Hi everyone! I'm back! I had a nice holiday, relaxing and completely switching off from work, which to me is the best kind of holiday! :) I am writing again, and have managed to pull together another chapter. I hope you enjoy!
Thanks to everyone who reads and reviews, I read, I listen, and I appreciate your input!
Up to Par
I stood in front of the men sitting at five computers in the conference room. Silvio, Lester, and I had set up nine computers for the trainees, plus one for me with a projector to demonstrate. Marco, Tank, and I had organised the Miami men into groups according to their functions, and we had developed a schedule based on rosters and availability. I had all my handouts printed and I had a PowerPoint to help me with the initial presentation. I was as prepared as I could be, but still extremely nervous. Despite my quaking insides and my sweaty palms, I tried to project confidence and knowledge. Two of the men looked interested and ready, two looked slightly bored, and one was almost scowling. I hoped they would all engage once I got going.
"Good morning Rangemen," I said with a smile. "My name is Steph, and I am working with Ranger to get a new presence for Rangeman established in Trenton, NJ. Welcome to our computer training. I recently completed a business computing course at the community college in Trenton, and the Rangeman management team felt it would be useful for me to provide some training to all the staff. This training is aimed to get everyone up to a base level of understanding and competency with some basic business computing. I will be working with everyone here in Rangeman Miami over the next several months; even Ranger himself, and Marco, Tank, and even Silvio is going to sit in on one of the sessions. So, I hope you will all try to get something out of it." I paused to take a deep breath. I had been looking at the men individually, making eye contact. The two men who had been looking a bit bored seemed to perk up when I said that everyone was going to participate in the training. The fifth man was still looking unhappy, but I ploughed on.
"My understanding is that Rangeman will be moving toward more computers in the workrooms and monitoring centre, and that all employees will be expected to use programs such as email, word processer, spreadsheets, and the internet. It seems likely that electronic reports and email will supplant written communications in the near future. There is an increasing amount of information available on the internet, so we need to be aware of finding information about FTAs and companies or individuals with security needs. So, my role is simply to introduce you to computers in business and expose you to the types of functions that they are used for. If you need specialist training in future, such as programs Silvio uses or about the electronic security systems, that probably won't be up to me to provide. This is just a starting point to make sure everyone is comfortable with the basics. If you already know about the things I am teaching, please speak up and you might be able to help me explain it to your colleagues. And if everyone is confident with something already, we might be able to skip ahead." At this I saw the frown fade off the fifth man's face a little and I felt relief that he seemed to engage more.
"Can I start by asking each of you to introduce yourself; please tell me your name, how long you have worked for Rangeman, and any previous experience you have with computers." The men went around and introduced themselves as asked. I had started the training with a group of men who mostly worked on the monitors and some fieldwork. I figured I did not want to start with management, and that, working on the monitor systems, these men should at least know how to turn the computers on. Hopefully a nice middle ground. As I guessed, the man who had been scowling, Jake Vogler, had more experience with computers, and played games on them at home. I grinned at him and asked him about his favourite games. We bonded a little over Myst and he seemed to relax a little.
I told the men to grab themselves a coffee from the pot I had set up or a bottle of water and come back while I started a basic explanation of business computers. When they were all settled back in and I had grabbed a coffee for myself, I began my overview. I had used my textbook from my class to design a half-hour presentation about business computing and what a lot of businesses were doing at the moment. I included as many images and as relevant examples as I could. I followed up with a half-hour explanation about the internet and the evolution of information and communication in that space. I tried to provide some examples here as well that I hoped would be relevant, describing some information available on FTAs and even some types of computing records kept by government and military organisations. After the first ninety minutes together, the men seemed to have relaxed and were listening, asking questions, and commenting when I asked them to relate it to their roles or experiences.
We stopped for a break, and the housekeeper, Carol, brought in a tray of muffins and cut fruit, as well as a fresh pot of coffee. There were some mints and wrapped candy in bowls on the tables. After the break, I explained the process of using email. Silvio had helped me to set up all the employees on the Rangeman server with an email address. I got the men to each log on, create a new password on the Rangeman email server, and send each other an email. I told them to send each other a joke or short work anecdote, but to keep it clean. They all laughed, and I walked around them, helping a couple of them here and there; feeling elated at how well everything was going. I used the opportunity to explain a little email etiquette, and described the use of different greetings, signoffs, and appropriate language for different situations.
As the men were working and laughing at each other's emails, I felt a tingle go up my spine. I looked up to see Carlos standing outside the door, watching my session. His expression was difficult to read, but he seemed relaxed. I sent him a small smile, which he returned, then turned back to answer a question from one of the men about the difference between replying and forwarding the emails.
After our intense confrontation, I was not sure what to expect from Carlos. I was feeling tired and emotionally drained and told him I wanted to go back to my apartment. The look that crossed his face this time was disappointed, and he spoke hesitantly, "Babe. Babe, would you like to come up to my penthouse instead?"
I considered this, and replied equally hesitantly, "Carlos, I want to. But I need to know first if this is going to work. I don't want to pressure you or force your hand, but I couldn't take it if you push me away again. I need to know you are in this and going to work through it all with me." My voice broke a little, but I ploughed on, "If you're not ready for that yet, it's ok. I can stay in the other apartment until you've had time to be sure. But I only want to come up to your penthouse if I know we are / to try and work back to where we were when you left."
Carlos took a deep breath and raised my chin to look into my eyes, "I was an idiot, Stephanie. I am so sorry that I hurt you. I can't promise I won't screw up again, and I know I have a lot of issues to work through, but when you walked through that door, all my defenses, all my stupid rationalisations, just seemed to fall apart. What I had with you in Trenton and Newark was everything to me, and I was really dumb to even consider throwing it away. Can you please forgive me, Babe? I promise I will get help, counselling, and I will work hard to rebuild what we had. Please, Babe?"
When he said 'please', I could feel my heart turning to mush. How could I not forgive him? I was scared, but the courage that brought my feet through that door to this confrontation still seemed to bolster me. "I forgive you," I whispered. "Just… don't do it again, please?"
He pulled me even closer on his lap, and his arms tightened around me like a vice, "That's a promise Babe. That's a promise."
When everyone had played with the email program for about an hour, I switched over to get them to open Microsoft Word and to start to write a document. I handed them a simple template with some headings and told them how to create the headings themselves, then asked them to write a brief report about an incident that had happened recently while they were on monitors. They could pick any incident, it just needed to be something that happened while they were on shift. Again, I walked around, helping the men to format the headings and explaining, when needed, how to create paragraphs and a line at the bottom for their signature. When all the men had created the documents, I showed them the printer in the corner of the room. I helped each of them download their document onto a floppy disk, take it over to the printer and put the document into the attached computer and print it out ready to sign.
We broke for lunch, which Carol again brought into the conference room. She had prepared some sandwiches, salads, and some delicious, hot, bite-sized pastries filled with ham and melted cheese. There was a jug of iced tea and another of orange juice. We all ate, chatted, and I learned more about each of the men. Most of them had come from the military, although there was one man in the group who had come from a federal law enforcement agency. He was older, in his forties, and had decided he could do better coming up to retirement in the private sector.
After lunch, I got the men to each open up a spreadsheet I had prepared. It was set up like a tracking spreadsheet across a patrol shift, tracking time, miles travelled, buildings and residences checked, and any incidents or anomalies. I didn't know if this sort of thing would be used, and I explained to the men that my intention was not to suggest this was needed, but simply to explain a way that it may be used. I let them explore the spreadsheet for about twenty minutes, explaining how to copy and paste cells, change data in the cells, and use the sum function on the times.
Then I asked them to open a second prepared spreadsheet. They had to take the times from their first spreadsheet, and copy them into this spreadsheet, which was set up to calculate a timesheet. It was deliberately set up to show that this was the final shift in the timesheet, and the men could then print the timesheet out ready to submit to their supervisor for approval. It was all very practical, and I could see the men appreciated the applied nature of the learning.
The last task for the day was for each of the men to use a search program, Alta Vista, to look for information about a company with foreign interests, and a local politician who was, for my scenario, about to travel to the country where the company had interests. Most of the men were stumbling a little through the search process, and Jake, who was more confident with this, helped me to get each of the men using the search programs and finding some of the information they needed.
At the end of the day, the men greeted me cheerfully and left. I felt a wave of exhausted satisfaction wash over me. The training had been successful. I had another half-day session with these men tomorrow morning, to finish off the internet training, and then I started a repeat with a second, larger group of eight men tomorrow after lunch. This group was mainly people involved in sales and security systems planning, so their level of computer knowledge was hopefully about the same. They would be finished completely through the following day. I then had a half-day off, before I started the program for three more one-and-a-half day sessions with the twenty-two men who primarily did patrols, responded to alarms and calls, and assisted Lester with FTA pickups. My training program for these men was simpler than the first two groups, but I had allowed the same amount of time, since there were likely to be men who had no computer experience at all.
I had another full day off, and then commenced training with the management team. This would be my biggest group, using all nine computers. I had truncated a couple of the sections for the management team a little, since they were all familiar with the basics of computers, and I would spend one full day running through some of the applications and exercises. With Marco's and Tank's agreement, there was an hour set aside at the end of their day when Marco and Ranger would come in to talk about potential automation of functions, use of the business applications, and any potential further training that may be required. My last set of training on this visit was with Ranger and Marco, who wanted to be trained separately, and again I would spend about a day with them.
I knew, by the end of the training, I would be completely exhausted. But I would also be exhilarated if everything went as well as it had today.
I think both of us were feeling a little self-conscious as we had left Carlos' office, but nobody had said anything to us, or even looked at us strangely.
Carlos had escorted me up to his penthouse apartment on the sixth floor in the elevator. The small foyer had a large, double door on the right that Carlos said was the kitchen facility. There was a short hallway to the left with two wood-paneled doors at the end. Carlos opened the one on the left with his key fob and led me into his apartment. It was decorated in neutral shades of white and grey, with ash wood floors and stainless-steel accents and appliances. The furniture was dark grey and black and monotone prints on the walls were framed in black. The look was slightly industrial and clean and somewhat anonymous. There didn't seem to be any personal touches; photographs or knickknacks or even a book set aside on a table. The kitchen benchtops were vacant except for an expensive-looking coffee maker that seemed to do both drip coffee and espresso. It was black, of course. The only touches of colour seemed to be from the large windows that overlooked the river and area rugs in tones of grey and blue.
Carlos offered to make me a coffee and I agreed gladly. He picked up a phone on a bench beside the living room wall and pressed a button. He greeted the person who answered and asked them to pack up my belongings in Apartment H and bring them up to his penthouse with something to eat. The person must have agreed, and he hung up with a muttered thanks. I raised my eyebrows to him, and he answered, "Carol, the housekeeper. She'll bring up your things and some food." I nodded in reply, still nervous and apprehensive about staying here, but determined to focus on the future.
An hour later, I was still sitting, cuddled into Carlos' arms. Carol had brought up my things and unpacked them into Carlos' apartment, waving off my offers to help her. She had also brought up some muffins and fruit and I ate one of the pecan and banana muffins with my coffee. It was delicious, although not very sweet. I suspected it had no sugar and was sweetened only with the bananas. As we sat and the sky dimmed and darkened outside the windows, Carlos began to slowly talk to me, telling me more about his past with Rachel and Julie, and why he had felt like he couldn't do relationships before he met me. It was a start toward a better understanding of his reaction.
That night, after we had eaten the delicious stir-fry chicken dish Carol had prepared, we sat talking for almost two hours. Eventually, we moved into the bedroom, and Carlos showed me the bathroom and I took my time with a warm shower, preparing for bed and trying to relax my mind. Tomorrow I was commencing the training schedule. It was going to be draining and I really needed to sleep without the stress of the last few weeks. Carlos used the bathroom after me, and came out to find me sitting, a little uncertainly, on the side of the bed. Carlos looked at me and his expression seemed to freeze slightly at my hesitance.
"Carlos…" I stammered, "can you, can we, can you please just hold me tonight?"
His face cleared at that request, and he picked me up and swept aside the covers to draw me close into his side. "Of course, querida," he murmured, "Whatever you need." He held me all night, and I slept well for the first time in several weeks.
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