New Recruit

I am the newest recruit to the book loving cult that is the Literary Gift Company and I decided to say Hi to all our customers and tell you the story of a young lady’s first week at her new job….

Arriving bright and early for the first day at her new job, Charlotte (the heroine of this tale), was greeted by Dani and Matthew who although smiling and very welcoming, informed her that they “are not morning people, so please don’t feel like you have to be chipper!” After this Charlotte felt far more relaxed, for although she tries to be jolly at all times, she finds mornings have never agreed with her, and in actual fact make her feel quite unwell. (As a side I would like to add that Charlotte aka me decided to be all healthy for this new job and walk to work every morning, however, once I realised that driving meant that I could spend longer in bed this idea sadly died a sudden death having only lived a day).

Now back to the story, which I will now seamlessly change as I skip through the fields of genres (sorry! I may have got a little carried away and over excited when I was told I could write on the blog! OOPSY!)…

Having arrived at work, on foot, on time AND without getting lost I was given a cup of tea and a tour of our little building. I say little but this gives the wrong impression. We have three rooms on the ground floor, all of which feature stunningly high ceilings, and two that have marble fireplaces, that are unfortunately non-operational! Otherwise in the depths of winter you would find me huddled in front of the open fire sneakily reading a book!

One thing that has astounded me in my first week is the amount of tea and coffee my new colleagues drink! Now I am a tea drinker, or at least I thought I was, compared to these guys I am an amateur! I have maybe 3-4 cups of tea a day and no coffee. I thought this was a lot… how sheltered my life has been until now!

One of my first jobs was to learn and find all our products. Whilst sifting through the stock room familiarising myself with everything an eerie silence fell upon me. A blinding light suddenly shot from above, piercing the growing darkness. Trembling I struggled to move my increasingly heavy legs, propelling my body towards the light. Blade runner was its destination, Blade runner I must see. The aliens above obviously love that book and so must I. I must discover the ever alluding answer to: ‘Do Androids dream of electric sheep?’ (WALLETS COMING SOON!)

After my alien encounter I was not expecting any more excitement, however, the greatest surprise of all was about to slap me round the face…

Gazing through the shelves my heart began to flutter as our eyes met. Never had I felt, so instantaneously, so whole-heartedly, so strongly. It was simply love at first sight! My life would not be complete until I possessed him, my love, my life, my other half. He completes me.  My squashed bookmark man!

So thus my first week ended, I packaged, weighed, drank tea, fell in love and had an alien encounter!!! Shocking! Hopefully next week will be slightly more sedate.

But my tale does not end there as luckily for me my new colleagues had their priorities firmly in line with mine, the first thing on the agenda … work drinks! Having moved to the area and not knowing anyone this was the perfect welcome! The mixture of a good pub, alcohol and laughter was the ideal ending to my first week.

But still my story does not end, there is still one more piece to this puzzle that must be told…

As the clouds brewed on a chilling Saturday morning the silence of the Literary Gift Company was shattered by the piercing cry of broken glass. Long bony fingers crept over the windowpane as droplets of red stained the jagged edges. Attached to these disgusting fingers was a body, small and grotesque, the crimes of its life etched on the face. Slithering through the window the body skulked around the hallway deciding which door to violate and destroy.

Having gone to all the trouble of breaking not one but two windows in completely different areas of the building (one in the little under the stairs cup washing room we have and the other in the stock room), and the effort of squeezing themselves through the smallest window possible, the trusty burglars made a disappointing discovery… The room they had imagined their riches to be kept was full of tea towels and mugs! I can imagine their little faces as they surveyed the spoils of all their hard work only to be welcomed by bright yellow rubber duckies reading books.

The clues had been laid and now it was time to introduce ‘The Detective.’ He may not have been dressed in tweed, have his trusty companion Dr. Watson, or smoke a pipe, but I have total, ok maybe partial faith, in our very own Sherlock Holmes. He will be able to find the deviants who broke into our bat cave! The size of the window that they squeezed through helped him in his deduction that the culprits were not fat, round or even slightly chunky. Instead the villains of this piece were positively skinny, if anything they probably needed a good pie! Following our trusty detective was his side-kick, the CSI guy. Unfortunately not dressed in a blue jumpsuit but instead casually in jeans and a t-shirt, he opened his forensic kit to reveal the staple item that completes any CSI … a torch. Inspecting all the door frames, broken glass, corners and mugs (just in case our robbers got thirsty) with his trusty torch, he began work. Gently rubbing his brush of black powder over every possible entry point, he began his quest for fingerprints…

The saga of the broken window is an ongoing investigation so I shall keep you all informed of our trusty detectives progress. Until next time…..