Chapter 17

They called it the 'lateral arabesque'. You hopped from company to company, each time a little farther up on the food chain. It was the result of several things:

First, there was very little promotion within a company. Most companies, when they posted a job internally, were also required to post it for the outside world.

Second, HR Departments tended to believe, absolutely, what was on resumés, leading them to conclude that the people outside a company were infinitely smarter and more qualified than those who worked there.

HR Departments hated people who jumped from job to job, regardless of the reason, but they were stuck with their own bad habits. IT Departments, on the other hand, thought exposure to many different environments was a good thing. Besides, they had all played that HR game.

Crystal heard her phone chime. She touched a button to make sure she looked "presentable", mostly that her hair wasn't a mess, then pressed <accept>.

"This is Crystal."

The screen on her monitor blinked and showed her caller, the Receptionist. "Your 10:00 is here, ma'am."

"I'll be right there."

She killed the connection, then put the cover over the camera lens. She had insisted HR send her all job applicants, not just the ones they liked. Everyone had learned that when it came HR wonks were easily bamboozled to programming skills. They also missed some gems in the rough. That was because they pigeonholed people, and denied some very talented people a chance to move up, which led to lateral arabesques, which lead to...

Crystal stifled that though. She stepped into her slacks, slid her shoes on, collected her interview material, and headed for Reception in the South Satellite Office right next door.

The company had put in a covered walkway, which was a good thing today because of the light drizzle.

She'd spent two years at the Blue, finally choosing to go back to Hubbard, but only after a six-month stop at a bank as a contractor. The bank work had been a lot of fun. She had come away with all sorts of ideas about computer security. The last month of her stay at the bank had been an opportunity she'd seized with both hands: she'd loaded up on as much information about computer security as she could cram in her had.

She'd been a Senior Programmer at Blue Cross, a System Analyst at the bank (jokingly referred to as the Joe's Feed and Grain by employees), and was now back at Hubbard as a Manager. She did less coding, and a lot more supervising and managing. What was funny was she found she liked it a lot more than the coding, and cutting code had been a lot of fun.

The applicant was Rosie, a network tech she'd met at Blue Cross.

"Tired of the insane hours and workload?" Crystal asked as she sat down.

"Just a little," Rosie said. She was a slender woman who looked uncomfortable in her nice slacks and blouse. Like most network techs, she was used to more informal clothes, what you needed to wear when you were crawling all over equipment.

"I handle a lot of the security here," Crystal said, "and most of that is through software. We're not up to mainframe security, but we're getting there."

"I was thinking this was a hardware job," Rosie said.

"Consider extending yourself. I need someone who is good with equipment and is willing to learn how to code. It's been my experience that coders don't make good equipment people, but equipment people can make fair coders."

"Well, ma'am, I, uh..."

"So let's talk about your hardware experience."

Rosie relaxed, clearly feeling in her element. Crystal ticked off the points she was after, though she didn't let Rosie see that. The girl wouldn't be working in the private part of the company, but that was all right. They never hired off the street for that, but moved someone to that after a lot of investigating and testing.

Finally, after a good 30 minutes of questions and answers, Crystal said. "Okay, I have no further questions." She looked at the summary. She made a decision and slid a sheet of paper out of her folder and handed it to the young woman. "This is our job offer."

Rosie looked at it, then went back and reread it very closely. "This is more than I thought it would be."

"Actually it's competitive with the salaries being paid in the local area. Insurance companies and banks tend to underpay. We are a 24-hour a day shop, and have to do a lot of games with mirror-imaging to get our backups done. I'll warn you, if you accept, you'll be on Tuesday through Saturday shift, starting graveyard. However you should be able to move on to one of the other shifts fairly quickly."

"What's the busiest one?"

"Evenings. People are home and they call Customer Service. That's what we do around here."

Rosie nodded, staring at the offer sheet. "That's a different mix of benefits than I've seen."

"Our boss insisted. I understand she got some flak from the insurance carriers when she began looking for someone to offer that, but after a bit they agreed. I think it's a good mix, personally."

Rosie rubbed her chin. "All right, I'll accept the offer."

Crystal held out her hand. "Good. We'll have to arrange a start date. Let me walk you over to one of our HR people to get the paperwork started."

Rosie smiled, looking relaxed. "Software, eh? You'll pay for me learning to code?"

"We have people in-house who can teach you. Learning to code will be part of your job. However, we don't push you like a death march, learn or else. We want people who can do the job as an adjunct to what they're doing. I can get any number of pure coders who can't be trusted within ten feet of a server."

Rosie laughed, and the two walked a few steps to the HR person sitting at a nearby desk. There Crystal introduced them and got things started. "Let me know on the start date," she said. "The Blue might want you to take a leave after you turn in your notice."

Rosie nodded. "I think that's the procedure. They're a bit paranoid there."

"A lot of insurance companies are, it's not just the Blues. The health care laws almost mandate a company be concerned about such things."

Crystal walked back to her desk feeling pretty good. She knew Rosie was a hard worker, and giving her a chance to learn the coding side of things would be a plus. She liked it when she found someone who had that much potential.

She checked to make sure the cover was still on the camera lens in her monitor. You couldn't be too careful, she thought as she hung up her slacks. She smoothed out the towel on her chair and sat down with a sigh. She was feeling some tension, and was going to need some relief, probably over lunch.

Her phone beeped. She removed the lens cover to check her appearance. Her hair was in pretty good shape, and she looked neat and professional. She wanted to laugh. If they only knew she was bare from the waist down. It used to be that she would leave her bra off after her morning break; it just felt more comfortable to do so. You couldn't do that with these new picture-phones. She hadn't thought about it, but a woman from the main office had explained it.

"Your boobs don't move together if you're not wearing a bra," she said, "and if you're wearing a white blouse, your nipples and areola will show through the fabric. You don't want that. That's why you'll have to wear a bra. The good news is that you won't have to worry about the rest of your underwear."

The woman had been right. There was no way you could tell if someone was wearing panties under their clothes. And, one of the benefits, you also got rid of the dreaded Visible Panty Line. Men didn't realize how far women were willing to go to avoid showing those lines under their clothes.

With everything presentable, Crystal touched the correct button. "This is Crystal."

"Hey Crys," Janet said. "That fix we put in last night didn't work, and..."

Crystal hid her smile. Hiring people might be fun, but she still liked getting her teeth in a good programming problem. Deep in her heart she was still a programmer.

She had to cut short the coding bull session as they brainstormed fixes. HR wanted her back to finish the paperwork for Rosie. She was still turning code problems over in her mind, and when she got to the door she remembered she needed her slacks. This building was adjacent to the South office, which was a "normal" business wear facility. The Tech Adjunct wasn't, and she'd almost walked out bare.

Rosie was all pumped and enthusiastic, and Crystal shook her hand, got her pumped even more, and generally did the rah-rah for the company. She even loaned Rosie a self-teaching guide for the coding she'd be learning. That got the young woman even more excited.