Asset Management Training

When a spot of bother breaks out, the new intern is asked to step in.

It would not be true to say that he was shoved out of the door, exactly. He stepped out on the hastily assembled stage, well, if not of his own free will, then at least without any physical encouragement. Unfortunately, he tripped rather badly on the way out, sending his cue cards flying in a sort of sad firework, just an instant before heavy plexiglass door was slammed shut behind him. So he could see how, to an uninformed spectator, it might look as though he had been shoved.

He then spent approximately eight hundred years scrabbling on his hand and knees, trying to separate limp paper from splintering wood. About halfway through this process, he became aware that the roars and chants and yells that been shaking the walls of HQ until a few moments ago had given way to utter, pindrop silence. His ears burned. Surely they could talk among themselves for a minute?

With perhaps half of the cue cards in his hand, he decided it was best to just get on with it. Dynamic problem solving, and all that.

He stood up, which quickly felt like a mistake. The old-fashioned radio microphone loomed before him, the few paces before it magically stretching into a thousand miles of stage. Beyond the mic- oh god. Best not to think about what lay beyond the mic.

He took a step, followed by another. Someone, somewhere, coughed. He felt like he were relearning how to use his legs. The thousand angry miners watching him would probably be happy to save him the trouble, by relieving him of them altogether.

Finally, the microphone was in speaking distance. It seemed to swallow half his face.

He cleared his throat.

"H-Hello-"

This whole time, the crowd had been silent. Now, when he would actually like them to be quiet and listen-

"Who the hell are you?"

This sentiment, once unleashed, proved to be rather popular. The first shout became several, became a low, hungry, jeer.

Kevin swabbed his brow with his handkerchief, which accomplished nothing.

"I'm- ah- I'm from HR-"

"Where's Dias?" shouted one person, or ten, or a hundred.

"M- Mr Dias regrets that he cannot-"

This was followed (inevitably, in hindsight) by the crowd's first actual boo. It seemed to whistle through the gaps in Kevin's bones.

Nevertheless, he pressed on. He shuffled through the cards like a desperate poker player, until he found a sentence that read like actual English.

"The company has heard your concerns, and requests that-"

The boos and jeers rose like an angry tide. A rotten cabbage flew towards the stage. It burst harmlessly a ways from Kevin's feet, but it set a dangerous precedent.

He attempted to combat this by speaking louder. What else could he do? If he tried to retreat now, he knew full well the door would not open for him.

"The global financial picture is most regrettable... We have all have to make sacrifices..."

Three more cabbages joined the first. The fourth projectile, a potato, collided with Kevin's stomach.

It was heavier than he could have ever imagined. He folded in half, wincing, as rotten vegetable matter coated his new shirt and trousers. The long, flat, jeers of the crowd broke into clusters of laughter.

Then, somehow, silence.

Not the sullen, scornful silence from before. A kind of awed, rippling hush. An abating.

Kevin looked up, blinking tears from his eyes.

The crowd of stocky miners had parted. In the path that had appeared, stretching from the edge of the stage back, back beyond where Kevin could see, a stooped old man was walking.

Kevin narrowed his eyes. The man looked far too old to work in the mines. And he walked with a cane! Productivity enhancement should have terminated him years ago.

And yet he wore the same dark overalls as the rest of the men, draped on his shrunken form like a bodhisattva's robes.

The man reached the stage. He rested his free elbow on the wood, like the two of them were chatting around a coffee table.

"Listen, boy." Kevin flinched at his tone - but there is no heat in it. Only steel. "What do you know about why we are striking? What have they told you?"

Kevin was sure the answer was in his cards. He began again to frantically rifle through them. The elder gave a long, rattling sigh, reached up with his cane, and knocked the stack from his hands.

"Whatever they've told you, this isn't about money. We are out here striking for our dignity."

The elder miner looked Kevin up and down, once.

"Look what they've got you doing. Barely a child, and you're out here, facing humiliation. Covering for them."

He reached out a hand, lined palm open, long fingers stretching up towards where Kevin stood, cowering.

"Come on, boy. You've more in common with us than with them."

Kevin looked back, at the faceless monolith of HQ. He felt the rows of unseen flinty eyes, staring down at him. He heard again the threats and insults of his superior which had pushed him out here in the first place.

He looked forward. The elder miner's eyes were twinkling, his face twisting into something like a smile.

For the first time in ages, Kevin felt something other than fear. A curl of hot, bright, anger.

He knelt down on the edge of the stage. He reached forward, and down. Finally, his soft, pale hand clasped together with the rough, lined one beneath him.