Bombay Mixx

Bombay Mixx - Chapter One - Part Nine

Chapter One – New Pastures?

(Part Nine)

How accurate I was about the females but surprisingly wrong about the men. ‘Could I enjoy working here?’ I thought to myself as I puffed and panted to the huge glass doors, for a sexy looking businessman to hold it open for me and give me a smile.

‘If these are the perks to the job forget health care and life insurance! I’d just be happy being near him all day!’ That thought quickly left my head as I went to the receptionist desk to announce I was here for my first day of work.

Why is it that if your new to a company or if you don’t look powerful enough to be one of the directors, receptionists always look at you like your something they have scraped off their shoe and talk to you with that annoying, whining tone?

I asked myself this as I was greeted by John the receptionist and his “side kick” or colleague, Lucy.

They were both dressed in black suits and looked very smart and groomed but nowhere near the standards of the other, more affluent employees. I seemed to have interrupted a very important conversation about their affairs at the weekend as I stood there for a few minutes, then sick of waiting for them to stop ignoring me, I said, ‘hello, I’m here to see Ann Lough.’

‘And your name is?’ John retorted in the campest tone I’ve heard in a while. ‘My name is Nita Patel and it’s my first day today.’ I saw a sly smile between the two of them and Lucy replied, ‘oh good for you, I’ll just call her to see if she’s available. Why don’t you just take a seat over there and she’ll be down in a few minutes.’

As I sat down waiting for her to make the call, I saw she continued talking about the eventful weekend and this started to make my blood boil.

I could have reminded them about me after 5 minutes of waiting but I thought of a craftier technique. I remembered that Ann had given me her office telephone number in case I got lost, so I gave her a call.

I turned away out of sight, so they couldn’t see me talking on the phone and I dialled the number, after three rings she answered, ‘Ann Lough.’ ‘Hello Ann, it’s Nita. I’m having a few problems at reception as I’ve been here now for the past 15 minutes (yes I lied but they were really annoying me) and I’m just wondering if you have been notified to my presence yet?’ I asked in the posh telephone accent we all do when we’re phoning someone important. ‘No I haven’t and I shall be down in a few moments,’ she answered in an icy tone which made me think she was about to rain the pain on tweeddle dumb and tweeddle dumber!

Just as Lucy was about to pick up the phone, Ann came out of the lifts with a thunderous look on her face and approached the reception desk. The pair looked nervous and stopped their conversation.

Ann turned and greeted me and asked me to approach the desk, it felt like a court room drama, there was so much tension in the air. ‘Could you tell me how long you have been waiting here for me?’ she asked. ‘Roughly about 15 minutes,’ I continued in my posh accent, ‘and can one of you tell me why a new employee has been waiting this long?’ she enquired.

There was silence and a flush of embarrassment came across both of their faces, ‘I trust this will not happen again as if it does then we will need to think about employing two new people who know how to do this job quickly and effectively. Consider this a warning and it will be mentioned to your superior, do you understand?’ They both nodded to show understanding of the caution.

I walked away feeling great but didn’t look back as I thought I’d won this round and didn’t want to spoil the feeling.