Disclaimer: I do not own Newsies (still). All other characters belong to their respective owners.
Chapter 02. Intern Orientation
Jonathan took his job very seriously. He was, in title, Assistant to President Pulitzer, but as he believed, he was so much more than that. He was also the Company Event Coordinator, a post he loved very much. Growing up, his dream had been to become a wedding planner; however, when he had the chance to serve the famous Mr. Pulitzer, there was no way Jonathan could turn that opportunity down. And most recently, he was the self-designated Intern Coordinator and couldn't be more excited about his new position. He waited patiently, neatly laying out his handouts and notes on the desk before him. Slowly, the employees trickled into the third floor conference room.
After Pulitzer's speech, it was time to put in motion next phase of the Intern Orientation. Jonathan had scrambled into each office announcing an important, exclusive meeting, and proceeded to call out names that were to "report to duty."
Swifty and Specs, who had been in the kitchen when they overheard the news, rolled their eyes but "reported to duty" anyway, even saluting at the doorway to the conference room. The employees weren't completely dense—not all of them, anyway—and they discerned the fact that all who were called to the meeting were the newest and youngest employees, a hand-selected group of kids fresh out of school. They had all proven themselves as interns or temps and so secured full-time positions with the company. The lot of them had only been working since December or January.
Jonathan, standing rimrod straight as always with an expression that teetered between a smile and a look of fear, waited until everyone was seated before beginning the meeting. David rushed into the room, while Jack, Skittery, and Race ambled in and took their sweet time settling down.
"Some of you may know," Jonathan finally began, "that we are formalizing our intern program in order to compete with other companies offering experience as well as fun, excitement, and other delightful benefits in their programs. Mr. Pulitzer agrees that we must raise the bar in order to persuade the brightest students to our program, and not some less worthy company. In order to meet our goal, we've—and by we, I mean me—taken several weeks to improve our program and I believe we've taken great leaps. Today, for example, President Pulitzer initiated our brilliant interns with a most poignant speech. It was an oratory triumph. I, for one, believe we should follow his fine example and so, we are implementing many new things this summer. I can hardly contain my excitement," he chuckled with glee. "We're trying to make our internship program as enjoyable as possible, and to really help this young generation get the most out of this wonderful opportunity. Who better to help them realize their full potential than the people who were interns themselves only several months ago? Who better to help than the people who know exactly what life as an intern is like?
"I can't believe my ears," Race groaned. Jack himself didn't like where this was going.
"That is correct, my young employees. You are all officially part of our special Summer Intern Program and will all be acting as mentors to our little interns. And in the spirit of mentoring, starting this summer, we're launching our first ever Company Class Lecture Series. Yay…" Jonathan clapped, but seeing as no one else returned his enthusiasm, he abruptly continued on. "The Company Class Lecture Series—or as I like to call it, CCLS—will be a weekly lecture, and each of you will be leading a lecture of your own, teaching our brilliant little interns about our excellent organization and sharing your own stories of success. You'll bond, you'll laugh, you'll cry. It's going to be amazing."
Pie Eater raised his hand.
"Yes, Mr. Eater?"
Swifty and Race snorted back their laughter.
"Are we getting paid more?" Pie asked.
"No. Any other questions?"
"What does CCLS stand for?"
"It stands for Company Class—oh. Haha," Jonathan said, glaring in Racetrack's direction.
Sensing that the meeting had come to an end, the young employees prepared to leave and got up from their seats. Jonathan stopped them in their tracks. "Wait! That's not all!" He waited for the exasperated group to sit back down. "I haven't even talked about what you will all be doing today."
"Today?"
"Yes, today. I am happy to let you know that the bonding with the future generation will commence today. In… 15 minutes to be exact. Your interns happily await you in the conference auditorium.
"Oh, grief," mumbled Pegasus. "I have work to do…"
"You're telling me. I have three manuscripts to edit," Stress whispered back.
"Ladies, if you'll please cease with the gossiping." Jonathan ignored their looks of annoyed disbelief. "Each of you has been assigned a duty, all listed and detailed on this sheet I am passing out. Now, some of you will be split into pairs…"
"I hate to say it, but I think I'm kind of looking forward to this," David said.
"I hate to say it, but you've lost your marbles, Davey," Race said. "You realize this is a Jonathan-sponsored event we're talkin' about?"
"Yeah, I know, but… I mean, we get to help these new kids out. Y'know, teach them the things we wished we knew when we were interns."
Jack grinned mischievously. "We should teach them where Davey hides his diary."
Davey frowned. "It's a journal. And I don't bring it to work anyway."
Swifty just moaned pitifully. "What are we supposed to be doing? Being tour guides?"
"Yeah," David answered. "You guys have Group B. Jack and I have Group A."
The group of four took the elevator down to the conference auditorium on the second floor where Jonathan said the interns would be waiting. When they opened the doors, they were surprised to see the interns had already gathered by the entrance, clearly organized into two groups—probably Seitz's doing.
There was an awkward beat between the employees and the interns as uncertainty befell the crowd. Jack broke the silence, however, and with his trademark charming grin, he said, "Group A, you ladies and gents are with me and Davey here."
From the second floor, Jack, David, and Group A went directly to the fourth floor, skipping the third floor which housed mostly conference rooms. On the fourth floor resided the offices of Human Resources as well as Finance and Accounting. Since this was David's natural habitat, as Jack pointed out, he began the tour of the floor.
He led the group into the Finance office. The office was fairly spacious; desks were spaced out in an organized and methodical way. A couple of people were sitting at their computers concentrating on their monitors. Davey directed the group's attention to a pale man who, for some reason, exuded eeriness. "Say hi to Mr. Snyder everyone. Mr. Snyder is the Senior Accountant," David said, lamely waving at the man. The interns mumbled "hi," to which Mr. Snyder looked up in response, stared, and returned to his work without a word.
"So, um, this is where I work: Finance and Accounting. Real exciting stuff happens here. We crunch numbers, balance budgets, handle the revenue and expense reports, make sure none of our projects are going over budget, which happens far too often than anyone here would like, and lots of other stuff that only nerds like me would be interested in, apparently," he added, when Jack feigned an exaggerated yawn. David paused and shrugged, letting his arms fall to his sides. "That's pretty much it here. There aren't many of us, but we're a close-knit bunch… mostly. Anyone here interning in Finance?"
One kid raised his hand slightly.
"Great! What's your name?"
"Bumlets."
"Bumlets. Awesome. Glad to have you on board."
They moved on to Human Resources down the hall. This room was more rectangular than the previous room, with long desks lining the sides and a couple of cubicles at the end of the wide center aisle. At the end of the room was another doorway to a small office, from which emerged the alluring Irish Flare, Assistant to the Head of Human Resources. She didn't see the tour group at first, as she shuffled through the papers in her hands. Irish Flare had a purposeful rhythm in her stride that said much about her - independent, straightforward, focused. She stopped short when she finally peered up and saw the group blocking the way.
"This gorgeous creature is Irish Flare," Jack introduced. "Many of you may have seen or spoke to her already, since she handled all the intern applications and interview scheduling."
"Thank you for the introduction, Jack," she said coolly. "Congratulations on making the cut," she said to the group. "You guys should have a lot of fun with all the events Jonathan has planned for you this summer," she added, winking in David's and Jack's direction. She offered her help if anyone needed and excused herself out of the office.
Snitch, one of the interns, sighed, his glazed eyes trained on Irish Flare's departing figure. His friend and fellow intern, Itey, recognized the sick puppy look and shook his head in incredulity. "Typical," he said.
"What?" Snitch asked, snapping back to reality.
"You always fall for the girls with the sparkling blue eyes and long, raven hair," Itey said, embellishing the descriptions.
Snitch gave him a questioning look. "What are you talkin' about?"
"Uh, let's see… Megan Fox, Zooey Deschanel, Katy Perry… that chick from Gilmore Girls."
"Alexis Bledel," Snitch sighed lovingly. "She has brown hair, for your information."
"Whatever."
The tour continued on as David and Jack led their group to the different departments, including Sales, Communications, Editorial, until they came to the "Lab." It was significantly larger than the other rooms the group had seen in the tour so far. Upon entering through the glass doors, the interns stood facing a long open aisle. To their left were two rooms formed from high panel partitions.
"These are the cubices," Jack explained. When one of the interns asked what the heck a cubice was, Jack answered, "A cubicle office. Cubice."
To their right were three long rows of L-shaped six by six work stations separated by low partitions, two rows running along the middle of the room and one set along the wall closest to them. They walked across the main open aisle until they reached the other side of the Lab. From here the interns saw the cubicles lined against the windows were different; they were a bit larger with slightly higher panels.
"The Lab is where all our creative people usually are," David explained. "To our left, you'll see these four L-shaped six by nine cubicles—this is where our Web Producers work. Jack is the Executive Web Producer. Sounds fancy, huh? Anyway, they're kinda off in their own corner, hidden behind the cubice. Now if you'll turn to your right, all these desks are for our talented designers. Except for these six by nines against these windows—this is where the IT department used to be."
"Where are they now?" Snitch asked, concerned. He was an IT intern.
"Well, I wouldn't say it's much of a department now. Long story. Anyway, Skittery's our only IT guy and this is where he works."
"There's only one IT person for this entire company?"
"Yeah, pretty mu—"
"There he is now," Jack interrupted, shushing the group. He just spied Skittery setting up one of the computers at the far end of the Lab. Jack pointed, hunched as though they were observing an animal in the wild. "That's what we call a Skittery. He's a strange, alien-like creature that never seems to be doin' anythin' but playing Solitaire on the computer. And yet, he still manages to get all his shit done. Bastard. Excuse my language."
Skittery had overheard and, his eyes never leaving the computer monitor, flipped a finger in Jack's direction.
"Classy," Jack said, straightening. "Moving on to more interesting - speaking of, here comes an interesting specimen right now, ladies and gentleman," he said in a low voice. He directed the group's attention to an unhappy looking middle-aged man who was obviously trying to snub the group. But Jack caught up with him. "This is Mr. Weasel -"
"Wiesel," the man cut in.
Jack ignored him. "Mr. Weasel's the Floor Manager for the Lab. He oversees all the designers and the web producers here."
"Nice to make your acquaintance," Mr. Wiesel said to the interns with a false smile. With that, Mr. Wiesel hastily made his departure.
"Steer clear of that man," Jack warned the interns. "He ain't pleasant, especially before lunch."
David was exhausted by the end of the tour. They dropped the Group A interns off back at the conference auditorium and returned to the Lab. They were surprised to see Swifty and Race back in their seats, particularly because they hadn't seen the Group B interns in the auditorium.
"Hey fellas," Jack greeted.
"Hey," they mumbled back, neither bothering to look up from their screens.
"You guys finished the tour?"
"Oh yeah, a while ago," Race answered.
"What've you guys been up to?" Jack questioned, curious.
"World of Warcraft."
"But… where are your interns?" asked David.
"We sent ours on a scavenger hunt as the tour. Y'know, so they can learn on their own. Teach them teamwork and stu - what the hell was that!" Swifty exclaimed, reabsorbed in the game. He jabbed furiously at his keyboard.
David looked at Jack. "Why didn't we think of that?"
"'Cause we ain't got brains."
Author's Note: Cubicle research is very interesting. The "cubice" is a reference I overheard from work, so I can't quite take credit for that! Shoutouts go out to stress, Corky, Royal shadow1, Adren, Repeat, Acorn, and Eavis - thank you all so much for your feedback! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. :)