Truth or Dare (Office Romance)

(1) The Interview

I take the elevator upstairs along with a deep breath. When the doors open, I let it out.

I shouldn't have eaten that sub before I left the house. My skirt is tight around my waist, now I'm bloated on top of it.

Once I reach the end of the hallway, I see OneStaff emblazoned on a door to my left.

This is it.

A perky brunette, mid 30's, is sitting at the front desk. Her eyes greet me in a friendly manner as the door shuts behind me.

"You must be Janie! I'm Karlee, the owner. It's nice to meet you." She extends her hand out to me.

"It's nice to meet you too." I shake her hand, glad I'm not one of those people that gets sweaty hands when they're nervous. I'm also glad I'm the only one that knows how badly my heart is pounding too.

"Do you mind waiting one moment? I need to find somebody to cover the front desk for me."

"Not at all." I smile. "I'm in no rush."

I'm unemployed after all.

Karlee disappears behind a wall with the OneStaff logo on it.

The place is giving me good vibes. The colors here look like baby blue and white. Walls are emblazoned with smiling people all shaking hands with important corporate people. It seems like this is a place that really helps people.

Expecting Karlee to come back, I accidentally make eye contact with a male employee. He's wearing a polo shirt with the OneStaff logo tucked in to a pair of nice fitting khaki pants. I can tell he's an athlete the way the pants cling to his legs. Muscle tone is evident in his arms too.

Surprisingly he looks my age too. I feel like my everyone my age is off wasting their time in college or working fast food or retail jobs still. Not him.

He looks like he can't be over five foot six. His brown hair has the perfect amount of wave without looking messy.

I've taken in so much of his appearance I'm starting to wonder how long I was staring? Why has Karlee not come back out yet?

I don't think I could take this job if I got offered it, this guy probably thinks I'm creepy already.

Karlee comes back out with a manila folder with her.

"Sam usually works in marketing but he's going to cover the front desk while we do the interview." She says this, completely oblivious to the fact that I just undressed Sam with my eyes. "Shall we?"

She motions to a door off to the side of the waiting room.

"I just wanted to start off by telling you a bit about OneStaff. We are a hiring agency for companies to find them employees."

"And sometimes we have to do some hiring for ourselves to make sure we're staffed."

"I do the interviews and hiring for OneStaff."

"As our front desk, you'll take phone calls and help match people to a specific job that's hiring. In your down time, we'll have you weed through resumes. Just finding the ones with bad grammar and things like that. We'll also have you type out emails to those who didn't get picked and give them tips about how they can make their resumes better."

"More likely than not, you'll see the same people submit multiple resumes until they get one right. But there's also a lot of people that give up easily."

"Does that sound like something you're interested in doing?"

"Yes! Uh, I'm definitely okay with doing some diligent reading and responding to emails."

"What would you regard as your strength for these job tasks?"

"Honesty."

"I wouldn't want to pass something on to you guys if it wasn't any good to begin with. I'm okay with telling people how it really is."

"We do have people that call upset. How would you handle it?"

"To be affected with someone who's upset with me would require emotions. I lost those a long time ago."

Karlee looks at me. She's shocked.

Oh, God. I said too much. I fake cough to break the awkwardness.

"Deep. But I like it."

I smile awkwardly at my folded hands. That was close.

"Would you say you work well with others?"

"Whatever a boss needs from me, I'm up to the task."

"This is a small office here so there's not a lot of group work. But there are assignments from time to time that for example, I'd need you to go to other businesses with Sam and pitch why partnering with OneStaff could help them staff wise."

"Wouldn't you want to go with him? Who would cover the desk?"

She raises an eyebrow.

I just contradicted my last statement.

"I do go to businesses but not as often as I used to. There's a lot I have to do back here now that OneStaff is always expanding and I do a lot of the Human Resources. Sam is basically my right hand here."

"Right! I totally understand. I'd love to help you and the business in any way I can."

"That's a great attitude to have." Karlee scribbles away on a notepad in front of her.

"Well, I think that wraps things up. Thank you for your time, Janie. We'll be in touch."

Karlee holds the door for me as we exit the side room.

I turn around and say, "Bye. Thank you," to Karlee. My eyes meet Sam's again.

We lock eyes long enough to notice that he looks me up and down.

"See you around, Janie."

Did I just hear that right? Sam just said he'd see me around.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

I guess I'll find out in time.

I let the door of OneStaff swing shut behind me.