Shortly after I approached Claudia’s desk located in The Whisperer’s entrance lobby. It was an area that had been intended to feel inviting with white tiled floor, bright lights and single pot plant, but I personally found the room to serve only as a reminder I would die penniless.
At my approach Claudia looked up with a face of pure ice and stone.
“Hi, Claudia.” I attempted to deliver the greeting with nonchalant coolness, but it came out sounding like an apology.
“You want something?” She looked at me expectantly, frost dripping from her nose.
“Yes, um, Brent mentioned a form…?”
“I’m riveted.”
“For… training,” I shifted from foot to foot, “For defence training?”
“You want the claim form?”
“That’s probably it, yes.”
She reached down, took a stack of paper roughly equivalent to a small tree from a drawer, and tossed it in front of me.
“Is the form somewhere in this pile?”
“Fill those out, bring them back and I’ll apply for the claim.”
“The whole pile?”
She attempted to kill me with a stare of venom and I accepted it as cue I was no longer welcome.
It took most of the morning to complete the paperwork, having to phone my mother twice for “next of kin” information. One section involved having me describe how severely I felt my life was in danger, giving only “very” and “not at all” as options. I added a third option; “somewhat,” and marked it as my choice.
I handed in the forms just before lunch, feeling rather pleased with my own record time in completing work involving paper and pen. My expectation was that I might have the claim approved in about a month if I was lucky, but was prepared for a much longer wait. It came as somewhat of a shock that as I left for home five hours later Claudia put a single sheet of paper on her desk, freezing me in my steps.
“That’s yours,” she said.
“What?”
She tapped the paper with a finely manicured finger. “Your claim.”
I picked up the sheet; the words “claim approved” leapt out at me, stamped neatly in the upper right corner. I was dumbfounded. “How is this possible?”
“Someone called in and had it pushed through.”
“Who?”
Having reached her daily quota for words spoken she fell back on the tried and trusted method of staring at me like I was made of faeces.
I scanned the paper for more information and was met with my second surprise. I had been granted time off from work ‘until such time as trainee graduated from defence training.’ It was unthinkable. The Whisperer spent most of its time hoping I would forget to collect my pay cheque, giving me this VIP treatment was so unlikely I assumed there had been some kind of mix up. “You sure this is mine, Claudia?”
“Please go away.”
Deciding it was not in my best interest to gaze into the maw of the proverbial horse, I left for home. With every step closer to my car I fully expected a Whisperer accountant to become aware of the grievous error, leap out from behind a bush and attempt to restrain me.