Sun on the Rocks - The Emotion Scale, Page 6

  Chapter Five

  An assistant of Manglove, Dwayle, came into the room, bringing a tray filled with food ordered from the cafeteria area of Herbaline. While the waiter began serving a platter of salad with tomato and balsamic vinegar to Manglove, Clarity noticed a pen drive to the side of the laptop. She inserted the pen drive into the USB port and copied the employee file of Herbaline and a second file listing the occupation of top employees working there. Beside the laptop, near a small metal box filled with business cards, there was a packet of several pen drives, one of them, the same nondescript gray color as the pen drive Clarity was using. She grabbed the pen drive, reaching under the plastic casing and placed the information storage device where the first pen drive was located. She inserted the first pen drive in her pocket, and caught the waiter closing the lid of the salad platter, before he lifted his eyes towards her.

  The waiter gave Clarity a pouch filled with toiletries, some of them made by Herbaline. He called to Clarity's attention that the flight to Cayman was leaving in a few hours, and that she would have to be ready at the transportation entrance of the building, in the back of Herbaline building, around four in the afternoon.

  "What flight?" Asked Clarity.

  "Ms. Manglove has informed me that you are going to Cayman with prospective employees recruited for the company, to go over some sales material the company has been preparing. You'll have to retrieve the boarding passes at the business center area, on the ground floor, connect to the boardroomside website, typing triple L, dot boardroomside.com."

  "Triple L, the site is not part of the world wide web?"

  "No, it follows a new protocol, sttp, triple L stands called the lawgiving lateral channel, the third l is the l of channel."

  "So I type sttp, colon, two backslashes, and then LLL.boardroomside.com," said Clarity.

  "Yes, that's right," said the waiter, pushing the food cart forward towards the adjacent room.

  Clarity nodded and left the room, heading for the conference room of Herbaline, taking the central elevator, an elevator which skipped a floor and took employees directly to the ground level. Before entering the amphitheater past the lounge and glass hallway of the company, Clarity found a business center and a row of several computers aligned. She sat in front of one of the computers, and inserted the pen drive in the USB port, opening the file which had the records of Herbaline director-level employees. The only record available was that of Stive, and Clarity noticed that the former clerk honed his cash counting skills at a cost cutting department store, and that he had received a shady online doctorate in human studies, having presented a thesis titled, on the proper channelling of pleasure in the body.

  Herbaline had a sales training center in Cayman, in a posh building known as the Midland Civic Center on Elgin Avenue, between the government administration building and the department of tourism. Clarity connected to the lawgiving lateral channel website, LLL.boardroomside.com, noticing the sttp:// protocol label in front of it. She searched the web and found a single link relevant to the new message format and transmission method devised by SARPA, an unofficial non governmental body named Sales Advanced Research Projects Agency, explaining sttp://, the new protocol, stood for sales text transfer protocol.

  A fill-in sheet was enabled in one of the web tabs labeled Herbaline multilevel travel schedule. She filled in the information on the short questionnaire, pertaining to her and Lanai, and printed two boarding passes providing access to a plane leaving Orange County airport.

  Clarity felt the warm cheek of Ivy leaning against her own cheek.

  "Got the boarding passes?"

  "Yes," said Clarity.

  "Come with me, your friend is ready to sign the employee agreement of Herbaline. Two of our lawyers are present."

  Ivy led Clarity by the hand, like a girlfriend would, to the official legal area of the company, the LRO, or Law Resource Office, a luxurious room with high ceilings reaching ten or twelve feet, slightly higher than a regular ceiling. Clarity noticed Lanai walking calmly a few feet behind her, followed by Grohn and Susan, who were discussing the implications of signing the company labor agreement. Two former employees of well-known human resource firms, Horn Ferry, and Svencer Stuarb, worked there as administrative assistants, and were placing a copy of the contract in front of several intricate wooden chairs. One of the human resource employees, Nahan Trimm, handed the agreement to Clarity and pointed to one of the chairs.

  "You have twenty eight minutes to read the agreement and two minutes to make additional herbal tea in the teapot over there, a total of half an hour, a reasonable moment of reflection for all of you present here."

  "Why the tea?" Asked Clarity.

  "In order to enjoy signing the agreement," said Nahan.

  Clarity began sipping some Herbaline tea, diligently handed over by Ivy, and read the relevant part of the agreement, the part regarding compensation, an area contingent upon several things. Among those things influencing compensation were performance, sales, and trademark exposure of Herbaline to the public. The small letter print showed a paragraph explaining conditions of dismissal and promotion within the company. The employee will not receive compensation if he or she engages in Herbaline language refusal. In these cases, the employee may be sent to the antisale room, and corporate subsequent areas, where proper linguistic adjustments will be made, according to the official sales manual of the company. The diligent employee will add its name on the guest list of the manual, a book of indefinite length.

  Clarity lifted her hand, waving at Nahan.

  "The antisale room? Could you explain what it is?"

  "A place that will engage your sales potential to good fruition for you and the company."

  "For you and the company, in the company of women," added Ivy, who was diligently preparing a cookie for Clarity, behind the back of Clarity, that the Malibu teleoperator could dip in her tea.

  "There should be an explanation of this antisale room," said Clarity.

  "There is but it is in the sales glossary, which is part of the sales manual, but you can have access to it, only if you sign the agreement to work here," added Nahan.

  Clarity glanced to her left and saw Grohn and Lanai signing the agreement. Susan was leaving the room after handling her own agreement to Nahan. Clarity opted for signing the agreement and heading for Cayman. Clarity wondered whether Herbaline offered a pool for employees at Cayman, or whether Midland Civic Center residents preferred to swim in the Caribbean sea. The Herbaline Civic Center boasted a Caribbean beach front residence similar to a four or five star resort, hopefully a good place to get some sunshine for her bumline, and to get rid of her tan lines.