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Millicent Bulstrode (reinventingmils) wrote in finnigans_rpg,
@ 2014-10-07 03:17:00

Entry tags:

character: millicent bulstrode, character: richard summerby

Who: Richard and Millicent

What: Interviewing for a job

Where: Offices of International Exports Ltd.

When: Tuesday morning, 9:55 on the dot

Rating: SFW

The view was pretty, she had to admit. It looked like a fairly interesting neighbourhood, and she wondered how much of it was magic, and how much Muggle. Rubbing right up next to each other -- was it as straightforward as it looked on the surface, or did the Messrs Summerby have a detailed infrastructure in place on their properties? That would be intriguing to find out, she admitted to herself, looking at the building's façade while she straightened, smoothed, and made sure everything was in place.

Then she started up to the door, let herself in, and looked for the reception desk before making her way over to it. "I'm Miss Bulstrode," she said, curling her fingers around the strap of her purse a little more tightly as the receptionist looked up to meet her eyes. "I'm here to meet Mr Summerby; he's expecting me." Did she imagine a wince at her last name? Well, it didn't matter if her name meant something or not; she was here for a reason, and she wasn't going to let someone she didn't know taint the calm Dora'd helped her find. As she was offered a seat, which she took, and a cup of tea, which she declined, she took another assessing look around, noting the lines and the décor in addition to the people moving in and out.

Interesting. She knew the company's name fairly well due to the range of interests they covered, but she'd never had reason to know well anyone who was involved with it. Maybe that would change, after today. She hoped, anyway. The research she'd done to prepare had been mostly fascinating (the rest of it over her head), and while she knew perfectly well an office manager didn't really travel, she couldn't help hoping that if she were hired...maybe she could go along once in a while. It was something she envied Blaise, the opportunity to see new places while he worked.

He seemed taller in person, she thought in surprise as Richard Summerby came into the room at precisely 10 o'clock. How odd. She stood immediately, and offered him her hand when he drew close.

"Mr Summerby, I'm Millicent Bulstrode. Good morning."

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reinventingmils
2014-10-21 06:45 am UTC (link)

It was hard not to let the professional façade slide, but she managed it, face calm whilst thinking quickly all the while. A month was quite a lengthy amount of training, and she'd have to be very quick on her feet to learn enough to start doing the job well. Having her brain picked was fine: Millicent knew she had learned a lot from her previous employment, and how to multi-task under pressure. It just...would be interesting having to work so closely with people who wouldn't normally be in her...social atmosphere, as it were.

But a bigger sticking point remained, she realised as Rich kept speaking, and Millicent pressed her lips together very slightly. She was proud of her magic; it felt like a sort of betrayal, in a way, to have to completely hide that she had the abilities she did. There was a lot of Muggle machinery in the room, she noticed again: the computer, and several other things she didn't recognise. They all looked fairly expensive, she thought to herself, and handling them would make her nervous. Not only because she didn't know how to use them, but because it would only be correct for her to replace them if something happened to them while she were doing so.

And she had to wonder how well she would take to the finer points of very specifically not using magic.

Practicality and upbringing warred in her eyes as she looked around the room again. The former reminded her that rent needed to be paid by whatever manner she could contrive, since her father had specifically stated how much help he could and couldn't give her. But the latter screeched that she couldn't possibly consider working somewhere she'd have to hide her magic (need, indeed!), and be taught by people she probably wouldn't know in the first place. Her impression from Dora was that Rich seemed to be extremely practical, to the point of tolerating almost no frills at all, and that had been borne out so far. She could appreciate that, she admitted to herself. He was very, very frank, for good or ill, but he did at least see that she would be flying blind at the beginning, if he made her an offer and she accepted.

In the moment after he finished, Millicent thought rapidly. Her family had kept out of the world of the Death Eaters, but nevertheless, given that she'd been a Slytherin in Potter's year, not many would-be employers were eager to make her an offer. She couldn't begin to think how she would adapt (or what her father or, Morgana help her, Pansy would think), but Rich was offering, and she needed to make the best of her cards. No one could fault her for that. International Exports had an excellent reputation; she knew that from the small handful of times her father had gotten products through them. And for all that she didn't quite understand how the ship sailed, it seemed to be done very tightly.

So she sat back in her chair, shoulders straight, and tilted her head in query. "What would you expect from me in the first few weeks, given my...background? What do you consider the most important thing for me to learn at first?" Taking another sip of her water, she thought over his earlier comment. "How many office assistants do you employ, currently? What does a typical day in your office look like?"

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the_richard
2014-10-21 09:10 am UTC (link)

Richard had always been good with people. It had probably started when he was a child, the way his father and grandfather encouraged him to get out and meet both muggle and magical children, to play with them equally alike. His hadn't been the world of nannies and pristine nurseries. Yes, he'd had his tutors and the lessons his social status called for. But he could still speak French with a Parisian accent or that of a Marseilles dock worker.

Working with magical creatures had helped hone his acuity for non-verbal clues. During the war he'd stayed alive partly because of his powers of observation, his ability to react to tiny bits of information. Since the war, he relied on that and the way a child who had learned multiple languages could easily learn more as an adult to make a rather successful living as a contract negotiator.

So it wasn't that unusual, for him, anyway, that Rich caught the slight tightening of lips, the glances around the room at the various examples of muggle technology, the slight hesitations as Millicent considered what to say.

"Your first weeks? Learn the basics of a modern office. Get and idea of my schedule, what I'm currently working on, who my major accounts are." Rich picked his Daytimer up off his desk. "A muggle pen and paper version of a Rememberall. Handy invention, one that is gradually being replaced with electronic storage in my mobile phone - I still keep a paper backup because electronics are so vulnerable to stray magic though. That pile of contract folders other end of the office need to be checked that everything is in chronological order and sent off to the print shop next door. Checking them will give you a feeling for how deals are made."

"Ah," he nodded his head. "A point of clarity. International Exports is an old firm. A trading partnership at first. British goods to the rest of the wizarding world, foreign good back, since it wouldn't do to bring ships back empty. Some of the partners are still exclusively in that trade. I own a share of IE as a junior partner. I take a junior share of all company profits, and a junior share of all risks. International Exports the company provides the buildings, more importantly, the reputation of honesty and reliability, and pays the base salary of, well, people like you and the assistants. Which is a misnomer. The have to undergo a competitive examination to work here, and are actually more like paid apprentices. I don't own ships. I know people who transport things that do. I rarely buy things, and don't make anything, but I know people who want to sell things they make, and other people who want to buy those things. Or if I don't know them, I make it a point to get to know them. Then I broker a deal. Biggest to date was arranging the labor and materials to build a resort in Dubai. Paid cash for a building in Southwark I'd had my eye on with my share of the take. And paid off my partnership. So there's the firm, and then there's my business. I make International Exports money, it makes me money. But they really are two separate things."

"As I see it, you are buying in with your skills in office management, since you have references rather than starting from scratch like the assistants do. For that, you get a piece of my profit, because what you do will help me make more of one, and a chance to learn how we do the voodoo we do. I don't expect you to know it all starting out, I expect you to learn how we do things. And going back to what I mentioned before, I expect you to be flexible enough to deal with the wizarding world, muggles - a term we don't use much around here - and anyone anywhere in between that might be a customer."

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