Marian Hawke | Dragon Age (shovekirkwall) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-12-10 18:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, marian hawke, neal cassidy (baelfire) |
Who: Neal Cassidy, Marian Hawke
What: A job interview!
When: Thursday, 12/05
Where: Hawke PI Services, Irvine.
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13 to cover my butt, but this is a pretty tame log.
Status: Complete!
Hawke PI Services took up a small office suite space in one of the more modern buildings in Irvine. There were plate glass windows around the outside, and the inside was tiled in something slick and shiny. It seemed a little out of place for the kind of business she was in.
Her area was on the fourth floor, a sign by the elevators declared, and was right across from the elevator doors as they opened. The office proper was modest in both size and decoration. The front reception area looked vacant. A small sign on the desk there told people to ring the bell for service.
Marian was expecting Neal, however, and so the nearby door that lead to the conference room was open. She’d taken a seat somewhere in eyesight of the doorway, and when he stepped inside she waved a hand in his direction, “Come on in here, then!”
Now, usually the office environment wasn’t really Neal’s bag but hey, this seemed a little different than your standard data entry, cube-farm job or whatever. Plus the girl he had talked to, Marian, she sounded like someone he could definitely get along with. She said fanciness wasn’t required (which already upped the whole experience by like, one-hundred points) but he’d look like a loser who wasn’t serious about working if he showed up in jeans and a rock band t-shirt, so he compromised for something close to the middle. Pressed pants and a dress shirt, jacket, no tie, but the shirt was tucked in and he looked clean and not like he’d been dealing drugs in a back alley twenty minutes before. That was always a bonus, right?
He followed the directions she gave him, taking the elevator to the fourth floor. Hawke PI Services, alright, sounds like a winner, he could do this. He was about to be a good little interviewee and ring the bell in the main lobby (because he’d shown up approximately five minutes early; anywhere between five to ten was good, he thought, fifteen or more was just obnoxious) when he heard the friendly voice calling for him. Well, that made it easier, didn’t it? So he dipped inside the room and flashed her an easygoing grin, pulling out a seat at the conference room table.
“The great Marian Hawke herself, right?” He held out his hand for a shake in greeting. “I’m Neal, it’s nice to meet you.”
Marian got up and shook his hand, grinning at him a bit.
"Well, I don't know about 'great', but I'm Marian Hawke, yes. Live and in person," She joked. "It's nice to meet you, too."
Her own attire was similarly casual - pants (or as she'd call them, 'trousers') and a nice shirt. It was your usual well-tailored businesswoman kind of shirt, nothing with frills or lace. She just really didn't seem like the frills and lace kind of woman.
After a quick but firm handshake, she took a seat in the chair she'd claimed, then drummed her fingers on the table a bit, "Right, so, I'm not really accustomed to giving formal job interviews. I suppose I should start by saying that we investigate things here, and honestly, it's sometimes as cliche as you imagine. Cheating wives and husbands, tracking down stolen goods for people who'd rather not involve the police for whatever reason... Oh and yes, sometimes a missing persons case. Every once in a while we get someone who thinks I can find someone who owes them money, too, and collect it for them."
Her tone sounded generally amused by that assumption, and she snorted her nose a bit.
“I’m not accustomed to going to formal job interviews, so I guess we’re in good company,” Neal assured her. He leaned in and folded his hands on the table, listening to Marian talk, and he had never really considered working for any PI company before in the past (maybe given his own questionable records - stolen goods, oh yeah, he knew all about those before getting his act together and actually finding a way to the straight and narrow) but now, things were different. And it sounded like something he’d be into.
Plus, the fact that this was her company and she’d obviously started it said a lot too. Ambition and drive, and she was dedicated to what she did.
“And what do you do when someone wants you to collect a debt for them?” he asked, because yeah, it was kind of amusing. You generally didn’t go to a PI company to collect a debt. You went to a collection agency or just sued the hell out of the person, or just did it the not so legal way and...threatened to cut off limbs until the money was paid back.
Getting a PI to find the person who'd run off and convince them to pay the money owed was probably somewhere between the last two methods.
"It's usually a lot like locating stolen items that they don't want to involve the police or insurance in. The debt is owed for reasons they don't want to get into, and the person who's run off doesn't want to pay it. I don't ask too many questions and I never promise anything. Of course you have to understand that we do work with the police department. If we don't, we're quickly out of business. But we also skirt the line as closely as we can."
Marian smirked a bit, "So if I get a particularly bad impression from the person trying to hire me, I usually try to decide if it's in everyone's best interests if I drop a tip off at the police. Or I'll find the person in question and warn them. If it all seems more or less above board I find the person and get them in touch, but the only money I handle is my paycheck. They can handle the rest themselves."
After a pause, she let out a bit of a relieved sigh, "Luckily I've only really gotten something like that a handful of times."
"Skirting the line, yeah, that makes sense," Neal chuckled, hand rubbing over his jaw. "It's probably a fine line to tow. Have to do it exactly right." Because otherwise, the police would just take over entirely and the PI thing would bottom out. But sometimes, involving the guys and gals in blue was an annoying, lengthy, time-consuming annoyance that was wrapped in way too much red tape. "You must be good at judging character?"
It was more of a statement than a question, but in this line of work, you probably had to be adept at such things. "So am I. I've been around the block a few times, you know? Didn't grow up in the best circumstances, and I've worked a lot of odd jobs. I'm kind of a...jack-of-all-trades, really. So whatever you'd need done around here, I'd get it done." He was definitely more street smart than book smart, and was kind of a shining example of the first. Neal knew a lot, had a lot of random skills tucked under his belt, and if he didn't know something right away? He could learn; he was quick with that, because he had to be. There was never anyone else around to give him the answers.
"Anyway, I have references if you need them. I literally mean I've done it all. I think the oddest job I've had was a crime scene cleaner. Or working on a farm, tending to cow hooves. No lie, you can make good money doing that." It brought a lot of bovine pedicure jokes, at least.
His list of skills made Marian's eyebrows raise a bit. Bovine pedicurist, really? She had no idea that was even a job someone could have, but it made sense, she supposed. Crime scene cleaning might actually come in handy, too, and whatever else he'd done.
"I like that about you. The thought that you've done a lot of odd things means you can learn other ones more quickly, and I think you've got some areas of expertise that I'm definitely lacking. More knowledge can't hurt in this business. And since you probably won't have a unique job description, it's good that you're used to doing lots of things."
References seemed like a good idea, though Marian was already pretty certain she wanted to hire this man, "Oh, why not. Go ahead and give me your references. I like you, though. I already think you're probably perfect for this."
Technically, the bovine pedicurist was a hoof trimmer, or something along those lines, and it was actually a pretty involved process. You needed to wear protective eye gear for it, anyway, wouldn't want pieces of cow feet to go flying into your corneas! But to better sate the lady's curiosity, and to provide the aforementioned references, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope.
"They're all in there," he said, passing the goods on over to Marian. "Plus, something resembling a resume, at least. It's a more detailed description of the jobs I've done. I could sit here and list them all but I figure you'd want to read on your own time rather than listen to me yammer for too long."
That was said with a casual, lopsided grin. "Thanks though, I appreciate it. I think it'll be a good fit for me too. I respect anyone who starts their own company from scratch."
"I'm really not sure anyone would complain if they had to listen to you yammer for too long, anyway," Marian quipped, as she opened the envelope. Her eyes scanned over the resume first, since that to her felt like the more relevant piece of information.
She wrinkled her nose, though, and added after she'd read a bit, "I suppose I'll have to lose some of your respect, then, but I'd rather be honest about it. My brother, Garrett, originally started the business up a few years back, and I worked with him. My acquisition of it from him is a recent thing. He moved back to England and I actually had to fly all the way out there to get the paperwork in order and take his keys. Little snot just couldn't do it before he left, you know."
"Oh, so it's a family thing, then? That still counts," he assured her, tone teasing lightly. "I mean, the business would go under if it wasn't for you, right? If you didn't pick up where he left off? So there you go." Either way, running a company was hard work and it may not have been Neal's cup of tea in the long run, he definitely admired those who did - well, those with good business practices, anyway. Even though the 'in' thing seemed to be embezzlement these days.
He added helpfully, "And I can start whenever you need me. Do odd hours too, or whatever you have set. I'm hoping to get a fishing gig for the really early mornings, before most sane people are even thinking about cracking their eyes open, so I could always just come straight here afterward." The long days wouldn't bother him - he was used to hard work, and not much time for rest. It'd be a double paycheck, and that would certainly help.
"It probably would have, yes, so I suppose I did save it from almost certain doom and all of that."
It just would have sunk her brother into continuous debt until collectors were calling on his door. Garrett hadn't really seen it as charitably as this newcomer was, but Marian decided to embrace that instead of dwelling on it. The Hawke family dynamic was... complicated, to say the least.
"That's good, because I've really been desperate for help since I came back. I almost had an assistant, but she decided to leave town. I can't really blame her for that, but it's left me annoyingly short handed. We do keep some odd hours, though. The work gets done whenever it needs to be done, so sometimes that means you're up all night staring into someone's bedroom window and you sleep the next day, or you're still searching through your background check at six in the morning. I really hate waking up early if I don't have to, though, so you're perfectly free to fish in the morning."
Wait, what? Couldn't blame the would-be assistant for leaving town? Was it because of...all of the crazy stuff, the dreams, whatever? Were they that bad? Was something in the air? It had to be, if somehow everyone in the same vicinity was compelled to tell the truth or whatever. Neal wanted to ask, but he bit his tongue instead. An interview wasn't the best place to do that, besides, he hadn't had any bizarre, life-altering dreams yet. It wasn't wise to jinx himself.
"That sounds perfect for me, actually," he confessed. "I usually tend to keep odd hours too." Odd jobs, odd hours. It made sense, for someone like him. He just did what needed to be done, and that was that. "Though hey, staring into someone's bedroom window all night. You sold me, Marian, what can I say." Now that sounded like an interesting time! Though hopefully other people's bedrooms were more exciting than his lately. Sad.
"I thought it might," Marian teased, with a bit of a chuckle. Her eyes were still scanning over all of the papers he'd included in the envelope for her, but she nodded her head a bit, "Well, let's get right to it, shall we? There's all that red tape we have to cut through, like paperwork. That front desk will be yours, but you don't have to play receptionist so don't worry about it too much. I'll set you up with a login for the computer there, too."
She folded the papers back up and re-enclosed them in the envelope, then got up from where she was sitting and motioned for him to follow her, “We’ll get some coffee after that and I can bring you up to speed on our current cases.”
Red tape, Neal’s favorite thing! Still, it was a necessary evil. “Sounds great,” he nodded, and was up from the chair, ready and raring to go like the dutiful employee he was. “Thanks again, I think I’m really going to like it here.” Despite all of the dream nonsense clustered around one ‘special’ network of people, maybe the move to California wasn’t such a terrible thing after all.