2021-11-30 - Fae-teful Interview

Martin Construction was not new to Gray Harbor, having been here six whole years under current management, and much much longer before even that. Martin Construction was new to the Bauer Building. The storm damage to their old place over on Elm street had been pretty significant, and after a bunch of patch projects, they’d decided it was better to condemn the building and move to a new location.

Being a construction company, the Bauer Building’s new management had been happy to have them, as they’d been given a steep discount on rent for the trade of fully remodeling the floor they’d taken over, the second. It was easy to find, stepping right out of the elevator into... emptiness. Well, so it wasn’t so much empty, as there just wasn’t that much already done. They’d completely knocked out the walls, and natural light, though the usual gray quality of the Harbor’s name, washed in from the old style windows into the space. There was a lot of raw drywall still, and a lot of power tools and equipment laying around.

And Benjamin was there. He was clean shaven and cleanly dressed, fresh back to work from the holiday. A massive table had already been set up, likely for meetings with clients or his teams, the space seemingly remarked for a conference area. He was looking at some plans, leaning over with a pencil and some lists, double checking load weights, flow plans for fire safety, the usual bits. There were a few chairs already up and constructed, sitting around the table and a laptop stood open near him.

The elevator ~Dings~ opening up and revealing a fresh faced strawberry-blonde craning her head out, her pale grey eyes scoping the room before taking a step inward. For a second she certainly thought she had the wrong floor with all the various construction that's being done around the place.

She finicks with her outfit for just a moment before pressing inward, everyone says that first impressions are important and she'd like to make a good one. "Howdy!" she calls out with a mirthful dimple of her cheeks, her fingertips fluttering across the loft-like room at Benjamin who seemed a touch distracted by his work. There's a brief moment of realization that she just said howdy instead of hello, that's not how you start off an interview, this is already getting off on the wrong foot isn't it?

"I mean, um, hello." she restates, this time without that thick country twang you'd expect more from a hootenanny in Arkansas than a small town in Washington. "Is this the Martin Construction office?" she double checks, gliding her Mary Jane's over towards the table bit by bit. "I'm Fae, I think I've got an interview scheduled with ya'll." there it was again, there isn't any going back this time, she hated that accent but she'd have to own it at some point, maybe she could play up the southern belle angle instead of the hick one she felt like she gave off?

As if to fill the air and distance herself from her vocal inflection, that she's mildly embarrassed by, she circles her head around the workspace absorbing it in. "This is a nice place you have here." she compliments with surprisingly earnest. "I'm sure it'll be extra fancy when it's all fixed up." her teeth flash with a bright beam, her touch lacing around her mushroom-shaped clutch bag letting it take some of those interview nerves as her nails ding in ready to get down to brass tacks.

Benjamin looks up as soon as Fae calls out, and if he's put off by her drawl, the smile that comes to his face doesn't show it. It's all first blush, a personable reaction, the mark of a man that extroversion comes easy. It pulls up short, then, that red hair, the voice. His head moves back on his shoulders, cants slightly aside as he looks at her. Recognition.

"Shotgun!" He calls, but there's no apprehension. It's entertainment, he seems pleased to see her. Obviously, an application doesn't come with a picture, but even if it had, it doesn't look like he would have turned her down because of it. "It's you?" He laughs, then rounds the table, tossing his pencil onto the plans. He closes on Fae and offers a hand, introducing himself, "Benjamin Martin". Her questions turn his attention.

"Yeah, don't be afraid to tell it like it is. I know it's not much now, but we'd rather build it to fit for us. And it's got good bones." He explains, looking around the vast torn-out space, "The business was in it's last building for decades, everyone had their places how they wanted, but that storm, yaknow?" He was a local, he knew. The reminder gives him a brief pause, a memory, that blank section... Then he shrugs it off, "...we decided to just let it go and move."

It's as if a two ton weight is lifted off her shoulders, sure she didn't know Ben well, but she'd at least been in a scuffle with him before and that counts for something. "That's me!" she confirms, her apprehension melting away at Ben's warm welcome.

Her purse is tossed into her shoulder as her mood lifts and her left hand extends in that awkward lefty handshake that every one of us forgets we're even doing, or maybe it's done to throw off people that are right handed and assert dominance? She's jerks her left back belatedly and puts out the right in its stead, still exuding a mirthful brightness despite the switcharoo.

"Fae Hurley" she hums out, giving as firm a handshake as her dainty self can manage, which is surprisingly firm, calm down girl, you don't have to break his knuckles. "Well, you know, sometimes you have to be able to look past the bones and see what something could be." she responds with an energetic and youthful optimism.

Her hips shift to the side, adopting a more relaxed pose where she isn't trying to stand up as straight as a board, that diminutive 5'2" height certainly could have benefited from some pumps today, but it's likely she was out shooting earlier and decided against the more dangerous footwear. "I heard about the storm, but I wasn't here for it, I haven't been in town very long actually." she conversationally confesses, her paw tracing her words through the air as she talks.

Ben's hand is a counterpoint in roughness and strength. He may look like he was dressed as the CEO of a company, but his hands and forearms told the story of the manual labor that brought him there. Sure, there's that little bit of awkwardness where he thinks he's getting the southern belle overhand clasp. Maybe if they were dancing, but the correction and chuckle as they finally make it right is mirthful, not superior.

"Good to meet you in the real, Fae." Benjamin finally lifts his palms, a sweeping made outward, a motion that maybe wasn't just the room but the town at large. "Total mess." With a thought, he cocks his head and takes a step, maybe indicating she should follow? "School roof got torn off, buildings knocked down or seriously damaged. We've been running full tilt since." He'd be making his way toward one of the windows, and thankfully not taking her through the thick of the equipment to do it. He can point to two places in downtown just there that were missing brickwork or shingles.

"Add in..." he trails off. Pauses. He looks to Fae. There's gesticulation, at her, at him, more wildness around them, "You know... how weird it gets. I'm straight up just missing five employees. One of them, the rest of the crew can't even remember." he shrugs, a significant look made toward Fae, "One of them was also one of my best office workers."

Fae scampers along beside Benjamin as he turns over to showcase the lay of the land from the second story vantage point. Listening through the recollection of the storm story while her manicured mitt maneuvers her hair from her peepers. "Fixing up the school must be a really big job, especially with that many workers awol." her eyes widen, an owlish surprise upon them at the insurmountable pile of work Ben was really standing on top of, it's no wonder the office here wasn't finished.

"My boyfriend was telling me about how a lot of the people here got some kind of amnesia and can't remember the last few months at all." she releases the revelation very low-key, like it would be something odd to say, but in Gray Harbor it isn't in the slightest. "What if you have workers that you don't even remember hiring?" she suggests, though that would probably have been found out by now if it were true. Her shoulders eek upward, naively confounded at how any of this mystical stuff works.

Trying to not diverge too far into the realm of theoretical veil physics she digresses from the topic. She bobs her head once, capturing a tinge of fire in her eye at the mention of the open office position. Attempting to seem as professional as a 22 year old whos resume says, I worked on my Dad's farm and also at Dairy Queen in the winters, can possibly be, she finally inquires about the job itself. "Tell me more about what the position entails, secretarial work? Clerical work? Coffee preparation? All of the above?"

People like it when you ask questions about the job right? She wouldn't know, this is the first time she's really ever had anything like an actual interview, Raul just hired her on at the DQ back home because she was easy on the eyes and slinging ice cream cones isn't exactly skilled labor, no interview required.

"Yeah, enormous." Benjamin answers with a tone and look that tells Fae she'd hit it on the head, "I'm not even the only firm working on it, that's how big it is. There's whole new electrical needed for the gym, HVAC. It's a whole thing." He sighs, shakes his head, muttering, "Kinda the reason I got so heated with that..." Cyclical wavey hands usually says 'I'm looking for a word here' but they both probably knew what he was talking about, so he leaves off.

"But yeah, we uh... Those of us with..." Again, there's that hand that moves from in front of his chest and toward her, like he didn't really want to say the word, give voice, name the Dark Lord, what have you, "...We just lost all that time. And you hit it on the head. I like to know everyone that works for me, and now I get weird looks when I just kinda smile and don't recognize one of my foreman, yaknow?" Whether she did or not, He didn't seem to happy about it. He doesn't move too quickly, as she'd seemed like she'd rushed last time, but he ambles back over toward the conference table, talking.

"First line, basically. I need someone that can answer phones and know where to route them." he explains, "Getting mail or packages and getting them to the right offices is important to." He was reaching to one of the high backed chairs and pulling, turning it sideways, then making a palm-up indication to it to offer her to sit. He'd pull another one out for himself, but it was clear he waits for her to sit down first, an old-school sort of mannerism. He contemplates for a moment.

"You're new in town, you said. Never had to deal with what goes on here?" His eyes were a little squinty, as if trying to discern something.

Those of us with the? Oh, she knows what he means, it just took a second to click in. "You mean, the sparkly stuff? I don't know too much about that sorta thing, but it certainly seems like a lot of people around these parts have it goin' for 'em and know an awful lot more." she blabbers, tracing Benjamin's steps through the 'office' as he starts to make his way back, this time less inclined to rush her short legs so quickly since the conversation was more natural and open.

"Answer phones, get mail, make sure things get to the right place." she repeats back, just to really sell home that she can handle such tasks. Ambling across to the area and taking a seat she fold her left leg over her right, smoothing her skirt down with her palm as her lips curl in appreciation of the gentlemanly behavior that certainly didn't go unnoticed.

Below the table her ankle twitchely jitters around, funneling all of that excess energy she's excluding into itself. "Yeah, I'm really really new." she confirms, a spirited bob of her head. "I've never dealt with anything like the sort of stuff ya'll have here, I mean, I'm pretty sure the barn back home was haunted but that's about the extent of it...nobody believed me that it was, but things would be all up and movin' around in there sometimes, so I think it was." the minor ghost story doesn't hold a candle to the dumpster fire of veil activity she's already seen in her short time here though.

"I'm born and raised, so..." So, helpless shrug apparently, Benjamin's shoulders rising and falling and a flat expression made with his lips to show that was pretty much the best assessment of experience comparison, "Lotta us tell new folk to turn around and go home. Doesn't work most of the time." This gets a wry and slightly wistful grin.

"Anyhow, yeah, that's the stretch of it." He looks to his laptop, "Now, I know you didn't seem like you had a lot of experience with this kinda thing, a farm and some food service?" It was sort of rhetorical, but his look back toward Fae was briefly questioning as just a nod would answer it, "And that's fine, I can train you. Hell, dealing with assholes at a DQ counter can be way more stressful than our front desk." There's a joking grin to that, maybe some sort of experience in his tone.

"I'll be honest, we both got kinda lucky here. I woulnd't have really considered your application if I'd had any other candidates. But, now I know it's you, you're a much better candidate." He makes more of that helpless movement of his hands, the things he wouldn't put into words as if it'd call the attention, "What goes on here is killer on construction. Stuff goes missing, there's weird requests to send people to empty sites that don't need any jobs. Any person without," Hand wave back and forth, "Doesn't think that's weird. None of them get it. I need someone in this job that knows."

A single silent nod verifies her previous employment history as Benjamin goes over the 'extensive' resume of DQ winter jobs and mass corn production. "Well, we didn't have too many irate customers at Dairy Queen, most people are in a good mood when you hand them ice cream." she quips, a playful curl of her smile painting her features.

Ben's confession of her being the only option shoots a radiant glow from her, he has to hire her if he has no other options right? Sure he does Fae, you got this girl. "I guess I'm pretty lucky then." she gratefully gabs on, "Because I really need a job, If I want to stick around I'm going to need a bigger gun...paying rent is nice too." both seem to share equal importance in the country girl priority list as one would expect.

It was still a mystery to her how she managed to be one of the few people in the know around all the paranormal happenings that went on, a big part of her envied those people that were just entirely clueless and seemed to forget any interactions with the veil right after it happened, it must be nice to not feel so crazy. "I guess I can see how that would be a really important quality to have, I mean, the knowing what's going on thing."

"Shotgun, you had the job when you stepped off the elevator." Benjamin admits with a grin and a hand offered to shake on it, "Added bonus you may not know: people instantly trust tradies more when they sound Southern, so don't be censoring yourself." Yes, he'd noticed that change of tack when she first walked in, "Something about good ol' boys and some weird idea they learn it from their daddies." He attempts a poor facsimile of the accent on the last two words, but grins sheepishly as it's pretty clearly transparent. He then looks around the open space.

"So next order is when can you start, and I'll need to get your desk and gear set up. Pay is 17 an hour when you start, benefits after three months like usual, but I do have insurance coverage for emergencies." He aims a hand toward a spot not far off the elevator, likely where he'll be setting her up. "We're literally going to be working in this place as it's being built, so some days it's going to be loud, or we'll have to move offsite. Dress as casual as you like during the process, because it could get messy..." The comment accompanies a glance at her interview clothes, then he trails off as he has to ask, though.

"That is, if you're accepting the offer."

A short-lived round of giddy applause bounces from her as she reaches over to shake Benjamin's hand, this time not participating in the previous hand odd hand dance. "Thanks!" she coos, not only has she gotten a job, but she's also acquired a nickname at work already too, so that's double prizes from her perspective.

Her cheeks turn just a touch pink as Ben points out that he'd noticed her back and forth masquerade of her accent, "I guess I'll just let 'em have it over the phones then. Ya'lls and alls." she jokes, lightheartedly recovering from her inward desire to -not- sound like Dolly Parton's granddaughter.

It's hard to not feel like a bumpkin when your pastimes are working on your truck and shooting guns, but if she didn't sound like one maybe she would loathe her own voice so much. At least in a business like this it might prove to be a boon, so she'll hold onto that nugget of optimism that Ben just instilled in her that it's good for her new occupation.

Wait a second, did he just say that pay was $17 an hour!?!? Those tiny grey eyes spring open, unable to keep her inner monologue entirely under wraps, she only made $9.25 at Dairy Queen and she'd worked there for years. Sure, minimum wage was a little higher here and so was cost of living, but that was a drastic pay increase...she can finally buy all the guns and cute clothes she's always wanted.

"I can start tomorrow!" damn, she's overtly excited now, there's nothing like getting vastly more than you'd expected to be paid in an interview that was already a long shot given your experience. "And I'm used to loud, back home Uncle Harold is always doing some project or another, power tools and 30 decibel belching all day." it's like she was just made for the position, wow.

It was a long road of complicated emotion for Benjamin to finally arrive where he did. Pleasure she was taking the job, confusion at her blush. Maybe something else there, but he was single and blushes on redheads were cute. There was then immediate self-marshalling as he remembered she said boyfriend and that was definitely a sexual harassment suit waiting to happen. Some amusement at her reassertions of southern contraction rules, followed by brief concern at her quick assurance of her start date.

"Oh... Well if you want to be putting your own desk together, that can work, but I'll need IT to get you a laptop and phone working." But finally he arrives on relief, "Oh, good. I know some guys around her can be real tough around the edges. I hope you can cut them a little slack." Thought. Sexual harassment. "Unless they don't deserve it." he's quick to correct. He looked a little awkward at that one. His own turn to defuse with a joke.

"Just don't jump straight to the shotgun. That won't go away as easy as the Wierd stuff." He grins when all is said and done.

Like a pot suddenly overflowing, the chipper energy of the diminutive young woman spills out, eager to get right at it. "I can come in and put my desk together, I'm pretty handy." she reports, certain that she can manage the arduous task of assembly. "It probably won't take me long, but it's better than sitting at home all day so I don't see any reason not to." everyone thinks it'll be fast until you find out two screws are somehow missing and you have to go to the hardware store, then again this is practically a hardware store so maybe she could make due in that situation.

"Rough around the edges doesn't bother me one bit, I doubt they'll any much worse than what I'm used to back home." her smirk sliding up her cheek gives the impression that she's more than capable of handling that sort of thing without getting some sort of HR department involved, which is good since there obviously isn't one to field that sort of complaint to.

"I also promise not to shoot anyone too, scouts honor." a tri-fingered hand sign pops from her palm, if she breaks that promise she has to return all of those hard-earned merit badges from years of being a cookie dealer so it's got some weight to it.

Benjamin can’t really help but smile warmly at all that enthusiasm, and that leads straight into laughter when she swears on her honor not to bring it to shots fired. He turns to look at his laptop and navigate to her resume again.

“That’s really good to hear. Alright then, I’ll get this info over to Accounts and they’ll get you an email asking for all the stuff they need to set up payroll.” His email was simple: ’Hired this one.’ And his attention comes back to Fae again. “So then, do you have anything else you need from me? You’ve got a good place to stay and transportation, right?” He was double checking. Even if he’d hired her without knowing any of that, it was good to have expectations. “I’ve lived here all my life, I know the city pretty well. If you need any recommendations or anything, just ask.” He shifts in his seat and takes out his wallet, slipping a card from it and handing it over to her. It had all his personal contact details.

“And I was serious about the emergency insurance. Not just for on the job.” He says with a serious implication.

"I've got my own food, lodging, and truck. So all the essentials for an employee to be...employed." she marks the list of necessities off as her fingernails make small checkmarks in the air. Her truck did seem pretty suspect though, at least when Ben got a look at it high tailing away from that dragon, if she would have taken that turn around the corner any faster the muffler probably would have come off.

Her palm goes out then, cradling Benjamin's business card as it's handed over, growing her collection of cardstock with names and numbers on them faster than an 8-year-old pokemon card prodigy at a tournament playin' for keeps, she was well on her way to catching them all.

"Yeah, insurance is super duper nice, hopefully, I don't have to use it." she sweeps into an elastic grimace that's Jim Carry levels of silly, sometimes the best way to deal with the threat of constant death from powers far beyond your control is just to take them lightly, other times it's running away, she seems to have both of those in the bag. "So what time should I be back for the desk makin' montage?"

Another brief check is made, this time of a scheduling program. A block was in the afternoon, but otherwise looked clear. Benjamin stands then as the discussion of time meant they would be parting soon, and he seemed intent to walk her to the elevator.

"How's 11 sound? I'll be in earlier getting all the stuff printed for you to sign and I'll have to swing by the Williams building to get your computer and phone. The desk parts should be delivered by then. Once I get you set up, I'll leave you to it. I have a site inspection around 2 in Hoquiam."

He checks his phone briefly as well as he walks, thinks, "I don't think the framers will be here until Wednesday, so it may get a little quiet."

Speaking of 11, the animated anticipation has been dialed up to around there, if high-pitched screaming comes from that elevator of the way down Benjamin should just know they're screeches of joy and his new hire hasn't plummeted to her death or anything. "11 sounds great." that'll give her time to sleep off all the celebrating that'll be going on into the morning.

Her head bobbles along as Ben lays out his daily plans and how she'll be mostly on her own after getting all of the paperwork finished up and such progressing over to the elevator in stride as the conversation continues. "Got it." she nods one more time, circling her fingertip up to press the button on the thing.

"I'll see you tomorrow then!" her hand waffles this way and that as the door dings and she steps on in, forgetting to even hit the button for what floor she wants for almost a full thirty seconds, oops. "Soon...." she voices, those pale grey eyes staring distantly through everything in existence for a beat while the gag settle and the doors begin to close, fun-loving laughter echoing out from them.

But better safe than sorry, Benjamin does walk to look out the window of the building, spotting the shoddy truck he'd seen her take off in the last time they'd met. When she finally would appear again, his shoulders would release and he'd breathe a sigh of relief. He really didn't need his newest hire disappearing or dead before she even started work.

But this was Gray Harbor. There was always a chance...