Orla had been working for the Corporation for about three years now. She liked it, she liked feeling part of something so big, with so much influence, despite herself being just a lowly PA. She was part of it, she had access to that building, she met those people, and although often enough she did not understand what they were talking about, she nodded her head and smiled pleasantly.
The Corporation was well hated. Too big, too rich, too far reaching. They all were concerned with the size of the Corporation, but nobody gave a thought to the small army of little people that were benefiting from their work there. Should their existence make the Corporation a more benign entity? Orla did not know and did not think about it, she just moved quickly crossing the large corridors, always wanting to prove her usefulness.
The job at the Corporation had given her access to a world that she never thought she could be a part of, and she was intent on keeping it for as long as it was humanly possible.
Orla’s boss was a woman she barely got to see, she was flying all over the world on Corporation business and Orla would sometimes day dream that, in the future, she herself might be in a similar role and fly from place to place, meeting people that were deferential and polite, who would listen to her every word and value her opinions. Those people, they would not correct her every word and would not dispute her every opinion, they would agree and would be amazed by the wonderfully creative solutions she provided to their very difficult problems.
In her twenty-ninth year Orla felt she was where she belonged and knew what she wanted. To belong.
Sometimes, when the Receptionist was busy or needed to do something, Orla would stand in reception enjoying directing people and answering questions. She was this bobblehead of welcome and pleasantries.
On one of these occasions a courier arrived to deliver something in a large, heavy box. He had all the paper work so she signed it in, and when the Receptionist came back she said she will take it upstairs as it was for the PA of all PAs, the CEO’s PA and Orla knew how particular she was.
With the heavy box on a trolley, Orla made her way to the fourth floor and went looking for Lorna, the woman all the other PAs aspired to be like some day.
A in her late fifties Lorna did not look a day over forty. Dressed in a perfectly tailored suit, with her hair exquisitely done, you would have been tempted to think she was one of the execs and not a PA. Orla had rehearsed her words, and forced herself to talk slowly and breathe between sentences. She hated it when she got all flustered and sounded like she was having a stroke.
‘Hello!’
Lorna looked up and waited without saying a word.
‘I was in reception downstairs … of course downstairs … there is no upstairs reception … I am sorry.’ Orla felt her face burning.
‘A parcel came???’, Lorna jumped up from her chair and came round her desk.
‘Well yes!’, Orla was puzzled by the unexpected reaction.
‘Oh thank you so much! You saved me! Come, come! The meeting will start in ten minutes!’, Lorna started to walk in impossible high and slim heels. You could see she was a different generation, nobody wore that kind of shoes anymore.
Walking faster than if she had been in trainers, Lorna hurried Orla in a large meeting room beautifully set up, ready for it’s users. Lorna took out a box cutter from her suit pocket and quickly opened the box. In it, beautifully wrapped in soft, white paper were the most amazing looking project planners.
‘You look through that make sure it is all correct. Check dates, sections, categories, randomly just to make sure they are ok. I ordered these from the end of the world and you never know if they keep to what you instruct them.’, and she shoved one of the beautiful planners in Orla’s hands while she was taking the rest out of the box and distributing them like a machine in front of each seat.
‘Well?’, she asked Orla who was lost in admiration of the wonderful object. Each section had different color pages, there was a calendar, and soft dividers that could be moved around, the outside had a soft feel, like velvet, and on the back a large pocket for whatever you would need to put in it.
‘It is wonderful!’, her voice soft and velvety, reflected her opinion.
‘Amazing!’, the briskness in the other woman’s voice made Orla snap out of her awe.
‘Can I help?’
‘No, no, all done!’, Lorna fanned her hand showing off the perfectly set table, now complete with the planners beautifully arranged.
‘Come on, we need to leave they will be coming soon! You can keep that!’, and Lorna nodded towards the planner Orla was holding. ‘And take this trolley down please! Thank you!’, and off she went on her unbelievable high heels walking as Orla would walk when she was wearing her Skechers, confident and comfortable.
Back at her desk, Orla hid her wonderful gift in the drawer, and went about her duties with her thoughts going back to it and rejoicing of the happiness of owning it.
In the evening she took it home feeling a bit like a thief although it had been given to her. Maybe it was for work … but she wanted it home, to take care of it and treasure it. When the weekend came Orla took out the planner and looked at it. The paper had this strange, milky texture, different than normal paper, and in different lights the pages seemed to change color.
On the back she read that it was stone paper, she had never seen that, she looked it up online and was amazed. For a split second she was tempted to try and see if it was indeed water proof and tear proof, but then she changed her mind, the planner was too beautiful to risk it.
Having the planner did something strange to Orla’s mind. She started to have all these plans in her head, plans that she thought about and how they would be put into action with the help of the wonderful planner, but when it came to writing in it Orla could not do it. It was just too wonderful to ruin with her scribbling and far fetched ideas.
So, the projects remained just plans in Orla’s head, until, pushed out by other pressing thoughts, they became lost memories.
To protect the wonderful object Orla wrapped it into plastic film, so now it became an inaccessible little bundle, well protected from dust and mold, and of course from touch. Because it was so well wrapped Orla would not look at it anymore, she just enjoyed secretly at the thought of possessing it.
Another day, maybe more than one year later, it was one of those rare occasions when her Boss was in the office and Orla was ready to fulfill all demands.
‘Bring me my stuff from the desk.’, the DM popped up on Orla’s phone.
Orla jumped from her desk and heard her laptop make a sound again.
‘Basement library.’
She went to the desk and picked up her Boss’s laptop and on top of it there was a planner, just like the one she had at home. Orla felt a wave of warmth sweep over her at the thought that she possessed something that her Boss also had. On the elevator ride though she noticed something very different between the two planners.
The one she was now carrying to its owner was well used, had tired corners and a scuffed cover.
‘The poor planner!’, Orla thought, and smiled to the mental image of her pristine planner, nicely wrapped in her desk at home.
The basement library was exactly what it was called, a library in the basement, but as it belonged to the Corporation it was like something from a movie set. Actual books stood in their thousands on shiny metal shelves, while comfy reading spots were sprinkled all over the place.
In the beautifully lit place Orla found her boss at a large reading table surrounded by open books.
‘Oh thank you! I needed my planner!’, she took it from Orla and opened it expertly to a section filled with notes and charts drawn by hand.
‘Nothing beats writing things down by yourself, even though I am horrible at drawing.’
It was then that Orla could see the extent of the usage of the planner. It had become thicker with additional inserts and it was like a large book itself.
‘Are you ok, Orla? You look a bit pale.’, the woman’s voice expressed concern.
‘Yes … I was just surprised to see your planner, I was sure everything is on the laptop nowadays …’
The woman laughed.
‘Well yeah, everything gets to the laptop in the end, but for the thought process, to build, I find that I do it better offline as it were … my brain seems to like writing by hand, and even my crooked drawing. I get loads done like this, in silence and solitude …’
‘Oh! Of course! Do you want some tea or anything?’, Orla got the gentle hint.
‘Not right now, no, thank you!’, and she returned to her planner.
The next few days Orla could not stop thinking about her planner and the well used one, somehow the one with actual plans it in seemed to her so much more beautiful now, and a part of her wanted to see hers the same. But, she herself, she had no plans, no projects … no prospects.
That was when Orla remembered how she had felt as a little girl, pretending to look for jobs in the newspaper. She was pretending, but she was extremely serious in her pretense.
She would do the same now. She took out the planner from its plastic cover and although she had nothing to plan she wrote in it. The first day a bit, then the more she thought about it, a bit more. Orla started to create mini projects for herself detailing the steps she needed to take to accomplish them, and she started to get creative with her tasks, with her free time, with her life.
The Project Planner became her tracker, her journal and her guide, and Orla found that she was blossoming and was more content than ever.
When the email came Orla read it in one breath and could barely contain a happy dance. Her Boss needed her on one of her trips to Japan, they would travel in two weeks.
Orla confidently took out her planner expertly starting a new project, knowing exactly what steps she needed to figure it out, or what to do to figure out the steps she needed.
So: Japan Trip! (1st of many :) )