The door opened again which made me hold my breath and prayed that it was someone else. I don't know what I will do if I had to deal with Ashton again. Luckily, this time it was Ericka.
"Your early." she said as a way of greeting. She is not so hostile so maybe she no longer detests me.
"Yeah. Something woke me and I was not able to go back to sleep." I said in a way of an explanation. Which made me wonder why I needed to give an explanation in the first place. It makes me look like I did something.
But I did do something. I made out with Ed. In a way it makes me feel guilty. I saw Ericka smirk.
"Do you always give people explanation?" she asked with a smile.
Her smile caught me by surprise and made me stare at her.
"Hello! Earth to Helena." she said waving her hand in front of my face. I shooed her hand away to tell her that I was paying attention.
"No. I don't even know why I gave you one." I said with a laugh.
"Feeling guilty about something?" she asked meaningfully while she took a seat in front of me.
I laughed guiltily. I just shook my head to stop the unwanted conversation. I don't like where it is leading. I might say something that would make her suspect me. I know she wants Ed. She subtly implied it yesterday when we talked.
"I wonder how the three of them are doing." I said, trying to stir the conversation away from where it was heading.
She smirked again. "I had coffee with John earlier. He doesn't seem that excited to work with Mr. Harvey." I almost laugh out loud and she noticed this which made her ask, "Do you know something?" I shook my head in denial. "You do!" she pointed an accusing finger at me. "Tell me about it." and I did.
"Well, John is a little bit obnoxious. So maybe he deserves is in a way. I wonder if he could ever get to make Mr. Harvey talk." Ericka said after I told her what Jeff told me during their meeting with Mr. Harvey.
"Its nice for you, Jeff and Ed to hit it off from the start. I kind of envy you, I guess. I can't make friends that easily. Women just hate me and men just wants to get in my pants." she sighed.
This made me look at her in a different light. Maybe she is lonely. As lonely as I was.
"I was also hated by girls when I was younger. They just don't like me. Men never paid any attention to me." I said.
"I don't believe the part where men don't pay any attention to you. I think you were just so dense that you did not know that they like you." she said in a teasing voice which made me smile. I like this version Ericka. This version made me think that we can be friends later on.
Our conversation was cut because of the door opening. Ms. Jennifer came in with a smile.
"Good morning, ladies. I am so happy and looking forward to be working with you." she said warmly. "Follow me please. I will show you to your working stations." and led the way.
Her table is in a room adjacent to Ashton's office. Our table was located outside of their office in the hallway. It did not bother me at all but it seems like Ericka is bothered basing on her expression. Our table had our names on it so we did not have the liberty to choose.
The table assigned to Ericka was near the window which made me jealous. I wanted that area so that I could look at the skies from time to time. The table assigned to me is facing the glass walls of Ashton's office which worried me since I did not want a repeat of what happened earlier. I guess I will just have to tread carefully so as not to provoke him again. Ms. Jennifer called us in her office.
"As you can see, being Mr. Kempt's secretary is not an easy task. I manage his schedule. He likes to meet every department once a month. So every week, he holds a meeting with different departments. This meeting is to check on progress, feedbacking or get satisfaction census from the employees. So the order of the meeting would be marketing, translators, writers, language centers, HR and finance. There are times when the meetings are pushed back to accommodate other more urgent concerns." she explained the Ashton's schedule scheme while pointing at her calendar.
"Mr. Kempt is easy to satisfy. As long as you will be able to organize his schedule in a manner that no department is left out and it also does not sacrifice other priority meetings, you won't be yelled at."
"I also handle Mr. Kempt's publicized email account. 90% of his email are personal emails from fans or women. 10% are work related. He has another personal email. He is the one who sort the ones he receive out. For us, we just have to respond to the personal emails from his fans with a generic tone. The work related stuff should be organized according to nature and priority. There are email for sales pitch for new learning material. Others would be about manuscripts and miscellaneous."
"Why would he receive manuscripts?" I asked Ms. Jennifer.
"Most people do not know that we accept unsolicited manuscripts for a short period only. It is just from February to May. They submit it in a drop box in our writer's website. Once the acceptance period is over, the drop box is programmed to not accept submissions. They will see a rejection notice. " she explained. "There are some though that are really persistent and would not wait for the next submission period so they send it via email. They also send it to Ms. Jessica but most of it goes to Mr. Kempt since he is the CEO."
"So they think that they can bypass the process?" Ericka asked. "Most people would think that way." casting a sideway glance.
"That's right. They think that if they are going to submit directly to the CEO they might get the chance to be reconsidered. Normally, this happens if the manuscript is from an experienced author." she said. "Some of them feel entitled." she finished with a smile.
I guess that comes with the territory. Since they already have a track record of being able to successfully launch a book, they think that all of their works are good and is worth a shot. Ericka's glance made me think about what happened during the hiring process. Some would think that I did take advantage of the fact that Ashton offered to help me out. But in all honesty, I did well during the interview and assessment.