Induction day!

It’s my first day on the job. My employer has laid on a day of induction training to help me understand various stuff like not to wear my badge in public because I might get mugged. The public thinks we are now wine-swilling millionaires ripe for a mugging although this couldn’t be further from the truth. Remember the security number in case some tragedy befalls you. Please take in this information related to your pension. Your medical cover is not as good as it was in your previous job so while you will pay money into the obligatory scheme you won’t be covered in full unless you are really very ill. We would have provided you with a lunch but due to austerity you will have to go out and get yourselves a sandwich.

After the sandwich we form discussion groups organised along various lines such as what is expected of you professionally, where can find a GP etc, etc. As the new college of governors has just come out of the oven, the audience is brimming with the governors’ political appointees. The best of the rest is populated with the likes of me, hired on fixed term contracts, and other sods who passed the entrance exam. I come across one of a commissioner’s communication hounds parachuted in from the Netherlands. She looks stressed and ends every sentence with …i need it for my job. She seems to be on some other plane of alertness. I wonder about the possibility of substance abuse.

‘Do you get Dutch TV here?’
‘Yes,’ I tell her.
‘What about the private channels?… I need it for my job.’ Her eyes are bulging.

Professional lady, upwardly mobile ad infinitum, smashing every glass ceiling in her way but perhaps not so young anymore. She seems truly plugged into her matrix. I imagine her shaking up cocktail of red bull and vitamins then switching on the telly to the Dutch private channels to see how the governor might react on the day’s happenings.
Eventually she asks why I am here? I just make up some nonsense about being a policy officer or some shit like that. Her eyes are bulging a little more. I wonder whether she detects the scornful lie. Maybe, but probably not.