6

"Ah, yes, you two must be our guests from BMA, yes?" a woman said, stepping into the lobby area from the open office beyond.

"Yes, we are," Sabrina said, as you stood and joined her. "Terry sent us over to gather the employee survey data."

Terry? You wondered, then remembered that was Garrison's first name. Usually you just called him Sir, or Mr Garrison. The way Sabrina said his first name felt weird, like she knew him as a colleague instead of as a boss. It made her sound- Oooh, right. She was making a good impression.

And you had gone and introduced yourself as an intern. Lowest of the low in an office - even the nightly cleaning staff were more important and more trusted than you.

For the first time, you thought maybe you were starting to understand 'Fake it till you Make it.'

"Great. Glad we're finally getting rolling on this," the woman said. She was dressed in a smart, bright red pantsuit and looked like she was in her fifties, with dark wavy hair that was starting to show heavy silvering under the lights. "Follow me, we'll get you set up in the back conference room."

You and Sabrina followed the woman into the main part of the office. You gave the secretary a smile on the way by, and she responded with one that didn't hit half the wattage as what she'd had plastered on her face while talking to Sabrina.

The office looked like it was about two-thirds that open space - desk pods were crammed into the area, while architectural drawing desks were lined up along the bank of windows looking out at the open air between the downtown skyscrapers. You weren't high enough up to really see skyline, and not low enough to see the street, so while it was a view, it wasn't much of one. The back third of the office looked to be private rooms, headed by a large, fancy conference room with a heavy oak table and all sorts of projector and television equipment.

You were not led to that room. You and Sabrina followed the woman to a short hallway, led past a staff kitchen area, a janitor closet and a pair of staff washrooms, before arriving at an oak door. Inside was a squat room crammed into some forgotten corner of the building. It had several windows looking out at the side of a different adjacent skyscraper, but was otherwise bland in every way. There were a few old office chairs, a flimsy square table and a cheap, white mug holding a half dozen pens.

"It's not fancy, but it's what we've got for you. We're a little short on space right now," the lady said.

"It's fine," you said. "We've got everything we need."

"Good," the woman nodded. "I'll give you a few minutes to set up, then start sending folks back."

She didn't wait for a reply, turning and leaving you and Sabrina in the cramped little conference room.

"Well," Sabrina said, "At least it's not in the same building, right?"

"Yeah," you said.

It was exactly like your regular shitty little room you had escaped working in back at the office.

*****

The woman - who you would later found out was the Officer Administrator - was a little off in her offer of a few minutes to get set up. You and Sabrina had barely arranged the chairs and pulled the survey sheets out and there was already a knock on the floor.

"Uh, hey?" asked the man at the door. "This is the survey thing, right?" He was dressed business-casual, which seemed to be the norm out on the office floor. He was also utterly forgettable in almost every way.

"Yes, it is. Please come in and sit down," Sabrina said, taking charge.

"Sure, sure," the guy said. "Is this going to take long?"

"Not unless you have a lot to say," you said, trying to take Sabrina's suggestion to be more friendly.

"Oh, uh, OK I guess," the guy said. He settled in and the surveys started up.

What then occurred was the biggest waste of time you could think of. You and Sabrina took turns taking notes and reading out the questions, and crossing out employee names on the master list as they came in. Doing the survey probably would have taken each person five minutes if it had been sent out by email - but classic BMA, they went the extra mile and wanted to make sure all of the employees of Chambers (aka. the owners) knew the firm was taking things seriously.

"I bet they're still going to bill hours as if Darrel is doing this," you muttered to Sabrina during one of your infrequent breaks.

"You're probably right," she sighed, looking over the short stack of responses you'd already gathered. It was all fairly simple stuff; questions about current practices, questions about where each employee thought the company could better their practices, or where the company was lacking. Questions about bosses, which no one ever answered truthfully.

Each interview took about ten minutes, and by 11:30 you had gotten through about eleven of the suckers when the Office Admin lady poked her head back in.

"That's all for now. We've got a big staff meeting at 12:30, so everyone's out for an early lunch. We should be good to pick back up at 1:30, maybe 2pm at the latest. Does that work for you?"

You and Sabrina looked to each other, and then both turned and said, "Yes."

"That works great," Sabrina followed.

"Alright," the lady said before leaving. "See you at two."

"Holy crap. We've got a two and a half hour lunch?" Sabrina said under her breath.

"This day just got so much better," you said, standing up and offering her a high five.

Sabrina accepted, clapping your hand softly as if in a daze. "What do we do for that long?"

"Let's go eat somewhere and actually, like, sit down," you said. Usually you and the other interns got a half hour for lunch, which meant grabbing something from the crappy little bodega next to the firm building, or if you wanted to risk it running down the street to the sub place.

"Yeah," Sabrina nodded, then got a look on her face. "Actually, that's a really good idea. Come on, I saw a place on the walk over that we should try."

"Sure," you agreed, quickly packing up your papers.