Wednesday night rolled around and Elizabeth was once more at work. She was sweeping mail off the presort machine – again – and had been doing so for the whole week. The data entry component of her job was all but non-existent these days and she had heard rumors that there was a new modification that could be made to the sorting machines to completely eliminate the need for her Encoder position altogether.
This news was unwelcome, insofar as it meant that she would more than likely become a full time sweeper without even the brief but welcome respite that data entry brought. At the same time, it was unlikely that she would be dismissed, and that was more than many people could claim in the current economy.
She was on the range bins tonight, an active job near the front of the machine on the side opposite from the machine operator. She had finally learned what was meant by the designation of range and gained an understanding of why they were so busy and why the mail coming out of there would be sorted again.
The first pass – the one the mail was on now – was a rough sort. Some of the more populous Postal Codes would have their mail sorted out on this first pass, all the way up to the whole five digit sort. Much more of it would be filtered out by the range of the first three digits and end up going through a second pass, which would be a much finer sort and split amongst more sorting machines.
Charlotte had explained that they paid less per each piece of mail the closer they could get it pre-sorted to its eventual destination.
As Elizabeth reached to grab an armload of mail and place it directly below the range bin into a tray that was always there for the purpose, her coworker, Maria, suddenly appeared at her elbow.
"Collins wants to see you in his office," Maria shouted to be heard over the machine's racket. "I'm covering you."
Nodding in reply, Elizabeth hefted the now full tray and stepped aside to let Maria take over. The other woman whipped an empty tray into place and picked up right where Elizabeth had left off. The full tray was quickly disposed of into the appropriate mail cage and then Elizabeth made her way down the wide aisle at the head of the sorting machines to Mr. Collins' office.
As she walked, she wondered for what purpose he might have summoned her. It might be any number of things, from the monthly performance review that was about due to telling her she would have some data entry to do. Whatever it was, she hoped the encounter would be brief. The hope was a vain one as the man seemed to be overly enamored of the sound of his own voice and often went on pointless rambles about anything that came into his mind. Very frequently, he would drone on at length about the company and its ideals, as though the little sound bites of drivel like "delivering quality product in a timely fashion while also ensuring that the customer is treated in a respectful and professional manner" meant anything at all to the people sorting the mail.
Deadlines were the only thing that truly mattered in their jobs. Deadlines and accuracy.
And if he was not regurgitating corporate speak, Collins enjoyed sharing his mother's little tidbits of wisdom. He quoted his mother as though she were some religious figure everyone should revere, but from what Elizabeth could puzzle out the woman was nothing more than a petty tyrant and Collins the only person in the world who was willing to let himself be dominated by her.
Collins' door was open and he appeared to be waiting for her with some impatience, for he stood awkwardly by the doorway and beckoned her inside before he turned to take his own seat behind his desk.
"Have a seat," he commanded, gesturing rather grandly to the dilapidated chair to which all his visitors were subjected.
As she gingerly perched in the wobbly seat, Collins leaned forward in his chair and planted his elbows on the cluttered surface of his desk and then pursed his lips in an affectation of thoughtfulness before tapping them with a fat finger.
You look like a toad, Elizabeth thought, but was careful to keep her expression neutral.
"Elizabeth," Collins started at last, drawing out the first syllable of her name, "I have news for you. I don't wish to alarm you in any way, so before I tell you the news let me first hasten to assure you that your employment here at Blue Line is by no means insecure at the present moment."
She fought an eyeroll and instead nodded slightly. "All right," she agreed cautiously. "What's the news?"
He ignored her question, naturally.
"Blue Line values its employees," he lectured. "And someone like you who has learned the ropes and is dependable is of extra value to the owners. This is why your employment is secure." He gave her a simpering sort of smile, not showing any teeth, and then leaned back again as though he were relaxing expansively after successfully completing some hard-done task.
"However," he continued, now drawing out the entire word as if he were stalling for time to think of what he wanted to say next, "there have been some changes made and we can no longer keep you on as an Encoder."
He paused again and Elizabeth struggled to keep her face blank. None of this was coming as any sort of surprise, although that last line had sounded distinctly ominous. It was obvious that she wouldn't be able to keep a title for a job she no longer performed, but there were only two other positions in the mail room - Sweepers and Operators - and she only had training as a Sweeper and was currently spending most of her time in that position anyhow. Had he called her in to tell her she was going to be demoted and given a cut in pay but that she should be grateful to still be employed at all?
"Therefore," Collins was continuing to drone on, finally getting to the point of the conversation, "we are going to have you paired up with an Operator for the remainder of this week and all of the next."
Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly in relief, trying to keep her expression composed when all she wanted to do was hop out of the decrepit chair and celebrate her reprieve from sweeping by performing a little jig of happiness.
When she opened her eyes again, Collins had paused, his mouth slightly open as though he were only about to grab another quick breath of air before continuing. When he didn't say anything further, Elizabeth guessed that perhaps she was meant to make some sort of reply.
"That's very good to hear," she managed, inwardly congratulating herself on how calm she sounded. As nothing in Collins' posture or look of general expectation changed she added, "I'm, er, very glad for the opportunity. Thank you."
It was the last that seemed to do the trick. Collins' face relaxed into another simpering smile and he shook his head just slightly as though he were making a show of refusing her thanks.
"You may finish out the night sweeping," he announced in magnanimous tones. "Tomorrow, be prepared to learn."
That was clearly a dismissal, so Elizabeth gratefully stood up, feeling the chair rock almost violently as her weight shifted. She muttered something that she hoped sounded vaguely grateful and then turned to leave.
As she walked back to her original position she found herself actually smiling broadly. Operating didn't appear to be all that difficult and it certainly seemed a more enviable position than Sweeping was. Operators stood at the head of the machines and were responsible mainly for throwing mail onto the feed chain. There would be less running up and down the machine all night and no awkward demands for stooping or stretching to retrieve the mail from bins. That she would be receiving an upward adjustment in pay was only the icing on the cake.
"Good news?" Maria called out, seeing her face.
"Yes," Elizabeth said, nodding to drive home the point. "I'm going to be an Operator!"
"That's great," Maria grinned back, seeming genuinely happy for Elizabeth's fortune. An Operator herself, Maria would know what a nice change of pace the promotion would be for Elizabeth. "Your range 157 cage is full if you want to stage it and grab a new one. I can keep covering here for a minute."
Elizabeth glanced at the cage that held all the mail coming out of bin 157 and it was, indeed, full.
"Thanks!" The cage was already properly labeled with a yellow tag that noted it was from machine number three and bin 157, so Elizabeth pulled the wheeled cage out of the line and maneuvered it out into the main aisle. She left it there long enough to grab another cage from the unused machine four and slide it back into place.
Using her teeth to break off a piece of heavy packing tape, Elizabeth affixed a fresh tag to the side of the new cage and pulled the black grease pencil from the pocket of her navy blue smock to write down the date and mailing information.
That done, she returned to the full cage and pulled it over to the large staging area that separated the sorting machines from those that the Inserting crew ran. Parking the cage neatly and making sure the yellow tag would be clearly visible, Elizabeth jogged back to continue sweeping.
Maria was off with a cheerful smile and wave, back to her duties on the staging floor. Once Insert supplied a full cage of mail to be sorted, it was Maria's job to look at mail and sort the trays out according to their postal codes. That way the machine Operators would be able to come to the staging area and pull more mail from the range they were sorting to run through for the first pass.
The whole process was complex on the surface, but Elizabeth found that with just the smallest idea of what each stage was, it became more and more clear to her why things were done in the way that they were. The fact that she was to become an Operator opened up a whole new range of possibility for her learning even more about the process. Perhaps she would someday be in a position like Maria's, who was always operating or staging or running the still-mysterious scanning area in the back end of the warehouse. Maria never had to sweep for an entire night, just in brief spells to relieve someone else as she had done for Elizabeth this night.
I could really enjoy this job if I didn't have to sweep, Elizabeth thought.
She was still thinking along those lines as the night ended and she was clocking out along with the rest of the people on her shift. The midnight shift was in the break room just down the hall, getting their marching orders for the hours they would cover before the morning shift would arrive at 8:00am. Blue Line didn't shut down except for on the weekends and there was always another deadline to be met.
Elizabeth pulled at the snaps on her smock and took the garment off. It was required that she wear one while out on the floor, something she didn't mind as it provided a handy place to store useful items such as extra rubber bands for bundling up the smaller handfuls of mail and her grease pencil. It also kept her own clothes from getting streaked with the various grime that she encountered on a nightly basis. Wadding it up, she unlocked her locker and stuffed it in on the top shelf and pulled her purse from the lower shelf.
As she always did, she took an extra moment to free her hair from the bun she wore while out on the floor. Long hair needed to be restrained close to the skull as the machines might easily scalp anyone who was unfortunate enough to get their hair caught in the fast-moving belts.
Sighing in relief at having her hair down, Elizabeth bade a goodnight to the few of her coworkers who were still milling about, trading jokes as they prepared to depart.
She caught Charlotte in the hall and shared her news from the night. "That's so great!" Charlotte replied, but her tone was far from matching her words.
"What is it?" Elizabeth demanded, laying her hand on Charlotte's arm and drawing the other woman into the large break room on the front of the building.
Charlotte shook her head in a small motion of negation. "It's just that I thought I would be the next one to get trained," she confessed. "Please don't mistake my disappointment for myself as resenting that you were chosen ahead of me. I understand that it wouldn't be fair to demote you. I had just hoped to get away from Sweeping all the time."
Elizabeth frowned. "I feel awful now," she said, meaning it.
"It wasn't your decision."
"No," Elizabeth admitted. "But it was thoughtless of me not to have realized how it would make you feel. I'm sorry."
Charlotte waved a hand in a tired way, dismissing it. "It's alright," she assured the other woman. "I'll be next. And maybe you'll be able to train me. That would be preferable to being trained by Lukas."
"Lukas," Elizabeth groaned in not-altogether-feigned dismay. "Do you really think Collins would do that to me?"
"He's trained everyone else in the time I've been here," Charlotte replied, not without sympathy. But the corners of her lips twitched up in a flicker of amusement.
"I'm going to head home and pray for Maria to be my teacher," Elizabeth decided. "And on the off chance that God isn't listening, I'll bring something to plug my nose."
Charlotte laughed then and Elizabeth couldn't help but join her, though her own amusement was more chagrined. Lukas might have many fine qualities as an employee or even a person, but if he did, no one else on the shift seemed to know what those were. Wrinkled noses and hands waved dramatically in front of faces were the only comment needed for someone who seemed never to bathe.
"Did I ever tell you about the time we decided to have a secret gift exchange?" Charlotte asked conversationally as they finished collecting their lunch pails and headed towards the exit.
"No," Elizabeth replied, baffled as to why Charlotte might be bringing the topic up at all.
"He's gone now, but a Sweeper named James drew Lukas' name. He bragged for a solid week about how he was going to give Lukas a gift that would render him more palatable to everyone. And, sure enough, when we did the exchange there was an enormous basket filled to the brim with every kind of toiletry you could think of."
"What did Lukas think of that?" Elizabeth asked, laughing at the thought.
Charlotte shrugged. They were outside now and paused in the light of the building to finish their conversation as they needed to move in opposite directions in order to get home. "He never said anything. But a few months later we had a going-away party for one of the higher-ups and, among the gifts I saw on the table, was that very same basket of toiletries. Completely untouched."
"No!" Elizabeth gasped, laughing.
"It's true," Charlotte assured her solemnly, before chuckling herself.
"That's horrible," Elizabeth commented around her last sniggers. "And if I have to stick around Lukas the rest of the week, I'll be terribly distraught."
"I hope for your sake that you don't have to. But I'm going to hope that from home, if you don't mind. It's so cold out!"
"It is," Elizabeth agreed, taking a backwards step in the direction she needed to go. "Good night, Charlotte."
The other woman echoed back the valediction and Elizabeth turned to go. She had a short walk to reach the main street where the public coach would stop and she moved briskly, both to make sure she was at the stop before the coach would come and go and to ward off the chill of the night through the exertion of movement.
As she moved down the street, an automobile swung around a corner up ahead, the headlights flashing quickly across her face, momentarily blinding her. She paused in her step, blinking away the afterimages burned into her vision and then felt her heart clench when she heard the sound of the automobile door closing.
She whirled, instantly on her guard. Blue Line was hardly in a rough part of town, but the streets were empty and her situation could so easily become precarious if the wrong sort of person happened to cross her path.
But when she turned to see what might be coming at her, Elizabeth felt a shock go through her.
"And just what on earth are you doing here?" she snapped, immediately incensed at the mere sight of Mr. Darcy.
Without waiting for an answer, she turned and began to stomp down the street. But words were boiling so close to the surface that she spun back around after only a step or two. Mr. Darcy was standing in the same place, his arm half-raised as though he were about to summon her back to him.
"You have some nerve," Elizabeth seethed, pointing a finger that was shaking with the force of her emotion.
She got no further, however, before Darcy took a small step towards her and then sank wordlessly to the ground, landing in a sprawling heap on the cold pavement without so much as an arm extended to save himself.
Author's Note: I know. I kept a promise. I'm as shocked as anyone.
Question for you all: When I talk about Elizabeth's work, do you want to fall asleep or do you like the detail? I personally enjoy it when I get to read about someone performing a job I've never done, particularly if you can tell the author has researched the crap out of it or perhaps even done it themselves. But my beta says such things make her snore. So I'm asking you guys because more opinions than just two would be very nice.
Much love and many thanks to everyone who reads and reviews. I love hearing from you!