Sally Mally: Safety Manager
After everyone's documents had been collected, the first company asset of importance to introduce herself was safety manager, Sally Mally. Dressed in a light gray tube skirt, a white, long sleeve button up, and low cut skater shoes, Sally could be characterized as a tom boy, and from the general looks of her, you would think she was fresh out of high school. Petite, ditsy, slightly crooked teeth; Sally was very gentle moving as if she was being careful not to break anything with her tremendous five-foot four, young lady strength. Her big, hazel eyes darkened with eyeshadow, looked around the room nervously. After two and a half weeks at the company, she still wasn't used to the pressure of so many strangers' eyes looking her up and down as she spoke. Usually she would be fidgeting with the strands of hair that dangled by each of her ears, but for the sake of looking professional, all she could do was grip and tap at the binder in her arms.
"Hi, my name is Sally, I am the company's safety manager. I tend to matters concerning, well, the safety of our drivers, obviously, but I'm also the one who manages traffic violations, parking tickets, overweight citations and stuff like that. Um, so, the safety of our drivers and other drivers on the road is our number one priority, next to making as much money as possible. I'm going to show you some videos that will explain in more depth the guidelines and precautions you are expected to follow while out on the road", Sally moves the projector into position in front of the wall behind her and flicks it on. For a fraction of a second, something that went unseen by most of the drivers as they were either too busy eying the strawberry lipped, pink cheeked pretty girl before them, or had successfully been distracted by their phones, was the silhouette of a crazy haired entity flashing on the wall behind her. The silhouette could've been thought of as her own shadow if the shape of the hair had matched hers, which it didn't. It seemed the only one to notice this quick flash on the wall was Andrew who almost dismissed it as a technical glitch with the projector. But he could've sworn that what he saw appeared to be the outline of curly, strung out hair. A huge contrast to the straight hair pulled into a bun behind her head. The only thing curly about her were the strands of curls dangling by her ears.
"So these videos are going to be going over things like distracted driving and just being generally aware of your surroundings at all times", Sally floats out of the way and presses a button on the remote to begin the video. The voice, which blared way too loud causing Sally to scramble to find the controls to turn it down, was almost as boring to listen to than Phil's.
"Safety. Why is it important? We'll explain that in this video."
It wasn't long before Andrew and many of the other drivers were asleep or finding entertainment in their phones, which was the very topic being discussed at that very moment. The only one in the class that took any of it seriously was the driver sitting next to a sleeping Andrew. Leopold Samarilliam was a young man around the same age as Andrew, early twenties, and was also a brand new driver in the trucking industry. The problem with Leopold was that he was that kid who always had to be the first to finish everything before everyone else, always had to come up on top in any group activity, and always had to be the one standing out as the one working harder than everyone else. This is made evident in the fact that he was vigorously jotting down notes, and if Phil wasn't over at his desk half asleep like everyone else and actually paying attention, Leopold would be trying even more to impress and express his determination at being the best in the class, and ultimately, the best truck driver on the road. At least he would be able to show proof that he was paying attention when no one else was with his notes which he hoped would award him with firm hand shakes, comments, cookies, and admiration for being the only one paying attention to the entire presentation.
Meanwhile, in the ladies restroom, Sally undid her bun in front of the mirror, letting her curly hair fall to her shoulders.
"You lost one of my pearl earrings?", a voice much different than Sally's snarls.
"I'm sorry, we can replace them. It's not that big of a deal", Sally replies, examining the ear where the authentic earring used to reside.
"Are you kidding me?", the voice snarls back, "it is a big deal! Do you know how hard it was to kill that bitch mermaid for the rights to those pearls? Those came straight out of the ocean, sweetie. Right out of the mouth of a dirty ass, stinky clam or whatever you call em", the voice of unknown identity seemed to be very upset that one of her precious pearls that she apparently had to kill for, was now lost. But who was this voice? Who the hell was Sally talking to? And why was she wearing someone else's earrings?
"I'll find them, don't worry", Sally assures, putting her hair back into a bun and heading out of the restroom.
At last, the final video of the safety presentation was over. Phil sat slightly hunched over in his chair at the desk, stuck in a position of trying to appear that his mind was busy on some matter, but as we could clearly see, that matter was a nap. Behind him, playing the latest computer strategy game on his laptop was Phil's assistant; Dean. Dean usually worked the projector and all kinds of other stuff that Phil couldn't be bothered with doing himself. Dean didn't mind sitting through videos because all he did during them was play strategy games on his laptop. He did make sure he was paying attention to the duration of the videos in order to be ready to wake Phil up when they were finished, like he had to do now.
"Phil…Phil!", Dean whisper shouts. Phil jolts awake, almost forgetting where he was and what he was doing.
"Alright, was everyone paying attention? Very important stuff…", Phil takes a sip from his now cold cup of coffee, "…very important."
As the lights turned back on and everyone stretched, Sally walks back up to the front of the class to collect her binder while Phil dismissed the class for break.
"Alright everyone, break time! Be back in about thirty minutes", Phil says and the class hurries out of the room like they were giving out free hoagies and soda in the cafeteria. Andrew rubbed his eyes, knowing that as a new driver he shouldn't be sleeping at the wheel and paying more attention, but he couldn't help it. He got almost no sleep last night because of how genuinely excited he was about this new career.
"You're not going to last long", Leopold mutters from the side of his mouth to Andrew who looks over at him, still trying to register what he said.
"Whatchu know about me?", Andrew answers.
"I don't need to know anything about you. I've heard it all before. What you do in orientation, is bound to be done on the road. I just hope I'm not on the same road as you when you fall asleep at the wheel", Leopold pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
"That won't ever happen", Andrew says, "driving is one thing, but sitting through a bunch of boring ass videos all day is a whole other thing."
"So I assume you'll make every load on time?", Leopold had a way of thinking that he was in a high enough position as a human being to critically wring out answers and explanations from others as if they owed him such.
"I don't need to explain myself to you. We're both brand new drivers here and you're gonna make just as many if not more mistakes than anyone else here mister…whatever the hell your name is."
"We'll see about that, Mister late…", Leopold gets up and goes to give his notes to Phil who turns him away, not giving a damn about his notes. But Andrew's attention was once again set on pretty miss Sally as she walked across the room towards the door. There was something about her eyes, her face, and her hair that didn't seem right to him. It was like her eyes were behind her sockets rather than in them and that the face she wore was just that; a face that she was wearing. That along with her nervous and soft spoken personality gave him an impression about her that nothing seemed to fit together. Like she was a puppet created by someone who just found a nice body then threw a bunch of random girl traits together and called it a day. And that silhouette that appeared behind her, that couldn't have been a glitch or his imagination…