Page 31 of Chaos Theory
‘Wait for it…’ I whisper to Kobi.
‘Now,’ says Sandra. ‘I have an announcement to make.’ She takes a deep breath and delivers the next bit at speed. ‘Following the events of Thursday evening, HR has decided to implement a proactive employee well-being programme, specifically in relation to extracurricular social activity.’
‘What does all that mean?’ Dave calls out.
‘It means…’ Sandra takes a swig from the bottle. ‘Our new Social Committee will be organising a series of events, here on site. Representatives from several departments will be co-opted – I mean, invited – onto the committee. Food and drink will be provided at events. I mean, soft drinks will be provided.’
The sound of whispering around the room goes up and down like someone trying to tune in an old analogue radio.
‘These events will commence at four p.m., starting this Wednesday. We’ll aim to do one event a week for the next few weeks.’
Julia calls out from the back, ‘Do we have to go?’
‘Attendance is not compulsory, no,’ says Sandra. ‘If you wish to remain at your desk instead, that’s fine. And–listen, please, everybody – Kobi, we would very much like you to attend these events. You’ll be made very welcome, do you understand?’
Kobi turns his head towards me. I nod for him to respond. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Thank you.’
After the meeting, people stand around in clumps, enquiring after each other’s weekends, reluctant to face the desk-reality of the working week.
Shane comes up to me. I didn’t see him at all on Friday. I was busy taking care of Kobi and he was still on gift shop duty. He texted me every hour asking for Kobi updates, until I told him to stop.
‘Well,’ he says now by way of greeting. He looks refreshed, clean-shaven. ‘Glad to see Kobi seems to be back to…normal?’
‘We’ll see. We’re taking it one day at a time.’ I’m not sure who exactly I mean by we.I suddenly realise I don’t want to tell him everything Josh and I talked about on Thursday.
I glance around the room. Dave shoots me a dirty look, then resumes his conversation with Julia.
‘No one’s said anything to you about what happened in Phelan’s, I take it?’ I ask Shane.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘No one knows anything, apparently.’
He accompanies us towards the door, opens it for Kobi to go through ahead of us.
‘You were right about one thing though,’ I say as the door closes behind us.
He smiles. ‘Always a bonus. What was that?’
‘What you told Kobi. After-work socialisingisa good way to get to know people. For them to see you…differently.’ I smile back. ‘And things were going well in Phelan’s, up to a point. Hence the new Social Committee events.’
‘Hence? Are you saying this was your doing?’
‘Keep your voice down!’ I elbow him in the ribs as we walk the corridor. ‘Kind of.’
In the early hours of Friday morning, I made a plan with Josh for how to accelerate Kobi’s integration. We settled on two big priorities for the next few weeks: Kobi needs to meet co-workers in a social setting, and he needs to get a hell of a lot better at socialising. If he can do both, it’ll kick off a virtuous circle and he might just have a chance of fitting in.
We’ve reached the elevator. ‘Kobi, why don’t you go ahead and go up to the second floor? Shane and I will take the stairs. I’ll meet you up there in a minute. Don’t touch anything.’ I press the call button for the second floor so that Kobi and the elevator don’t need to interact.
As the doors close, I turn to Shane. ‘I had to go to HR on Friday morning, to explain the Phelan’s incident. Get out in front of it. I was half expecting to be fired on the spot.’
‘I’m glad you weren’t,’ he says. ‘It was my idea. You could have blamed it on me.’
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘That’s sound of you. But it was mostly my fault. You’re only about ten per cent to blame.’
He laughs. ‘That sounds like one of Kobi’s calculations.’
We start up the stairs together. ‘So when I realised I wasn’t getting fired, I suggested that Kobi would get along better if he could get to know people in a’ – I use air quotes – ‘“controlled environment”. Something social, but safe. I threw in that Sandra might not like the results of Kobi’s compliance report either. Might cause a lot of HR headaches. I may have implied that I could make the compliance report go away.’ I move my hands through the air to demonstrate what the disappearance of a report looks like.
‘Wow, look at you being all proactive and greasing the wheels of power.’
