn’t that exciting. It had only lasted half a day and we had to travel back to the office afterwards. I remembered thinking that this didn’t seem fair.

  “This could be for up to a month, possibly longer.” Gerald explained.

  That long? That was even better! It was all coming up Jessie!

  “I understand you live by yourself? Can you afford to be away from home that long?” Gerald continued.

  “Actually, I have a roommate.” I clarified, “and yes. There are no problems. I can get my roommate to care for my cat.”

  “Excellent.”

  Emily, the HR lady, cut in next, “We’ll arrange for accommodation and flights for you for the 17th.”

  Holy crap! That was next week. This was moving way too fast and my head was spinning.

  “Don’t get too excited. It’s not business class.” Emily must have mistaken my hysteria for excitement about the flight.

  “No, of course not,” I replied somewhat mollified. Then I rethought about it. Why not? This was for business. Why not business class? It didn’t really matter in the long run anyway I’d never flown on a plane before – as long as I had a seat I’d be ecstatic. Hell, I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity even if they made me sit in the aisle for the whole flight.

  Emily continued to explain the details for the trip, but to be honest I barely heard them – my mind was still spinning. The explanations seemed to go on for ages as Emily seemed to move through every part of the project in meticulous detail.

  “One last thing, we need a developer to accompany the team. Can you think of anyone that you might work well with?”

  The question seemed to come out of nowhere and for the moment I couldn’t have answered the question as I couldn’t remember any of the developer’s names. Eventually though I grasped on the one name that I remembered.

  “Uhh… Aiden?” I sincerely hoped I didn’t sound as unsure as I felt. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure if it was because I had met him earlier that day or if because Karen had teased me about it. Emily’s face took on a strange expression as I said his name. It was clear that this wasn’t the answer that they’d expected.

  “The sunglasses guy?” Emily’s voice sounded like she thought I was crazy. She had must been in shock as that didn’t sound like something that HR should say. They usually kept their personal opinions to themselves. I think Emily must have realized that she’d been inappropriate as she grinned guiltily for a second and then her face resumed back to her usual professional façade.

  “Um, Yeah.” I replied cursing myself. Why had I done that?

  “He just seems easy to talk to.” I continued making it worse. I needed to stop. I was only digging myself in deeper. I needed to learn to keep my mouth shut sometimes. Fortunately to my everlasting relief they let it go at that and I was gratefully directed to the door. I’d receive my ticket and itinerary via email in a few hours. I was glad to get out of there.

  It wasn’t until I left the board room that the reality of the situation hit home. I was being sent to London! London baby! Awesome! If I wasn’t in the middle of the office I would have given myself a high five. I made my way back to my desk trying hard to not swagger. There was only an hour or so until the end of the day and the smile remained plastered on my face until it was time to leave.

  Karen caught up within in the carpark after work. She almost had to skip to catch me as I’d almost reached my car already.

  “Did you say you wanted to bring Aiden to London with us?” Karen hissed under her breath. I glanced around the carpark hoping that no one would overhear us.

  “Uh, yeah.” I murmured taken aback.

  “Why?” Karen seemed to be taking great lengths to keep her calm.

  “They caught me out of the blue,” I stammered, trying to think up a better answer, “I couldn’t remember any of the developer’s names.”

  Karen shuddered and for a second I thought she was going to explode in anger. It wasn’t until a giggle escaped her lips that her face fell as laughter overtook her. I stared at her in astonishment.

  “I thought it was because you had the hots for him.” She gasped between laughs.

  “No,” I replied defensively, “And I don’t.”

  “The funny thing is – they think that you know something they don’t. Management now want to send him too.”

  I couldn’t help but find the whole situation hilarious. Aiden had never shown any interest in socialising with the rest of us. In fact, he decidedly kept to himself and wasn’t overly well liked by the rest of team. I suspect if he wasn’t such a good programmer he never would have lasted this long.

  Pretty soon Karen and I were both doubled over laughing until tears rolled from our eyes. I could just picture the look on Aiden’s face when he was told that he now had to travel to a foreign city with the two of us. The look on his face would have been priceless.

  I was still grinning about that for the remainder of the day.

  * * * * * *

  “You’re going for how long?” my roommate gasped.

  “A month!” I grinned, “Maybe longer!”

  I’d known Angie for years. We’d grown up on the same street and had been friends since junior school. We’d only just started living together though. She was always the confident one when we were growing up. She was the one who was invited to all the parties when we were younger. I just sort of lived in her shadow. I hadn’t exactly been thrilled when she had asked to move in here. I kind of had my own thing going but how could I say no? She after all was my best friend.

  I shouldn’t have worried anyway. She kept to herself so much it was actually uncommon that we were even in the house at the same time. I think she spent much of her time with her boyfriend. He was some big banker who lived in a lavish apartment. I suspected that she was only living to me so that she could tell her parents that she wasn’t living with him. That was okay. I’d keep her secret. He seemed like the nice enough type. I’d only met him a few times but he seemed kind and gentle. All in all she could do worse.

  I’d actually been surprised when I’d gotten home that she was lounging on the couch. She would normally be at her boyfriend’s at this time of day. I didn’t care though as by this stage I simply had to tell someone about my good fortune. I’d planned on calling my parents but this was better. I could see the reaction on her face.

  “London,” she repeated breathlessly, “Oh darling, you’re going to meet some British man, fall horribly in love and live happily ever after in a castle. I hate you! I’m so jealous.” Her voice took on a posh pseudo-British accent like on those Brit sitcoms that aired on the comedy channel.

  I couldn’t help but chuckle at her accent. It was made all the worse by the half-filled glass of wine that she waved around to finish the impersonation. She’d totally nailed it.

  “…and you know what they say about British men,” she continued lewdly.

  “What? That they have bad teeth?” This was the only thing that I knew about the British and I suspected that this was one of those urban myths that had no basis in reality.

  My reply sent Angie dissolving into fits of laughter. Once she was able to get her breath back she gasped, “When do you leave?”

  “A couple of days,” I’ll make sure that rent and bills are paid through though. But can you look after Mochi?”

  Mochi was my cat. He and Angie didn’t exactly see eye to eye on a number of issues. Angie promised that she would take care of him, although I doubted that it would be easy for her. Mochi considered the whole apartment to be his personal hunting ground and was often in Angie’s room uninvited. In fact, there were mornings where I’d be woken up to a shriek as Mochi had jumped on her trying to wake her up to feed him. To be fair though, that room had been mostly Mochi’s before Angie had moved in. I’d only used it to hang clothes for drying. It kind of had been
his room before she arrived. I wasn’t going to get into the middle of anything, but I could see his point. He did have seniority.

  Although it was far too early to seriously start packing I pulled down my suitcase from on top of the cupboard and rested it on the chair by my dresser. I spent the remainder of the night selecting clothes to take to London and then hanging them back into my wardrobe as I rethought things. This was going to be impossible. I might need to go shopping. My eyes lit up with delight.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Did you say that you wanted me to go to London?” Aiden hissed at me.

  I’d never seen him so animated before. I was stunned, caught like a deer in headlights. I’d just put the pod into the coffee machine for my morning coffee and I still had my morning guilty Kit Kat in my hands when Aiden came bursting into the kitchen and made a beeline for me. He didn’t seem to care that there was anyone else in the kitchen. He’d obviously been waiting for me and had leapt at the first chance he saw.

  “Uh, yeah.” I stammered, taking a nervous step back.

  His anger seemed totally out of place and completely out of character. I’d never even seen him raise his voice before. In fact, he barely spoke much at all in the office. This change in tone was terrifying. It was like being savaged by a rabbit. You just don’t expect it and it’s all the worse because it’s so unexpected. I tried to get a hold of my words, but they fluttered from my grasp and all I could do was make a variety of ‘um’ noises before nodding meekly.

  “Why?” Aiden demanded angrily.

  My admission didn’t seem to mollify him. I couldn’t see his eyes through those stupid mirrored sunglasses of his, but it was obvious that they would have been furious. Perhaps it was good that the only thing I could see was my own cowering reflection mirrored back at me.

  “Why did you do this? Are you fucking stupid? Why would you do this to me?” He snarled.

  I stammered and attempted to explain that it was all just a mistake when Karen interrupted us. She must have seen that I was in trouble and made her way over to us. As much as it pained me to admit it, I was glad that she chose to intervene. I hadn’t exactly been doing that well standing up for myself. In fact, I was afraid that I might actually burst into tears and I definitely didn’t want to do that in front of everyone.