Take My Mask, I'm Home

she was (is) the personification of sunshine

Three Years Ago.

Jennie had arrived at Knetz early this morning. She had to get a jump-start on the work she'd missed while on her overseas trip to the Norwegian K-Corp office. As the staff trickled in to work, all of them sent looks towards where she sat in her office. All of them poorly disguised their disappointment at her reappearance, no doubt hoping that she would've just gone to K-Corp instead. Or stayed in Oslo.

Part of their confusion was probably due to the fact that she usually started at Knetz at 8:30am, but today she had appeared at 7:30am. Her new assistant, Lisa Manoban, was due to start at 8:15am, and she wanted to be there to greet her on the first day that they'd be working together. Call it professional courtesy, but Jennie was nothing if not polite. Mina had hired her while Jennie had been away; she'd had no hand in the hiring process, and Jennie hoped that Miss Manoban would be better than her last hire. Miss Im hadn't even known how to work a spreadsheet.

Jennie had barely been in her office for ten minutes before there was a queue of people all waiting to see her. Her editors all seemed to need her final say on something, or have layouts that needed her approval. Woozi had a list of complaints as long as her arm about quite a lot of people; she was sure the majority of them were completely unfounded, but in the interests of fairness, she heard him out anyway. Part of her wished she was back in Oslo; every time she thought Woozi was done, he flipped a page and started on a new complaint.

All she wanted was a hot chocolate, she thought, as she fought off the beginnings of a headache less than an hour into returning to work. She would've excused herself from her editors meeting to make it herself, but it was part of Lisa's duties, thanks to some stipulation in the contract Irene had drawn up for the assistant's role. Jennie knew how busy the PA job was, and was sure that her assistants had better things to be doing than bringing her drinks, but there it was, in the contract. Irene had insisted on it because "you'll never have time to do it yourself, Jennie," and she supposed Irene was right. All the same...

At 8:10am, she was finally alone in her office, and she breathed a sigh of relief. At that moment, the elevator door to the floor opened and in walked someone who Jennie had never seen before. She was blonde, dressed in tan slacks and a blue button-down shirt, pressed to perfection, and a coat slung over her arm. She was giving little waves to people around the office who were waving back, and she was making her way towards Jennie's office. When she saw that the office was occupied, the blonde woman smiled widely, and oh, this must be Lisa Manoban.

Jennie had just enough time to notice that Lisa had big doe eyes behind framed glasses before she sat at her chair, turning her back to Jennie. A minute later, she got up again, heading towards the staff break room. Jennie's eyes were drawn to her as she made her away across the office; people looked up and smiled at her, spoke to her, and there was Vernon the IT guy, giving her a huge wave across the office. Vernon the IT guy hated Jennie; he seemed to take it as a personal affront that she knew more about computers than he did.

It appeared that Lisa Manoban had made friends among the staff already, which didn't bode well for Jennie. The staff had a poor opinion of her in general, thanks to her family and no-nonsense way of running things. Sure, she wasn't the most approachable of bosses, but she had a reputation to uphold. There was always a line between boss and employee, and while you could toe close to it, you could never cross it. Besides, nobody wanted to be friends with a Kim, so Jennie had never even been in the vicinity of that line.

A few minutes later, Jennie was absorbed in a layout that had been left with her by the health editor when there was a knock on her door. Looking up, she saw Lisa standing outside and holding a mug in her hands. Jennie beckoned her in, and stood up behind her desk.