The Stuff of Dreams

Happy Accidents

Po stood outside the office building. It had five floors with mirror windows reflecting the rising sun. The office stood in the Financial Borough on the other side of the one Po and his sister lived in. It was actually very weird how the city was set up. The Financial Borough ran along East Harbor, occupying the same area as the tourist spot. Coming in from the borough and going west was Midtown Borough, which Po lived in the western part of. The express train ran from the Financial Borough, past Midtown, through, or over, Old Italy, and finally stopped at Feng-Shui. Po walked into the ground floor and went up to the third level. As he got out of the elevator, he saw the receptionist's desk with a bunny behind it tending to the phone. There was a small sitting area to Po's right and he sat there. By the receptionist's desk ran a hall, and a green snake slithered to the bunny rabbit managing the desk. Her long..." tail" was coiled around a big stack of papers. As the bunny put the phone down, the snake spoke, "Hey Terra, could you please watch these papers for me?"

"I can't Mrs. Viper," replied the bunny, "I'm going on my break right now."

"Please Terra. I just need to go to Mr. Wang's office real quick."

"You can leave them here, but my husband wanted to meet me downstairs." 

Mrs. Viper's head spun around to Po. The panda stiffened and darted his eyes left and right. "Hello, you're my 11:00 appointment, right? Mr. Po?"

"Yes."

"Great, could you just watch these papers while I go to my boss's office? I'll be right with you very soon." Viper hurried out the door, along with Terra. Po looked at the stack of papers on the glass coffee table in front of him. They were mostly legal forms and documents, but Po noticed a few errors. Actually, there were a lot of errors. 

"Well this isn't right," Po picked up the first paper. "Wait, this isn't... hmmm." He took the pen that he used for his journaling and began writing on the documents. "This... probably isn't a good idea, but these are some bad mistakes." The stack was about seventy or eighty papers thick, but within about five minutes, Po was done "editing" when Viper came back up the elevator. "Uh oh." 

"I'm sorry for the wait I-" She looked at the papers. "WHAT DID YOU DO!?" 

"I'm sorry! I just... there were some errors on the papers and I didn't want-" 

"They-" Viper looked at the first set of papers. Her anger quickly ebbed away as she looked through the panda's edits. "Huh... this is a lot of errors. I guess I was too tired to check. Wait! You went through all of this?"

"Y-Yes?" 

"It took me a week to get through this the first time," Viper said. Her tail flipped through the pages. There were misspellings, grammatical errors, and even syntax issues. She looked at Po. "Po was it?"

"Yes, Mrs. Viper."

"Just Viper will be fine," The snake genuinely smiled. "Please come with me. I'm sorry for my outburst."

"It's okay. I would be upset too if... well actually people do that all the time to me," Po said. They entered Viper's office. 

"You look very nice in that vest you have," Viper commented. 

"Thank you." Po was in a black vest with a white dress shirt and smart charcoal tie wrapped around his neck. Tai-Lung would've accused him of stealing his style.

"Please sit down." Po did so. "So you mentioned that you would like a position in Wang Industries and that you actually worked for one of our grocery stores." (The grocery store was called Yak Health, but it was a part of Wang industries). 

"Yes, Mrs. Ti... I mean, Mrs. Fang thought I would be good for a position here."

"Well, most people usually come in for the business aspect, but I think I have a nice entryway for you," Viper smiled. She asked more questions about his background, his experience, and his special talent for editing. Po asked about the company's job expectancy and policies. When Viper asked about his experience at the grocery store, Po's body almost fell. "Is something wrong?" Viper asked. 

Po grinned nervously. How do you say that you worked for one of the worst bosses in the world: the son of your future boss. He cleared his throat and told the best version of his experience that he could. "Well, I... found myself working with a lot of great workers that helped me get... here. There were a couple of times when the managers would be gone that I would step in and manage the opening and closing of the store while organizing some... most... actually all of the store's produce and sales." 

Viper opened her eyes a bit wider. "Who were your managers?"

Darn it. "The... head manager was Boqin-"

"Mr. Wang's son?" 

"Yes," Po slowly nodded. Viper tilted her serpentine head. 

"And how was that?" 

"It was fine. For the most part, that's what my experience working for... I mean under him consisted of."

Viper stayed silent for a moment. The ticking of the clock made Po jittery. The snake looked back at her papers and sighed, "Well, I can't give you the position I thought you would be suited for, but I do have a potential job opportunity for you," She smiled. 

"What's that?"

"Content Editor." 

"Wh-What?" Po stuttered. "Bu-But I don't really have a focus in English."

"I think it would be best for you. Granted it is a bit complicated in some of the legal jargon,  but that doesn't seem to be a problem for you." She looked through the papers that Po edited. Viper gave a small smile. "And our company offers scholarships for employees that want to get a higher education. It would allow you to work on your graduate." 

"I..." Po couldn't find the words. He thought he would just be a secretary or intern or at the very least a janitor. He expected to get a foot in the door, not his entire body thrown in the first day. 

But was the alternative any better? It would be murder on his stubby panda fingers, but Po could see himself typing away at important documents and legal forms. Although he thought it would be boring, anything was better than suffering the abuse that came at Boqin's hand. And anything was better than grocery work. While Viper wrote down some notes, Po fished into his wallet and took out the business card. He only wanted to figure out if he was at the right place, but then he saw that Tai-Lung scribbled something down. 

Don't be scared of danger, and don't be scared of greatness.

"So, what do you say?" Viper smiled warmly, making Po look up. The panda took a deep breath and smiled. 

"W... when do I start?" 

To Be Continued...