‘Oh alright, I will give you some grace for the cappuccino, but then… no holds barred!’ Rob was raring to go.
‘Ok, how did the rest of Friday go?’ Zara was dying for any office gossip, rumour had it that one of the girls in accounts was having an affair with the IT guy.
‘Oh don’t ask me! I can’t remember a thing, I was blotto after that fatal B52 that you so cleverly avoided! The rest of the evening is all a blur, I do have the feeling that it was a great night though,’ Rob chuckled.
‘Did Michael come out?’ Zara hoped that she hadn’t missed the beautiful Michael.
‘Well… he’s already out dear, ha ha… no seriously, I never mix business and pleasure! I like to keep him all to myself!’ Rob laughed mischievously.
‘Fair enough, is he really that good looking?’ Zara knew the answer, but she loved getting Rob going.
‘Absolutely!’ Rob beamed at her.
‘Well, can I at least meet him? I promise I won’t tempt him.’ Zara had seen him once, but was dying to actually meet him properly.
‘I think you can be trusted!’ Rob smiled at her.
‘Of course you can trust me. I’m single, I’m not pathetic… running after gay men, I mean really, even if he is that good looking,’ Zara sighed nonchalantly.
‘Yes he is that good looking, and even if you haven’t done it before, you might start fancying gay men when you meet him. But as long as I have your word of honour, then you can still meet him.’ Rob sighed dramatically.
‘You have my word. How was the rest of your weekend?’ Zara added.
‘Good, I was in bits after Friday night, so Saturday was a day of recuperation, and then Sunday I went down the King’s Road shopping. What did you get up to?’ Rob enquired.
‘You are not going to believe this, but I spent the rest of Friday night in with my housemate…’
‘The Princess?!’ Rob was shocked!
‘Well yes, although I feel a bit bad about judging her so quickly now, she actually seems really nice. She had her friend over and we watched a chick flick and got a takeaway. I was so drunk when I arrived home, and all I wanted to do was go to bed, but I couldn’t say no, and I actually had a really good night with them. Her friend was a bit drunk too, so it took the heat off me!’ Zara added sheepishly.
‘Hilarious! Was the dishy rock star in?’ Rob couldn’t believe this, he had such a negative picture of the Princess, it seemed that Zara had judged her too quickly.
‘I haven’t really seen much of him either since we all moved in, but he popped in for some takeaway, and then headed back out to the pub on Friday. It’s been a bit manic, we are never all in at the same time. He seems to work in the evenings, gigs, rehearsals and all that kind of stuff, and Penelope seems to work night and day, so I don’t really see that much of them. And we have to get a new housemate in too… we have another room that we need to fill,’ Zara filled him in.
‘I see, if I hear of anyone looking for a place, I’ll let you know. When do you need to get someone in?’ Rob asked
‘Asap – the landlady has been really good, she has given us two weeks to find someone, I mean, I don’t think that is long enough, but the others told me that things move really fast in London. She gave us some grace because there was a mix up when we moved in and Penelope and Charlie thought they had the house, when I had been told that I could move in, so we agreed to move in together. It was kind of weird the way the whole thing happened.’ Zara remembered that fateful day when the two of them scared the life out of her.
‘That is a lot of time to find someone, you are lucky,’ Rob reassured her.
‘So they were saying… so we put an ad on some internet sites, and gave Charlie’s number, and then we put it in Looter or something too.’ Zara was trying to remember the process.
‘Loot, you mean?’ Rob enquired, one eyebrow raised.
‘Em, yep, that sounds about right. We’ve had a good few calls already. I think we are going to see loads on the same day and hopefully pick someone.’ Zara was dreading it.
‘That’s the best way to do it, try to all be there when the people arrive, so that you can suss them out.’
‘Any tips?’ Zara asked.
‘Unfortunately there is no way of telling really, until someone moves in, they bloody well lie when you interview them, so just rely on your instincts and you should be ok. There are no rules really, I mean they’ll all tell you they are clean and all that kind of thing, but you only find out the truth when it’s too late.’ Clearly Rob had had some bad experiences in this respect.
‘Ok, thanks, I’ll keep that in mind. What have we got on today? If we are not too busy I might do a bit of mystery shopping.’ Zara sighed as she opened her Outlook calendar for that day.
‘I wouldn’t today darling, Victoria is in terrible form, she has had her door closed all morning, that’s not a good sign. I’d stick around today… make sure you are seen working away furiously.’ Rob warned Zara, something was not quite right in Organicom that day.
‘Ok, thanks.’ Zara didn’t like the sound of this.
‘Even if you are not busy, make sure you look busy.’ This was, as always, sage advice from Rob.
‘I don’t think I’ll have any problems looking busy, I’ve loads to do.’ Zara was already reading her first few emails of the day.
‘Good girl!’ Rob smiled at her.
‘Hmm scary stuff. I don’t like the sound of that. It’s only my second week, and the boss is in a bad mood. I must try to stay out of her way. It’s a good thing I have Rob to point me in the right direction, I never would have realised that having her door closed was something to look for, I suppose that’s the kind of thing you pick up after being here for a while. Come to think of it, she does usually have her door open. There’s so much in between the lines stuff to learn too.’ Zara realised that it was not just the facts and figures that she needed to pick up quickly.
‘I’m going to head down to get the coffees, the usual?’ Zara was dying to get out for a few minutes, she felt a bit tense, a bit of fresh air would help.
‘Yes, lovely, I’ll get them tomorrow then.’ Rob smiled at her again.
Life in London was never without its daily challenges, both large and small, and it constantly seemed to Zara, that the minute she mastered one of these… another one cropped up. While English is the predominant language in the capital, ‘coffee’ is a secondary language that needs to be mastered immediately for survival in the big smoke. While Zara was of course fluent in English, she was really struggling with her new second language. To make things even more complicated, there wasn’t a universal coffee language, there were many regional dialects, for example the Costa dialect, the Nero dialect, the Starbucks American dialect, and then there were all the independent coffee houses where anything goes… This was something else that Zara had learned very quickly.
‘There are so many coffee places to choose from, and they all have their own language.. I don’t think I’m really fluent in coffee speak yet. I’m trying a different coffee place each day, so that I can decide which one I like best. I like the ones where they give you free stuff, like little portions of muffin… exactly what a girl needs first thing in the morning… Now, what do I want, let’s see… Rob’s is easy enough, a mocha, no whip, to go… ok… I can do this…’ Zara marched into the next coffee place that she saw, with her fingers crossed for free muffin portions.
‘Hi there, can I help you?’ the barista said enthusiastically.
‘Can I have a small cappuccino, and…’ Zara began.
‘Wet?’ the barista interrupted as he began scribbling on the takeaway cup.
‘Erm’ ‘What the hell does that mean, oh my god, oh my god, I’m going red, and there is a huge queue behind me… help!’ Zara squirmed in her size fives, she wished that she could just disappear… A large queue of impatient Londoners had formed behind Zara within seconds.
‘Wet?’ the barista looked at her as if she was mad, and raised his
eyes to heaven.
‘Yeah, wet,’ Zara muttered. ‘I’ll agree with him, what’s the worst that can happen?’ Zara thought to herself.
‘Sorry was that Short, Tall or Grande?’ the barista enquired about the sizes.
‘Is he speaking English? What is Grawnday?’ Zara began to panic now.
‘Erm, short, yes short and wet.’ ‘Jesus, sounds like I’m ordering porn!’ Zara struggled to get the words out, she was crimson now… almost turning purple.
‘With wings?’ He looked up from his cup scribbling as he said this, the marker pen perched for more details.
‘Oh my god! What is “with wins”? Or did he say “wings”? Hmm… that must mean takeaway! Fingers crossed.’ ‘Yes please.’ Zara managed a weak smile.
‘Can I get you anything else?’ The barista shoved the cup in the long queue and stared at Zara. It seemed like everyone was staring at her.
‘Oh yes a mocha, to go,’ Zara stated. ‘And a coffee dictionary!’ she thought to herself, again time seemed like it was standing still.
‘A what? Sorry, I didn’t catch that…?’ Even the barista started to get a bit impatient with Zara now.
‘A mow-kka-cheeno, to go?’ Zara over-pronounced the word.
‘Oh, I’m sorry… a mochaccino, what size?’ Finally the message was getting through.
‘Oh no, here we go again, what did he say they were?’ ‘A big one please,’ Zara sighed.
‘So that’s one short wet cap to go, and one grande mochaccino to go… whip?’ He looked up from his cup scribbling again..
‘More porn!’ Zara thought to herself. ‘No whip,’ she muttered, ‘or not,’ ‘Thanks’. Zara felt relieved that she had finally given her order and that she could move to the end of the counter to wait for her drinks.
‘You can collect your drinks at the end of the counter, have a nice day.’ The barista perked up now that he could move onto the next customers.
‘Thanks,’ Zara said over her shoulder.
‘Now… that wasn’t too difficult after all. I think I’m finally getting the hang of coffee speak.’
‘One tall skinny mocha, with whip!’ The next customer gave her order
‘Two grande americanos,’ followed by the next customer.
‘More porn!!’ Zara thought to herself.
‘One short soy latte and one, tall, chai tea, latte.’ The barista shouted down as he plopped the freshly made coffees onto the counter for collection.
‘One short wet cappuccino and one grande mocha, no whip.’ The drinks kept coming… like a caffeine and steam conveyer belt.
‘Yay, that’s mine… Oh no! Rob’s is huge! And mine is tiny! That wasn’t what I thought I was getting! Better luck next time Zara!’ Zara’s bubble burst the minute she saw the size of the drinks, clearly she had not ordered the right thing at all. One thing is for sure she would never go back into that coffee place again. She trundled back to the office, and managed to muster a big smile for Rob by the time she got to her floor.
‘Thanks love, I take it you thought I was thirsty! It’ll take me all day to drink that… and look at your teeny little one!’ Rob was gasping for coffee, but he wasn’t quite sure that he could get through that huge one.
‘I know, I think they got the sizes wrong, but they were really busy and it would have taken ages to change them…’ Zara shrugged, she started to go a little red again as she remembered the whole ordeal.
‘I know what you mean, tempers can get a bit frayed when you have a big queue of people waiting for their first coffee.’ Rob was dying to get stuck into his.
‘Exactly!’ Zara was glad that the conversation ended there.
‘While you were out Victoria called a staff meeting, for 11 am,’ Rob whispered dramatically.
‘Oh, does she normally do that? Did she say what it was about?’ Zara sounded a bit shocked, she did not like the sound of this.
‘No, but it’s not a great sign, she usually gives us at least a day’s notice, and sends an email out, but she just came out and announced it.’ Rob was still whispering, bashing away on his keyboard, pretending to be emailing.
‘Hmm, I wonder what it’s about?’ Zara tried to sound calm.
‘We’ll soon see…’ Rob added.
‘Damn! It’s half ten already. No time for emailing, I really look forward to my Monday, weekend post-mortem emails with the girls, I really, really miss them… better not think about that now… I have to get some of these things out of my inbox before the meeting, I don’t want it to look like all I do is go out and get the coffee.’ Rob’s comments had made Zara feel really on edge, she was dreading the staff meeting.
At 11 am Victoria stood at the top of the fourth floor, next to the window. All of the staff gathered around in front of her, standing a good two metres away from her.
‘Good morning everyone, first of all, apologies for the short notice for this meeting, I’m afraid I have a bit of urgent news that I need to share with you all. All of the general managers were called into a meeting yesterday after the trade show in Birmingham, it seems that our sales forecasts were a little… optimistic… and we are not reaching our targets at all…’ Victoria’s speech went on.
‘Oh no, what does that mean. Why is she telling us this?’ Zara felt really panicked.
‘Now you are probably all wondering what this means for you personally, well… I’m afraid to say that we are going to have to cut back on some of our expenditure, and seeing as how our London office is the most expensive, the main cutbacks are going to come from London. I just wanted to let you know as soon as I found out, we have not made a final decision yet, but we have a few options on the table, such as relocating our HQ to Manchester or Birmingham. There also may be some redundancies in certain departments, and all non-essential expenditure will be stopped effective immediately…’ Victoria went on and on.
‘Now I know that’s not good, oh no, does this mean that I am going to lose my job? I have just moved into the house, and paid the huge deposit and everything, oh no, oh no, oh no!’ Zara could not hear the words anymore, her head was spinning with worry.
‘… I will pass on any information to you as soon as I possibly can, but at the moment I’m afraid that is all I can tell you. I’m very sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I thought it was best that you all should know, sooner rather than later.’ Victoria looked very serious as she said this, and she looked resigned to the fact that she would indeed have to speak to everyone individually in the most unpleasant of circumstances.
‘Rob! What do you make of all that?’ Zara was dying to find out what Rob thought.
‘Nothing I haven’t heard before dear, this is London after all, this kind of thing happens all the time… offices opening and closing.’ Rob was not worried, Zara could not understand this at all!
‘I thought everyone was taking it a bit too well, I nearly died when she mentioned moving the office… does that mean we would have to move too, or would they just get rid of us altogether?’ Zara was speaking very quickly.
‘Only time will tell, although she did mention redundancies, so that is definitely on the cards… get your CV out there darling, just in case.’ Rob was busy on email to his friends, this was hot gossip and he definitely needed to get the feelers out to see what jobs were out there.
‘Bloody hell, it took me long enough to get this job, I can hardly believe that I could get made redundant after such a short time working here. Look on the bright side, it might not happen, it’s only a maybe… I’ll get my CV together just in case.’ Zara was absolutely miserable, it seemed that every little mountain she climbed there was something else big waiting at the top to knock her back down. It constantly felt like one step forward, two steps back.
‘What are you going to do?’ Zara sidled over to Rob’s desk, she was determined not to cry.
‘I’m not sure, I think we’ll be ok, but I’ll get my CV ready anyway. I won’t worry about anything until something actually happens. I’m always re
gistered with a few temping agencies anyway, if the worst happens then at least you will be placed straight away and the money is pretty good… I can give you the names of a few marketing ones if you like?’ Rob was super busy, it seemed that this potential threat had really pushed him into gear to get his act together.
‘Thanks that would be great.’ Again, Zara was not sure about this, but every little helped.
‘I can’t tell Mum and Dad about this, they were so proud of me getting a job in London, and they lent me the money for the deposit on the flat. I’m convinced they think I’m some big city executive. I don’t really know Pen and Charlie enough to talk to them about it, god… I really miss my mates! They are all expecting grand tales from the City, and I can’t really go back and tell them all I have lost my job. Maybe it won’t happen to me, fingers crossed anyway. I have my CV up to date at least, I just used it a few months ago to get this job, I’ll start sending it out tomorrow… just in case.’ Zara fought back the tears, and did her best to keep herself busy with her emails. That was the one good thing about email she thought to herself, you could hide your sadness behind the words…
In the City things were very different. Penelope started the week to a rather more upbeat mood.
‘Good morning team, good weekend? Did you catch the rugby?’ Jeremy bounded in, all ruddy faced and full of rugby commentary.
‘Erm… no! Dull, dull, dull, they’ll be talking about golf next… yawn.’ Penelope was not impressed, she hated all this rugby talk… if only they could talk about culture, current affairs… something interesting!
‘No, I missed it, got a great round of golf in though…’ Tony chimed in, keen to get in on the conversation.
‘Aw! You missed a great game… a deciding try in extra time…’ Jamie bounded in, tossing a mini rugby ball.
‘It was unbelievable!’ Jeff arrived into the room.
Penelope yawned. ‘Every bloody Monday it’s the same old thing, golf, rugby waffle waffle waffle… do none of these people have lives!? How can they find that fun, grown men rolling around in the mud and getting injured for an hour and a half and walking around for hours hitting a tiny ball with a stupid stick.’ Sometimes being in an all-male environment was unbearable for Penelope, especially when they were talking about manly things like rugby, how on earth could she relate to that?!
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