Friday, May 7, 2021 Beulah’s Journal, Part 2

It’s been a while since I’ve followed through on The Martin Chronicles, part of which is Beulah’s Journal. Here’s the latest:

From the journal of Beulah Bartimaeus.

I’m so tired today. Last night, the people in the apartment above me got into a big argument that was so loud, it woke me up in the middle of the night. I couldn’t really tell what they were saying, but I could hear the anger. It was really disturbing and stressful for me. I wondered if I’d be called as a witness if it turned into a crime scene. One of them eventually left, slamming the door dramatically on their way out. It took me a long time to get back to sleep. Too bad I had to get up at 6:00 to go to work.

It was a weird day at work, too. My job is mostly paperwork and emails, but sometimes I have to do training presentations, usually a review of the confidentiality protocols. I do one of those about every 4 months. We have an unusually high amount of turnover in the research department and they’re all sort of in and out of our location, so this way we ensure that everyone gets a chance to get a refresher on the “Company Doctrines.” There are some fairly serious legal consequences if someone goes out of bounds, so we try to make sure people take it seriously. Anyway, today, I heard from BOII – first time since they first contacted me. My instructions were to host a training seminar next week – not on confidentiality, but on time management. That was treading new ground for me – I’ve been here about a year and haven’t had to do one of those. They included a flyer to put on the bulletin board with clip art of three squirrels holding notepads and pencils. This seemed on the quirky/cutesy side for a shadow group like I imagine the BOII to be. Now I’ve got to do some research on time management. I’ll start tomorrow – too tired today.

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The training seminar on time management was today. These things aren’t compulsory, but I usually bring in muffins or doughnuts to entice people to attend. Only one guy came to this one, though – Martin Anderson from accounting. He’s fairly new – I think he started a couple months ago. I haven’t seen much of him since he started, but I remember him from the interview – he had a little bit of a smirk on his face as if he were enjoying some private joke. He was well qualified, though, so we hired him, smirk and all.

It was kind of awkward having only one person show up for a training session -it’s never happened before. I wasn’t super confident on the materials I was presenting either. It was like a private tutoring session and I was extremely uncomfortable – kept blushing and stammering as I moved through my Power Point presentation. He’s not a handsome hunk or anything, but he looks to be about my age and was very attentive, so that added a degree of social weirdness, like it felt more intimate than it really was. I was glad it was a short-ish presentation. But when I got to the end and asked if he had any questions, all he asked me was, “Why did you choose squirrels as clip art for the poster you used?” And there was that stupid smirk again.

This threw me off completely; I was prepared to have to bluff my way through a tedious question or two about time management. But the squirrels? Really? I think he must have been bored at work and was just using this training session as a time filler, which irritated me. Inwardly, I started referring to him as “Mr. Smirk.” I answered, “The group that requested I put on this training session sent me the flyer – I didn’t have anything to do with making it.” I often read about people saying things “coldly,” so I tried to infuse as much coldness into my answer as I could. It’s not as easy as it sounds. I’m pretty sure I just sounded robotic.

“Hmm,” he said. That’s all, just “Hmm.” There was a moment of silence and he seemed to be thinking about a follow-up question (which filled me with dread), but upon reflection must have decided it wasn’t worth it. He thanked me politely and left. “Goodbye, Mr. Smirk!” I said after the door was closed. And then chastened myself for my immaturity. He’s probably a decent fellow – I just don’t like the idea that someone might be enjoying a private joke at my expense.

Me again. What do you think of Beulah? Does she seem too much like me? I’ve discovered it’s kind of difficult to write with a personality other than your own. I’ve tried to make Martin sound different than me, but I’m not sure I’ve succeeded. Something to work on.

Thanks for reading. Have a jolly good weekend!

I’ll probably feel like a squirrel is looking over my shoulder when I delete this is in the morning. Creepy!