“It is difficult to answer at once, but I think I can manage my work.”
“Good. Here is a sample application and questionnaire. Take a physical examination. When you prepare all the documents and take a picture, we will issue a pass and you can start working. And remember the main thing – you will work with people, everyone has his own character, but we have one plan, so everything depends on you, how you can get the job done.”
She listened attentively to the chief, took the questionnaire and a copy of the statement, said: “Thank you, good-bye,” and left the room in full confidence that the work of the replacement master is exactly what she needed, and her salary suited. A week went by for the medical commission. A week later, with all the documents, she again appeared in the office of the head of the personnel department. Now he met her already not so formal and cold. It was evident that she liked him. And Lucy was already less afraid. She was smiling.
“Here, please, my documents.”
“Very well. Your immediate chief of the workshop, Alexander Dmitrievich Torobov,” the personnel officer dialed the phone number, but it was busy, replaced the receiver, took another minute and invited his colleague to his office. “Now he’s busy with college graduates, wait. Torobov will talk about the main points of work and conduct safety briefings.”
A handsome man of about thirty-six appeared on the threshold.
“Meet – Lyudmila Nikolaevna Uvarova – a replacement master. Please love and respect.”
“Very nice. Now I will tell you about the need to observe safety procedures and specifically in your work.”
Lucy followed him into the shop. He instructed, and then added:
“You’ll work in the sixth shop. First you’ll have to learn. Six months later, you’ll understand everything yourself. Our workshop is very clean. We are fighting for the cleanliness of the workplace. By your specialty – electronics – there will be a wide field of activity. If you get down to business thoroughly, you can achieve success. We have all the conditions for trouble-free work in the shop.”
Lucy listened attentively to the instructions of the commander. He immediately liked her, spoke calmly and clearly, it was hard not to get confidence in him. “It will be easy to work under the guidance of this person,” she thought.
By lunchtime the conversation with Torobov was ended. Uvarova was a little tired. It was necessary once again to go to the head of the personnel department for a pass, but at lunch time all the rooms were empty. Lucy did not want to go home and also decided to have dinner at the nearest cafe. When she walked from the checkpoint with the employees, she felt herself a full member of the production team.
It was an August day. Hot. The weather was dry and sunny. At her heart it was easy and peaceful. Singing a fashionable tune, somewhere accidentally heard, Lucy drew attention to the age of the staff. There were mostly young people.
Lucy ran across the street and walked two blocks in the hope of seeing a cafe. She paid attention to the peasant’s house “Hut” in the Russian style and went inside.
A spacious room with walls painted with bright colors, wooden tables and chairs, where on the windows hung embroidered curtains with cockerels, carved saltcellars in the form of barrels. All the staff was in national clothes. The people were few.
Lucy ordered Russian borscht, cutlets and compote. After substantial lunch, she turned on the music in the phone, inserted a small button-transmitter in her ears, and a melody sounded that resonated with the mood. She turned off the melody and pressed Alexey’s number. He hurriedly responded to hear his beloved voice:
“What if I study a foreign language and then try to enter graduate school,” she sang in a thin voice, waiting for an answer.
“You will begin professional growth; eventually become the chief of the shop, and possibly the chief of production. Dare…”
“If my mother were alive, she certainly approved my plans. You know, I did not meet a more caring and sympathetic person, my dear.”
Lucy sat for a while in the cafe and, it seems, completely relaxed and forgot that she should go to the factory. Then she got up and went to the door.
She received the pass the same day, and from the next day she was to attend the workshop. She wanted to call Alex, but decided to ring Olga:
“How are you? Do you work with Alexey?” asked an eternally busy friend.
“That’s when everything will go back to normal at work, and then I’ll call him,” Lucy categorically answered, “if he himself does not think of calling me.”
“I’m beginning to get used to the fact that your relationship has become cool, as before,” Olga lazily sympathized. “Come in, we’ll chat…”
Suddenly Alexey called, but his voice was sad and tired.
“Tanya started a private investigation and hopes to find the killer of my aunt, oddly enough, next week for a thousand bucks,” he explained.
“That’s great!” Lucy approved and wanted to ask what was on his soul, knowing that Alex would be pleased. “I hope the mood has improved?”
“A wood grouse is a winter bird… See you, for now,” he turned off the iPhone.
The next day Lucy went to work. The first thing Torobov conducted in the shop and showed where the workplace was – a table with a computer in the room with a view from the window to the factory yard.
“The room is clean and bright. There are flowers on the windowsills, a shelf with books at the wall,” Lucy praised the chief. “Very cozy!”
“Do not think that you’ll be sitting here. Now you go everywhere with me first, until you know all the work, and then I trust you to lead the shop on your own. You’ll only turn to me for some insoluble questions,” Torobov said smiling.
She liked this state of affairs. “There will be time for professional growth,” she thought.
The working week passed unnoticed. At the end she called Izmailov:
“The feeling comes, we are an integral part of the debugged mechanism of the plant,” she said. “The industry is progressive and important. The main difficulty: to find contact with people. I kiss and look forward to meeting with you.”
“Encourage trust and understanding, and then respect for your work,” he shared his experience. “Tomorrow I’ll see you, my love!”
“Our collective of the workshop is all youth,” she admired with emotion.
“The most fascinating thing for me is communication with people,” she told Alexey when she met him. “I understood that the formation of the working man was taking place here.”
“Not a single dynasty has brought up and raised a factory within its walls.” Alex took Lucy by the arm and casually hugged her around the waist. “Previously, they came here after a vocational school with professional skills. I love your scent.”
“I understand, let’s have coffee,” she said and felt a hot breath on her shoulder as they sat down at a coffee table.
“The foundation of the working profession is laid, and, most importantly, the consciousness is being brought up that the work is needed not only for everyone individually, but for the whole country as a whole,” he added.
“Me without sugar,” she protested
When Lucy walked through the territory of the company, she repeatedly drew attention to the Board of Honor – photos of people who had devoted more than one year to work at the plant – assemblers of grinders, programmers and computer engineers, crane and electronics operators, doctors, painters and builders, electricians and technologists.
“The