Mari & Ilna-you're the best.
McRollers-thanks for reading.
Synergy (1/1)
Leah looked around the large conference table at the smiling faces of several senators representing both political parties, a number of staff members, and, in a definite change from their usual morning meeting, about twenty children taking part in Take Your Child to Work Day.
"You'll notice my own children aren't here today," Leah said with a self-deprecating chuckle. "They all decided it would be more interesting to go to work with father."
"Don't feel bad," Senator Ben Yamura commiserated. "My son is spending the day with my brother, who works as a carpenter, because he thinks my job is … and I quote … super boring." He nodded to the girl sitting beside who appeared to be about 13 years old. "At least my daughter chose to come with me."
"Mom said if I didn't I had to go to school," the girl said matter-of-factly. "This is definitely better than math class."
"I'll take that," the senator replied with a wry smile.
"The reason I wanted to start you off with this meeting this morning is because we're here to try to hammer out an agreement on emergency funding for everyone affected by the recent volcano eruptions," Leah explained. "We have representatives from both the house and senate, from both political parties, members of my staff, and from all of the departments that have not only been tracking the damage and taking note of needs, but who will also be responsible for making sure the aid money is used in a way that brings as much relief as possible to the affected communities."
DJ looked around the room. There were lots of people he recognized, like Senator Pearl, Marliyah, and mommy's assistant Carmen, and many others he didn't remember ever meeting.
"When it comes to running a state like Hawaii, everyone has a role to play. And every role is important. So today, after this meeting, you'll be free to visit any department in the building you want, to see how the people who work there help me do my job."
The children murmured excitedly.
Leah grinned. "Plus, I'm hoping that your presence in this meeting means everyone will be on their best behavior and set a good example when it comes to compromising and working together for the greater good. So let's get started. Senator Tanaka, the floor is yours."
A little while later Leah called for a five-minute break to allow the children to disperse and visit other areas of the building before the meeting resumed.
"Text me when we have an agreement," Catherine said to Carmen as she and DJ gathered their things. "Or if they start acting like toddlers and I need to come back and put them all in timeout."
Carmen snorted. "Will do."
"I asked him what department he wanted to visit first," Catherine said as she and DJ stood in front of a smiling young woman who was wearing a nametag that read, 'Happy Take Your Child to Work Day. My name is Lila'. She was seated at a large desk with a toddler sitting beside her who appeared more interested in the fact that her chair rolled than anything else. "He picked the legal department."
"My friend Kiko's daddy is a lawyer. Not here. He works in the prosecuting attorney's office," DJ said. "He came to our school for career day and we got to pretend to be a jury. It was super fun."
"I wanna be a lawyer when I grow up," said another young girl about DJ's age who was there with her mother, Letitia, who worked in Security.
"She's starting to practice early," Letitia told Catherine. "That girl is relentless when she wants something."
Catherine chuckled. "I understand completely."
"Sometimes the attorneys in our office have to go to court and talk to a judge or a jury," Lila said as she picked up the toddler. "But they have another very important job. They go over every single piece of legislation before the governor signs it to make sure it's 100% legal and 100% enforceable."
DJ nodded. "That's very important. Because if you let anyone here do something illegal my daddy would have to arrest them."
The young woman grinned. "And that would be very awkward."
She walked the group of about eight people around the office, pointing out the conference room and the law library. She introduced DJ and the other children to several of the staff lawyers, paralegals, and administrative assistants. Each took a few minutes to talk about what their main job duties were.
When they reached the large copy room the children fanned out, fascinated by the whirring machines spitting out papers at lightning speed.
All but one.
As Catherine and DJ approached they found a harried young man with ink stained hands staring into the open front of a large print station.
"This is Zach," Catherine told DJ. "He used to be an intern in mommy's office but now he works as a legal assistant. He'll be starting law school in the fall. Zach, this is my son, DJ."
"Nice to meet you." Zach extended his hand then pulled it back. "You probably don't want to shake my hand 'til I get the ink off."
"First it was a paper jam," he huffed. "Then it ran out of toner. I need to get these pages printed ASAP so I'm gonna run down to Purchasing and pick up some supplies instead of waiting for them to send someone up."
"Maybe we'll see you down there," Catherine smiled. "It's our next stop."
"These are the white boards we use to keep everything organized," Cody pointed to the two large boards as he addressed a group of about a dozen children and their parents. "This one covers everything that's going on in the present week, and that one covers the whole month. That way we can keep track of all the things we need to do and nothing gets accidentally missed.
"For example, this is the bill we're working on from the meeting you all visited this morning." He pointed to the title of the bill on the left side of the weekly board. "If you follow this line you'll see all the meetings scheduled this week to talk about it, then we go all the way over here…" He moved to the other side of the board. "To where the vote will take place."
As he moved his finger to show the many interconnected meetings some of the ink rubbed off on his hands.
"Unfortunately that's a problem," he chuckled as he picked up a marker and re-drew the lines. "We keep accidentally erasing the lines then we have to draw them back in. Our old system used push pins but we kept destroying the white boards with holes. I thought this would be better but honestly it's worse. If anyone has any better ideas we're certainly open to suggestions."
DJ's hand shot up.
Cody smiled. "Do you have an idea or a question?"
"An idea," DJ said. "If that's ok."
"It's more than ok," Cody said. "Let's hear it."
"Well … when we were upstairs in the legal department, Miss Tanika told us that one of her jobs is to go through all the documents they send out for signatures and mark where people need to sign. She uses little post it stickers that come in lots of said if more than one person needs to sign she gives them each a different color."
Cody nodded. "That's right."
"Then when we visited the purchasing department Miss Carol said that she makes sure to always have those on hand because with all the different people that use them here you go through a lot." He reached into his backpack and pulled out a small package. "She even gave us some to take home," he said excitedly. "This says there are 15 different colors."
He paused a second to look at the boards.
"So what if you assigned each bill a separate color and marked it with a tag then put one of the same color beside every meeting that goes with that bill?"
Cody stared at DJ then began to shake his head.
"Or maybe that wouldn't work," the young said hastily.
"Just the opposite." Cody smiled. "That's an absolutely brilliant idea. I see those tabs every day, but it never crossed my mind to use them to help us stay organized." He took a few steps forward and high-fived DJ. "Great idea, buddy."
DJ heard clapping from the back of the room.
His chest swelled with pride when he turned and saw Governor Leah and Senator Pearl, who had sneaked in to observe, leading the applause.
Later on, as Carmen gave Catherine a quick rundown of what had happened in the morning meeting, Senator Pearl listened intently as DJ told her all about his day and all the departments they had visited including legal, maintenance, purchasing, security, and travel. "I learned a lot and it was super fun."
"And then you took the things you'd seen, and learned, and used them to help create a new tracking system," Pearl said as Catherine finished talking to Carmen and joined them. "You should be very proud of yourself."
The ten year old blushed.
"Someday we're all going to be working for this very smart young man." Pearl smiled. "DJ tells me that Angie went to work with Steve today. The bad guys on the island won't know what hit them."
Catherine chuckled. "No doubt." She checked her watch. "We better go if we want to make the end of day wrap up in the cafeteria. I hear Miss Leila made special cupcakes."
"Can I get one to take home for Angie?" DJ asked hopefully.
Catherine smiled at his thoughtfulness. "I'm sure that can be arranged."
Pearl opened her purse and handed Catherine a small envelope.
"What's this?" Catherine asked.
"Your children have both worked very hard today," Pearl said as she gathered her things. "I imagine you'll all just want to relax at home tonight and talk about your days. But tomorrow night, or whenever your schedule allows, take them out for pizza and ice cream. On me."
"You don't have to …" Catherine started but Pearl waved her off.
"I'm an old woman." She winked at DJ. "I can't hear a thing. Just go and have fun."
"Bye, Senator Pearl." DJ waved with a bright smile. "Thank you." He looked at his mother and asked, "What are we gonna do?"
"What can we do?" Catherine dropped her arm across his shoulders. "I know better than to disagree with Senator Pearl. Some night soon we'll go out for pizza and ice cream."
"This was a great day," DJ said happily. "I can't wait until next year."
THE END
Find all our stories (in chronological order!) on our website: marirealmcroll dot wixsite dot com backslash real-mcroll
Or in the McRoll in the REAL World community here on fanfiction dot net Find us on Tumblr: mcrollintherealworld dot tumblr dot com
You can join our mailing list by emailing us realmcroll at yahoo dot com with: Add me, please! in the subject line. Or just drop us a line to say hi! We love hearing from our readers.