When you tell the world you're mine

Chapter 8: New Beginnings

Monday morning came and Carol could barely sleep, which was a first for her. She was up way before her alarm buzzed and got ready to go to work. She got there almost thirty minutes early. She had to wait for her boss to arrive to show her the building and facilities. And then she wondered how the hell she didn't notice the signs that it was BBC's offices. The interface and colors and branding were spread everywhere. She made sure to memorize the way to her office, because that building was huge and she didn't want to get lost while running some important errands.

She was sat at a room with other five trainees. They all studied something media/communication related and apparently they were friendly. Their office were separated by glass walls and she could see where the editorial staff sat. They were surrounded by TV's and lots of computers and the phone was always ringing there. It didn't take long for her to get annoyed by it's sound. It was still most empty. But her boss did introduce her to the few people that were there.

He then led her to his private office and set her new tasks. She'd have to help in the generation of content to the websites and maintenance of internal communication channels and social media, supporting the actions of endomarketing and campaigns.

"I know it's a lot to take in on your first day, but we're here to help you and guide you. We hope you may learn as much as you can, so when you graduate you could work with us again.", he said.

Carol was taking so many notes that her hand started to hurt. But she didn't want to miss a word.

"You'll also work with clipping redefinition, report production based on clipping, production of internal bulletin -with interviews and text production- provide support in the production of texts.", he said while looking at her a seeing that she was getting scared of everything he was saying. "You'll help the others with scheduling interviews and audio editions."

She was quiet and looked a little pale.

"But I'm going to teach you all of it, so are the other journalists. No one's going to give you a task without explaining how it's done before. So you can calm down now.", he said without looking at her.

The first three days of work were overwhelming. She felt the other trainees a bit harsh on her but she made everything in her power to be polite with them and to learn what everyone could teach her. It was exhausting. But she was finally working with something she wanted. She decided that she was going to work at BBC as a journalist when she graduated next year. That was her new life goal.

The days were longer but the weeks were short. That's how Carol felt in her first month working. She was still adapting. She already knew who she could talk to, who'd be willing to help her and who didn't have the patience to teach her how to use the various software the company had. Her work place was nice and friendly most of the time, but there were days where she wondered how she could stand being there. Sometimes the tension was so thick one could cut it with a knife. On these days she'd just try to not think about it, she was building her network and career and all trainees and interns in the world have a bad history about their first job in their field. She soon discovered that her boss, once nice and fair, was a massive pain in the ass for the trainees.

 He put her on "coffee duty" way too many times and made all of them work overtime on a daily basis. Carol thought that wasn't fair, but she kept quiet and even though sometimes he made her day like a living hell, she would always be smiling and polite with everyone there, specially with him.

On a personal side for this whole month, her mom was having dates every Friday and Saturday. She wasn't working overtime anymore, she was smiling again and she was happy. And in between working and studying for her finals, Carol tried to keep her social life up. She'd always try to gather all her friends and go to Villa and other pubs around her city. In one night when she was drunk and wanted to be reckless she even accepted to have a very serious talk with Rodrigo, he tried to kiss her mid talk, but she turned her face to him. Julia almost killed her when she told they had decided to try to keep being friends and to try to forget all that they had done and said to each other. Her friend knew this vicious circle. They'd get back together in no time. Rodrigo was a toxic thing that Carolina was addicted to. She was always saying that they weren't friends, they were just friendly to each other if they found themselves at the same place. And, just like last time, Rodrigo made sure to be anywhere Carol was. Julia could actually see her friend changing her way and feelings when she talked about him. She was forgetting all the crap he made her go through.