Typical Day
Emery slips into her favorite black dress and pairs it with an electric blue cardigan. The guy on the clock radio announces the time—7:35AM—which jolts Emery into action. She takes one more gulp of coffee, grabs her laptop bag, and rushes out of the door at 7:40AM.
Traffic: the thing about moving to a larger metropolitan area that Emery hates most. Every morning, her ten-mile drive takes almost an hour. She imagines the wasted energy, in the form of biodiesel fuels, being spent by all the drivers in the congested line of cars. She can't stop framing it as a question of energy brokerage, even though she knows the real solution would be for the city to please build and develop some alternate routes.
She pulls her daily card from the parking garage gate at 8:24AM. If she's lucky, there'll be a nice spot waiting just around the corner and the elevators will be fast this morning. Such is the case, and by 8:35AM she's settling in, pulling files, and looking at the latest forecasts of energy prices.
Emery has been working at WattAge for six months, so she now has a couple of large-volume clients whose accounts are exclusively in her care. The proposals for the new quarter are due in a few weeks, so she's been spending time each morning getting all her facts and figures straight.
"Good morning." The voice booming behind her almost gives Emery a heart attack. Mr. Watts (can that possibly be his real name? Emery always wonders), the company president, is in her office. "I hope I didn't startle you," he continues. "Looks like you're working on proposals? Good, good. If you're free at lunch today, I'd like you to join me and some other associates for an informal meeting. We'll order in. Sound good?"
The whole "most powerful person at the company" thing makes Mr. Watts pretty intimidating, but he's always smiling and happy and outgoing. Without getting too pun-y about it, Emery often thinks of him as the spark of energy that powers their energy brokerage firm.
"Yes, of course, sir. I'm free." Emery's heart is still pounding a little, but she quickly regains her composure. "Thank you." She writes down a lunch order and promises to meet in the conference room at 11:30AM sharp.
"Sounds good. Looking forward to it. Oh, and bring a printout of what you're working on there." With that, Mr. Watts turns and leaves. Emery's a little confused—why would he ask her to bring a printout?
She takes a few deep breaths and decides to go get some water from the break room—she'll be a nervous mess of jitters if she ingests any more coffee. Walking into the break room she nearly runs over a guy from the IT department. "Oh, I'm sorry. It's Steve, right? You're the one who set up my computer."
"Yeah. It's okay. You didn't see me." He smiles sheepishly and looks at his toes.
Emery gives him a smile. "I could've been paying more attention. I'm a little nervous—Mr. Watts just asked me to attend some big lunch meeting. I guess I'm just not used to things like that."
Steve manages to look up from his toes. "Oh really? Don't worry, he hosts a few 'get to know the new employees' lunches every year. I'm kind of prone to nervousness too, but I managed it just fine and I'm sure you will too."
Emery holds back a big grin this time. Steve is shy. "Thanks so much—I feel a lot better about it now." Steve looks back down at his shoes, mumbles something, and scurries down the hall. Giggling to herself, Emery gets a bottled water and heads back to her office.
Back at her computer, Emery glances at the clock. 9:15AM. There's still a lot to get done before the meeting, so she does her best to forget about lunch and lose herself in her research. You can never have enough clients in this business, but it's important to make sure you're dealing with reliable businesses before getting into serious contracts.
As people in the energy brokerage business know all too well, energy wasted means money wasted. She does that until 11:15AM, when she sends a few pages to the printer and makes her way to the conference room.
After Mr. Watts introduces all the new co-workers to each other, the group visits over lunch. Once they've finished their meal, Mr. Watts guides them into a work-related discussion. They talk about the best ways to isolate lucrative accounts, and suddenly Mr. Watts turns his attention to Emery. As he asks her for her thoughts on the matter, she thinks she feels her heart stop for the second time today.
"I'm trying to streamline my information-gathering for future proposals. This graphic organizer helps clients analyze their energy blueprints and highlights the good and bad points of each. It's also a transferable template, so the information can be gathered quickly and easily."
The other newbies nervously glance around at each other as Mr. Watts' eyes light up. Emery has clearly impressed him, and he asks her to prepare a presentation for the next meeting with the sales team.
"I'd be happy to do that, Mr. Watts. Thank you."
At 1:30PM, after the meeting, Emery meets with two potential clients and promises to send over proposals for them in a couple of days. As she's leaving, her cell phone buzzes. It's Mr. Watts' secretary, asking if she'll drop by the office when she gets back. Nervous, Emery agrees, wondering what Mr. Watts wants with her this time.
She drops some notes by her office, smooths her hair, and walks down to Mr. Watts' office. Watts' secretary Rebecca looks up and smiles. "Hello Emery. Mr. Watts will be right back. Have a seat."
"Uh, okay." Emery sits, tapping her foot and resisting the urge to bite her fingernails. When Mr. Watts walks back in, she bolts upright, then follows as he motions her into his office.
"Please, sit down. I'm going to write down some information for you. I have an old friend who wants to add on to his existing business, but wants to get an idea of what that new space will mean for their energy needs. I'd like for you to take over his account. Do you think your new blueprint template might be able to handle it?"
"Wh—yes, of course, I'd love to meet with him." Emery is so shocked, she can't help but let it show a bit.
As he walks her out of the office, Mr. Watt says, "Rebecca, keep an eye on this one. She's going places. We just need to get her over her case of the Steves."
"The Steves?" Emery asks.
Mr. Watts grins. "He's that shy young man in IT; we use him as shorthand around here for when someone is noticeably nervous. We don't mean to rag on him, though—he still does a great job. But you, young lady, have no reason to be nervous. That graphic organizer is really something. I think you're going to do quite well around here."
If Emery was failing to hide her excitement before, she figures she must be doing a terrible job of it now. She glances down at her watch; it's almost 5:00PM. Beet red, she thanks Rebecca and Mr. Watts, then excuses herself to finish up a proposal draft she left sitting on her desktop.
By 5:30PM, Emery is a little zonked out from the day's events, so she organizes her desk a bit and leaves herself a couple of sticky notes with information about tomorrow's meetings. She shuts her door and waves goodbye to Steve, who's quietly shuffling down the hall, then heads to the elevators.
After enduring another hour-long commute back home (though feeling in much better spirits this time around), she opens her front door at 6:38PM, kicks off her shoes, and looks at the delivery menus posted on her fridge. She doesn't have the energy to cook for herself tonight, so pizza it is. Waiting for her large pie with extra cheese, she stretches out on the couch and smiles, excited for her future at WattAge.