Leonard heard a rap at his office door. He smiled a bit to himself as he turned from the terminal, saving his work. It was an incredible feeling to have the chance to become absorbed in coding and research again, even to ignore the clock and just dive in. After spending the previous six weeks getting the new office administrator settled in, it was incredibly freeing.
But now it was obviously time for their daily wrap-up meeting. "Come in!" he called.
Jaclyn Chamrouen opened the office door and came inside. Hiring her felt like the best decision Leonard had ever made. He had interviewed many prospective employees over the previous three years, but no one else had managed to walk into his office and make such a good first impression. She was competent, assertive, and seemed to intuitively understand the office culture Leonard had cultivated. She was also opinionated, but had a way of convincing Leonard that her ideas had merit almost every time. Today as she approached Leonard's desk, she had a purposeful look on her face. Her dark brown hair was swept back off her forehead and she looked as crisp and professional as ever in her navy blue business suit.
He sat down across from Leonard. "Dr. Church."
"Ms. Chamrouen," Leonard replied, with a curt nod.
"Here are the daily reports." Jaclyn pulled a slim stack of papers from the file folder she held in her lap and laid them down on Leonard's desk. "Everything was fairly routine today."
"Very good." Leonard did not look up from examining the sheets in his hands. "If you have no incidents to report, you're free to go."
Jaclyn made no move to leave, sitting up straighter. "I have some matters I'd like to discuss with you, if you have the time."
Leonard looked at her and nodded. "Certainly."
"First, I must say that I question why you have hired me if you are unwilling to trust me to do my job."
Leonard frowned. As far as he was concerned Ms. Chamrouen had quite a lot of freedom. "I'm afraid you'll have to clarify what you mean by that statement."
Jaclyn's face betrayed no emotion. One of the intriguing things about her was her ability to analyze things, even situations she was deeply involved in, as with the unflappable focus of an objective third party. She was able to convey her points in a completely academic manner, despite the fact that, in this case, she clearly felt herself to be the wronged party. "Dr. Church, I am not ignorant that there are a number of administrative duties you continue to perform yourself, despite your assertions that you desire to turn over all of these duties so that you can concentrate on research. I have also heard from a number of employees that you have a history of control issues that have driven away several administrative assistants. I have to assume that your decision to hire an administrator came from a place of introspection, and a willingness to change this pattern. But simply hiring me to fill this role is not a cure-all. You need to be willing to let go and let me do my job, or I may as well follow all your assistants by walking out the door."
Leonard listened with a growing comprehension that Jaclyn was absolutely correct. He had been intending to turn over the administrative duties one at a time, as a way of assuring himself that everything was going to be handled correctly. But he had been dragging the process out for too long, even if that had been his goal. Was Jaclyn actually threatening to quit? "It seems you have this well thought out."
Jaclyn gave a single curt nod. "I do. I've had plenty of time to consider these things. I don't have enough to do during the hours I work. I also believe that continuing to hold daily meetings with you is excessive. Weekly reports should be perfectly adequate."
Leonard set his hands on the desk. "You're asking for more autonomy."
"No; I'm insisting on more autonomy. I have a number of other objections over the way things have been run here, but I feel this is the most important issue." Again, no emotion was conveyed on her face or in her words; these were simply facts that she desired Leonard to consider.
Leonard paused. "A more prideful man would fire you on the spot."
A slight change in Jaclyn's facial expression came then, with the subtle lift of an eyebrow. "It's good that you're humble enough to see that I'm right, then."
Leonard laughed quietly. "I don't know about humble. I just came close enough to burning out before I hired you that the idea of your quitting is terrifying me."
"I'm glad you could see it my way." Jaclyn smiled—not a rare sight, despite her usual analytical manner. The smile came whenever she had concluded a meeting or negotiation with a favorable result. "Here's a list of the areas I expect to be administrating in the future." She pulled a piece of paper out of the file she had been holding in her lap and laid it on Leonard's desk.
"I see." Leonard pulled the paper across the desk toward her. "Is there anything else you'd like to bring up before you go?"
"Well, since you're asking…" Jaclyn paused only long enough to apparently collect her thoughts before continuing. "I do take issue with the level of formality you expect. The techs report that they dislike being asked to wear formal business attire and they dislike your use of formal address. Frankly, it comes across as condescending."
Leonard frowned. He had noticed the employees chafing under these expectations himself. "You may have a point," he replied slowly. "I've had trouble finding balance there." He wasn't really interested in giving details, but his mind flashed over everything that had happened after his breakup with Caitlin. At least at the time it seemed as if his colleagues took sides, many of them against him. And Steve— Dr. Hutchison had practically made it a personal crusade to take up Caitlin's torch in convincing Leonard to get grief counseling. After that moment in the bar when he could barely mention Allison without choking up, Dr. Hutchison found it easy to believe that Leonard's hanging on to her memory was the main reason Caitlin left him.
"I once worked in a place where the person in charge insisted on everyone calling him by his first name and struck up personal friendships with everyone," Leonard finally explained. "I ended up learning that too many emotional entanglements at work can affect the environment in the workplace. It…" He trailed off and shook his head. "Well, it can be a real mess, that's what I've observed."
"I do understand that," Jaclyn replied. "I believe that if you feel it would be appropriate for the techs to continue to address you as Dr. Church, none of them would object. It would, however, improve the morale of the place if they were all addressed by their first names, and if they had the freedom to call me by my first name. This would give them someone they could be comfortable with to discuss concerns, and an appropriate level of respect would remain between you and your employees. You can think of it as having an intermediary."
Leonard pulled the paper closer to himself, seeing that this point had been enumerated on a list of suggested changes on the bottom half of the page. "I'm surprised that you haven't already implemented that policy, then."
Jaclyn smiled with a small nod. "I have."
Leonard shook his head.
"You may have noticed that I have been reporting an improvement in morale." Jaclyn reached forward to point out some notes near the bottom of the sheet Leonard was holding. "This change is partly responsible, but I also have some changes regarding other factors that I am planning to implement as soon as I am given autonomy to make such changes myself."
Leonard put his hands up. "All right, all right. You've won, Ms. Chamrouen."
"Jackie," she corrected.
Leonard raised an eyebrow. "I suppose you expect to be able to call me Leonard."
"As I said, that is up to you." Jaclyn stood. "I hope you will find all of my requests have merit."
Leonard lifted the list off his desk to get a closer look. "I believe I will."
"Very good." She smiled and turned, walking out of Leonard's office. A few moments later, Leonard heard the front door close and lock.
Leonard slumped back into his chair with a relieved exhale. He still hadn't had a chance to dedicate any time to Allison's holo scan tonight. Ever since he had hired Jaclyn, he had finally become able to devote his scant free time to the project, working on it on late nights and weekends. He had known that he was nearing a breakthrough when he had made the decision to hire an administrator, but now he was so close; so close, he almost thought he could reach out and touch it.
The issue existed in forcing a way for the underlying platform to assimilate the information in the digital holographic file. When a traditional smart AI was created, the platform integrated the information automatically, pulling it directly from the brain tissue as it built the AI's matrix. But no one had found a way to create a program that could assimilate information drawn from a holographic model. This was the project he had entered MIT to work on, and though he knew there was no way for him to be named the discoverer of such a procedure when so much of what he was doing depended on their proprietary research, he pressed on in his attempts to find the solution. Because to him, this was personal.
He finally felt ready to attempt a holographic projection of his results. It was a big step in the process. If everything compiled without errors, he would know that he was close. He still had some equipment checks to do and backups to make before he was done for the night—examples of duties that appeared on Jaclyn's list, duties that he should have turned over to her already—but the model could run while he was taking care of that. So first off, he opened Allison's file and made a few changes in the code that he had in mind, set the computer to build the model, and went to run the rest of his checks.
He returned an hour later to check on the model. It was not quite halfway done building. He picked up Jaclyn's list, wandering down to the kitchenette with it and fixing himself a frozen meal. He read it through, taking some notations in the margins, before he cleaned up after himself and headed back down to the office. The model still wasn't finished, so he lay down on the couch and let himself doze off.
Unfortunately, he slept more deeply than he meant to and didn't awaken until morning. He barely had time to wash up and change into the spare shirt and tie he kept in the closet before his employees were due to begin arriving. He frowned at his reflection in the mirror as he pulled on his jacket. Maybe Jaclyn had been right; in the interest of avoiding gossip he had been keeping things too formal around the place. He needed to consider that for a while.
He left his office to head to the restroom, grabbing the toothbrush and comb he kept in his desk drawer just for these sorts of occasions and shoving them in his pocket. The lab had eight techs and most of them were in the building already. Jaclyn was already in her small office, a room that had formerly been used as a storage closet; when she saw Leonard she tilted her head slightly in the direction of Leonard's office door. Leonard nodded, and when he had returned from the restroom Jaclyn was sitting in the chair across from his desk.
"I looked over your list last night," Leonard said. "I think you're absolutely right. However, I didn't have time to work on changing these tasks in the system because I was taking care of the daily checks. But I will spend today making these changes, and the routine checks will be your responsibility at the end of the day."
Jaclyn smiled. "I'm glad you came to the right conclusion."
