Getting to know each other

It was hard not to notice the fear in her eyes. Mary and I started at the same time in this department. It was quite a small team, just six people (5 men and Mary) and our meeting looked a bit out of place in the huge meeting room. The work was very specialised, quite difficult and just as important for the company.

Our manager Andy made a suggestion. "In my teams it is customary that we go to the sauna together on a regular basis. That way we get to know each other perfectly."

I reacted: "I have been in quite a lot of teams, never had problems getting to know my colleagues and never had complaints about it. Furthermore I did not read anything about this in the job description. I would pass on this one. If I want to go to the sauna I rather go with my wife. Sorry if I hurt anybody with this, but this is where I stand on this matter."

Mary sighed with relief and said that she agreed with me. I thought I had made a friend and also made an enemy.

Time passed and we had our regular meetings, nothing special happened. Until that meeting:

Mary pointed out that she really regretted this, but she had noticed I had made a terrible mistake that had cost the company dearly. She showed the others copies of the case and gave me a copy too.

I told the group that in my opinion we were just human, we all make mistakes. It was more important to learn from these than point a finger to the culprit. And I could tell them that it was not my mistake, but that the signature of Fred was under the thing. The discussion went on a bit, Fred admitted his mistake and was just as quick forgiven.

A few months later Mary had found another mistake, it was not very significant, but it was very obvious that it was mine. This time nothing was forgiven, the mood in the meeting was very negative. Randy Andy told me he was going to ask for me to get the sack. The next day I was invited to a meeting with the top management and got fired. Thanks to my union representative and his threatening with a court case I got the payment of two years salary to make it easier for me to find a new job. I was fired under the pretence of incompatible characters with other members of the team.

About two years later I unexpectantly bumped into Mary in a supermarket. She tried to be invisible, but I greeted her in a very loud manner, so she could not get away that easy. She asked me how I was and I told her my new salary was now twice as much as in the days when I worked with her. And I was working in a very good team with some great people. I could not help myself but ask: "Did you have a nice visit to the sauna lately?" Her face got red and she mumbled something I could not understand. Then she turned around and left the supermarket without any shopping.

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Contact Lost

His idea was proven not to be a success. He was feeling for weeks that the relation with his girl friend was coming to an end. They hardly had any good times lately, were spending hours being angry with each other. So he had been thinking to do something nice with her and had come up with this trip to the seaside. 

But after spending hours on the beach, which she normally liked, she was very grumpy. According to her it had been boring, he realised he was a bit to be blamed. He had fallen asleep, no wonder when you spend hours in silence on a beach towel. So now she went on and on about him snoring next to her. And after deciding to go home, they missed the train and now had to wait for almost an hour.

He didn't react, knew it would not help a lot. Any word from him would be like throwing oil on an open fire. After a while she was out of words and told him she was going to get a coffee. It was too much trouble to ask if he wanted one too. She left him standing on his own on the platform. 

He stared into the distance without really seeing something. There was a train at the next platform, had been there for some time. He sort of woke up to notice that two girls were hanging half out of one of the windows. One was wearing a white top, the other something with a lot of colours. Even from this distance he could notice that the one with white top probably was quite attractive and was waving and shouting at him. He could not understand what she was saying. The other girl seemed to be quite amused and laughed a lot.

First he thought it was about somebody else, but except for him the platform was completely deserted. He could not help it, felt a bit embarrassed. His girl friend might come back any moment. The girl blew him kisses in the air and he stood there a bit helplessly. The other girl kept giggling.

His girl friend came back with a paper cup of coffee and stood next to him again, her back to the rails, reading some commercial announcements on the boards. He decided to react and waved back at the girl. She reacted with even more air kisses. He was a bit worried: if his girl friend noticed this, his relation certainly would be lost.

His partner went to a bin to throw her empty cup away and the girl shouted something again. The sound got lost because of the noise of a train coming in and getting to their platform. It parked right in front of them, so he could not see the other train anymore. His girl friend announced she had to go the toilet and walked away. He had become a bit curious now, wondered what the girl would do next.

The train in front of him drove off, he would soon know. But when the train was gone, he only could see the other train leave too. In the other direction. It was almost not noticeable but she was still waving until the train went out of his sight.

He wondered on their way home about the girl, was silent. 

A few days later his girl friend phoned him, told him she didn't want to see him anymore.

He wondered, should he put an ad in a newspaper? You often see these. Like "You with yellow jacket and your lovely smile. I saw you on the train to ... on ..." He didn't think anything ever came off these. For some time he read these ads in his newspaper anyway, maybe she would place one. But he never saw anything like it.

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