Memories

Work - Jayden

"Welcome, Jayden. It's so good to finally meet you." My boss, Opal Ventilcue, smiles and extends her hand. Opal is one of the nicest people you will ever meet. She helped me schedule all of my appointments and ensure that everything was running smoothly and called me every week to make sure my surgeries were going well and none of my projects were running behind.

"Nice to meet you, too, Opal." I shake her hand and she hands me a badge with a picture of me on the front and it reminds me of when I begged Jaxx to take my picture right around Christmastime, and I have about fifteen unusable pictures on my phone because he'd make me laugh or take my picture when I wasn't ready.

"So, this is the lobby, you scan in to get into the main part of the building using your badge and they'll search your backpack quickly, and we'll move onto the gathering space. These are the five elevators we have, and there's a few offices down on this floor for the executives along with the cafeteria and a fitness room. This elevator is for us." Opal leads me into the elevator, and presses the "2" button. "The second floor is where most of the junior designers are. Your desk is on this floor, right over here." It's a relatively short walk to my desk, where the label with my name and cube number is in bold lettering in the corner. "The third floor is where the full-time designers are. Fourth is the engineers and executive managers are, like myself, and the fifth is a lot of meeting rooms, where the designers, engineers, and builders meet to ensure everything is built properly." I hope there's a map somewhere.

"So, since it's your first day here, I just want you to meet everyone on my team and get familiar with the building. There are two other junior designers, although it looks like they've already left for the night. They have the two cubes right in front of you," Opal continues, before bringing me to the third floor. "The full-time designers are Henri, Quire, and Passin. Wherever they are. Actually, they're in meetings with the builders. But, here are their desks. And don't worry, I'll get maps of everything and label them for you." Okay, good. I think I would've gotten lost otherwise. "Let's head up to the fourth floor. Your badge will open the doors to the staircases on either side unless there's a fire, so just make sure to have your badge with you at all times. Fourth floor. My office is two from the end, and the eight engineers are right in front of my office. Alright, now let's head to that meeting. Don't worry, you don't have to do anything, I just know most of them will be at that meeting, and our main builders will also be there." Walking up to the fifth floor, there must be at least a dozen groups of ten or more people meeting outside of the rooms, and almost all of the thirty or so rooms I see are full of people as well.

"Everyone, this is Jayden Hollens, the junior designer." Opal knocks on the door, before walking in and probably interrupting something.

"The one with Gardner's, right?" One of the many people in the room questions, and I nod.

"That's me. I just got out on Saturday." It's been two days, but there are some things I'm not missing. Like being confined to a singular room a good portion of the time.

"Congrats." I know Opal is an Earth, and this guy definitely seems to be a Water. Especially since he has the diluted blood vessels in his eyes. It actually doesn't seem like any of them are Ices except for one of the guys who is clearly a builder, and he doesn't seem to react, which means he doesn't know much about Gardner's. There are plenty of Ices that don't understand Gardner's. Some schools only teach it if one of the students has it, and sometimes, it's just not taught at all. Very few schools teach it every year regardless of whether or not a student has it.

"I'm Henri." Okay, so he's one of the full-time designers. As they go around the room, I learn the rest of the names, although I'm sure it'll take me a few days before I can remember them completely. Especially with over a dozen new names. I've worked with Kilie, one of the engineers, a lot because all of my notes go to her every time I meet with a client, so I'll definitely remember hers, but many of the others will probably leave my brain while I am sleeping tonight.