Miss Magnolia Regrets (She is Unable to Hush Today): Meet The Cast : days 1 & 2

day 1. i walk in , rocking my sexy pale peach cardigan, my navy loafers and my faux-pearl necklace. found the training room and took a seat. which was when i had my first sightings of the other captives. there are 9 of us total, 7 women and 2 men. there are several nice, quiet people who i will never talk about because they have normal social skills and appropriate work-place manners.

allow me to introduce the others.

first, my training bestie (i intended to stick to myself and not talk to anyone and be all competitive and shi*; that's still the plan; but i can't help myself, i made a friend on day 1). she is a tall, slender, impeccably dressed, elegant canadian with a british accent. she turned out to be witty and fun. she's no laura, but she will be nice to have as a pal for my 3 weeks in captivity. we will call her NotLuLu.

then there was the older gentleman, whom we will call PopPops. I "met" him the week before on the call-in Human Resources FAQ call. He called in 7 minutes late, and then proceeded to interrupt the HR rep every few minutes, asking questions that were answered before he got on the call; and then asking kinda nuts questions like, "oh, the company will be providing our computers?" um, yes. that's how that works.

in person, he was a bit more calm and less verbose, thank god. but he lived up to the older-student/employee cliche by being completely, no exaggerating, i mean completely unable to accomplish the most basic computer skills. he cannot log on in the morning, much less jump back and forth between multiple systems using 2 sets of user ids and multiple passwords. despite several very impassioned pleas from the I.T. guy that we log our passwords carefully on the very helpful cheat sheet that he provided, PopPops has required multiple password resets both days of training due to forgetting his passwords. and he's not home free once you get him logged on. when we're supposed to be training on a system at the same time as trainer, he is unable to play along. he cannot find the icons or links to click on, despite the trainer giving oral commands AND demonstrating the action on the large screen hanging in front of the room. yesterday PopPops was stymied by expanding and closing folders in Outlook (ie click on the plus sign to see what's in the folder). inevitably, the 2nd trainer, a very brusque but stylish Canadian lady with several mysterious tattoos and a decidedly-not-warm-and-fuzzy approach to training, has to go over and basically walk him through whatever the rest of us accomplished 5 minutes prior. he sits across from me; so i hear him asking the stern 2nd trainer things that trainer1 has literally just explained to us. i don't know if he's not paying attention of if he is physically unable to hear because he's oldish. either way, i think trainer2 is going to snap at him before it's all over.

sitting in front of PopPops is a little firecracker we'll call FeistySue. She is a petite, pretty Filopino who has no internal censor and only one volume setting =loud. she is prone to making abrasive announcements unlike any you or I would ever say to an employer ever; much less on day 1 of employment. highlights have included: "are you going to mail this (gigantic/immense) manual to me bc i'm NOT taking that home in my luggage!" -this gem was said 2 dif times within 2 hours of arriving; once to the HR people, and once to the trainers representing the employing company; and "im glad this is only a contract because I don't like life underwriting. nooo thank you!"; or, not even 3 hours in on day 1, "when can we talk to (HR guy) about flight arrangements for this weekend?" that one was followed up by a demand, made loudly in front of all of us, to the HR guy that her flight home BETTER be non-stop because you would NOT believe how difficult her connecting flight was. This morning she announced- loudly per usual- in front of the trainers that our other coworker was bummed because there was no place to buy liquor last night. we can debate the wisdom of the other coworker letting us know she was dying to find a "spirits" store, but bottom line, there was zero reason to expect that another coworker would decide to announce that in front of our new employers. So that was a real douche move; i don't think there was any malice or sabotage intended. she just has zero censor; and zero consideration of our status as new employees who ought to be trying to make a good impression.

The woman pining for liquor, we'll call her TexasRose, is also dying to have a cigarette. she is the only smoker in the group, something i wouldn't have figured out except that she announced quite loudly on day 1 that she must be the only smoker in the group. (yep.) she is from Texas, and she is exactly who a sitcom writer would invent if they needed the main character to have a loveable but trashy next door neighbor. TexasRose has bleached blonde hair styled in the very latest 80s fashion; and she is aggressively tanned. as in it's hard to see her facial features. she told me that she sure does hope we have flex time bc she has a pool and she likes to work from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. so she can get to her pool. hope that works out for ya, doll. she, like FeistySue, is quick to share her thoughts with the class. And like FeistySue, her volume is set to High. She will announce at top volume that it sure is getting hot in here. "are y'all hot?" and then she'll get up and wander around the room (i swear to god) saying "im just tryin' to find me a cold spot." and then she'll go outside for the 8th time of the day bc she's getting "claustrophobic bc (she's) hot." but it's painfully clear she's just taking a smoking break. all of this is happening while the teacher is trying to talk or teach. it's really crazy to see. i keep waiting for the trainer to say something but she doesn't. TexasRose has a very frenetic energy; she's very fidgety; and when she's not leaving for a smoke break or or wandering around the room huntin' the cold spot, she is eating. she's a normal weight but eating like a fat man. multiple sodas, bags of chips and chocolate bars are going down her gullet at a near-constant pace. i would be amused by all her shenanigans except for her real fatal flaw, which is that she's asking questions just to entertain herself (i think). we're supposed to be doing very overview type stuff-just general stuff like the life of an application and systems overview; but she interrupts constantly to ask really really specific questions which they have 100% indicated that they're going to cover the last two weeks. i blame the trainers for not telling her to shut it.