Cammie & Nathan: Yay, job!

[x-scorpion.livejournal.com]

Cammie gets an introduction to the wonderful world of filing.

The more she thought about it, the more she knew she had to make money somehow. She needed something more to do with her time than the two times a week she was getting her ass kicked. And, Cammie really did hate to be a freeloader. It wouldn't hurt anything to take on some odd jobs for the few months she would be here.

Or maybe longer. She hadn't decided yet.

Cammie wasn't dressed like she was going to any sort of job. At least not any type she would've gotten back home. About the only things about her dress you could say is she did at least wear one of her new shirts. The patched up pants were the most comfortable and so were her old, overly worn boots, so those stayed. Her new 'boss' didn't like it he could bite her.
She also kept her arm bandaged up.

It was with that attitude she showed up at the boathouse for some sort of orientation, she assumed. Might as well give this a try.

Nathan had deliberately scheduled Cammie's orientation for a time when only he and Juliete would be about. There'd be plenty of time for her to meet and interact with her fellow minions-to-be on another day.

"Hi," he said briskly as she came in. He didn't even spare a moment's attention for her clothes. "Ready to see what this all involves?"

"Sure," Cammie said, trying to be all casual about this, "Knock yourself out," given her background this was the only job she'd be able to get, she was sure. Despite the other offer from the Evil T-Shirt Fairy. And if that worked? Two jobs never killed anyone.

"Teach me the mysterious art of filing."

There was a soft laugh from Juliette's direction. Nathan ignored it. "We have to keep rather a lot in the way of paper files," he said, leading her over to the filing cabinets. "Mostly because we get documents from various countries - well, copies, who aren't so much for the digitization."

"So it's not just files, it's unreadable files," Cammie said, looking at the cabinets. Her Dad's home office never had this many and she had never really cared. "How many countries?" she asked.

"Uh... sixty-something, I think," Nathan said.

"Sixty-seven," Juliette said from her desk.

"That's what I said!"

"Well, least you have someone to keep track of this stuff for ya," Cammie said with a grin. "That's a lot of different countries."

"We don't actually do work in all of them," Nathan said. "But we do monitor the situation for mutants in all of them - it generates a lot of information. Most of which goes into the database, not into the filing cabinets. Juliette can show you that later." He opened one of the drawers.

"Note that the labels are mostly in English," he said.

"Although picking up at least basic fluency in more than just English is kind of expected, around here..."

"I can say 'don't touch me' and 'back off' in Spanish," Cammie offered. "And that's about it. But I suppose I could learn. I pick up stuff fast."

"Note to self - start you with the Spanish stuff, for now." Nathan gestured for her to follow him back over to one of the desks. "Catseye uses this one, too, but she's another part-timer, so you wouldn't be fighting for the chair." He looked around, shaking his head slightly.
"Running out of space again..."

"Well, then blow a wall down or something. Will fix the space problem," Cammie said. "Cats works here, huh?" she said, eying the desk. Sure, it wasn't really hers, but here she was, a high school graduate with a job that involved a desk.

This was one of life's great mysteries. "Doesn't have nearly as much yarn on it as I thought it would," she joked lightly.

"Catseye is gifted with what we call assymetrical thinking," Nathan said with a slight smile. "Which is particularly invaluable, in this line of work. Eventually I'll introduce her to the phones and then the world will tremble."

"Not many people out there can honestly say they've talked to a cat on the phone," Cammie mused. Oh yeah, that would go over either very well or very badly depending on someone's patience. "So, she and I will be sharing this desk. Heh. I have a desk."

"Feel free to decorate it. We're all about the non-conformity around here." Nathan brushed a speck of dust away from the top of the monitor on the desk.

"Basically, if I had to sum it up in a nutshell, you're a gopher at the moment - you fetch files, put them back, photocopy, read mail, that sort of thing."

"Yes, but does the mail have bombs?" Cammie returned cheerfully, "Then you could say there's an element of adventure there. I can do the rest easily. Even learn a little bit of Spanish like you said. Can't be too hard to fetch files."

Nathan tried not to wince at the 'bomb' comment; two years on and it was still not something he could joke about. "Well, glad to hear you say that," he said, the cheerfulness in his voice a bit... determined.

"I'll probably turn you over to Juliette for the rest of the orientation - I have some phone calls to make before the time zones move any more out of sync."

"Okay. Well, I'll just be a good little gopher and get to gopher work, then," Cammie said, cracking her knuckles. "Since you'll be payin' and all."