Who: Tyler and Pam What: Tyler misses work; Pam's not impressed. When: About mid-May Where: Victrola's Rating/Warning: Low/None Status: Complete
Tyler knew that he probably should have called work. When he’d heard about the caves in the mountains, it hadn’t crossed his mind. He’d headed to the mountains for the weekend, hiking around to see if he could spot any isolated caves that would be good for the transformation. He’d packed a tent and his cellphone to keep in touch with people if they needed him, but he hadn’t thought of calling work until he’d already come home.
So, he was really hoping that he could just show back up at work without saying a word, would hope that he still had a position as a bartender, and just… not talk about it. That would be his game plan for now.
Not talking about it was usually Pam’s gameplan, but when someone disappeared and didn’t contact their job they were going to have some words. She still didn’t have her mind truly wrapped around the effects of the network and despite dreaming of being a vampire, she didn’t think anything would come of it. She was carrying a pile of new flyers in her arms as she made her way back towards the office when she caught Tyler coming in through the main door before they opened.
An eyebrow arched as she switched direction and made her walk towards him. Her eyes were focused and her heels were clicking as she beelined to him, “Look what the cat dragged in.” He better start talking now, especially if it involved apologises, and she would consider what to do with him.
Tyler stiffened when he heard Pam speak, but forced himself to relax. “I’m sorry I didn’t come in this weekend,” Tyler said after a moment. “Something came up.” He knew even when he said it that that was probably not going to cut it. It sure as hell didn’t cut it when he used the same line trying to win Blossom over after he’d stood her up because of his first transformation.
“Now, I might be a bit older than you, but you damn kids and your new fangled technology. You do have a cell phone, correct?” her lips pursed, her eyebrow continued to remain raised, and her hips were cocked as she waited for his answer. There were always excuses, but she wouldn’t be so angry if she had least received a text or a phone call giving at least a minute’s notice. Hearing nothing made her question if they truly wanted the job. Tyler better have a hell of an excuse up his sleeve or else be willing to get down on his knees to grovel.
“Yeah, with everything going I forgot.” He really wasn’t doing himself any favours, and he knew it. “This is my first job and I guess… it just didn’t really cross my mind when everything was going on. It won’t happen again though. The not calling.”
“Do you care to give me an explanation for your disappearance? Because technically I’m supposed to fire you on the spot,” she was curious as to if it was something she could possibly bend the rules for. Family and health usually were viable excuses, but getting drunk and partying all weekend was not. She didn’t know this was his first job, but he wasn’t doing a great job at attempting to keep it at the moment. If anything at least this would be ingrained in him to make sure that he called if anything was going to take him away from work for a handful of days.
Tyler’s brow furrowed as he tried to think of the best way to go about it. “This might sound a little crazy unless you get the Dreams,” Tyler said, really hoping that Pam would know what he was talking about.
“I do happen to get the Dreams, actually,” Pam answered. She had a sneaking suspicion about it being Dream-related and it had to be something really interesting to be worth missing work. Hopefully he hadn’t woken up with some part of himself missing due to the dreams, “So, please feel free to explain further.”
Tyler let out a long, slow breath. “Uh, well, in my dreams I’m a werewolf?” he started hesitantly. The fact that he was a werewolf was obviously one that he did not like. “And I had my first transformation last month. I got a lead on some caves in the mountains that I might be able to hole myself up in this month, so I spent the weekend looking for them.” There. That wasn’t so bad. And there was no reason that Pam needed to know that he got out last month and very nearly killed someone because of it.
A werewolf. Well, she was only slightly surprised. There was a handful of were-creatures in her Dream world and she was a vampire, so werewolves shouldn’t be that shocking. Eyes ran over Tyler to assess and she could see him being a werewolf - he had the build for it - made for easy transitions perhaps? Listening intently as he explained what happened she waited a beat until she gave him a curt nod, “Okay, that’s an acceptable excuse. But you’re going to have to give me something with information on the full moons so I can know not to schedule you. I don’t want to fire you for something stupid if you mess up again.”
Tyler let out a sigh of relief. He really did need this job if he wanted to avoid moving in with his parents. He nodded and reached for his phone. “I’ve actually got a list of the next year of full moons here, if you wanted it now,” Tyler said. A year of them. He swallowed, but tried not to dwell on it. Instead, he chose to think about how hard he would have laughed if someone had told him a year ago that he’d be providing a list of full moons to his manager so he could get them off of work.
“That would be great,” Pam’s face only showed a hint of surprise that Tyler had them at the ready, “Do you want to email them to me here? I can print them off and file them for reference when I make the schedules.” She grabbed a napkin and wrote down her work email address and handed it over to him. “Once you finished sending that email you can get back to work, Lockwood. The bar needs some good cleaning and I think you’ve earned that enjoyment.” A small smirk appeared on her face when she said it and she made her way to the back to check on the email.
“Yeah, no problem,” Tyler said. He took the napkin, opened the document that listed the next dozen full moons, and then quickly fired off an e-mail to Pam. Tyler frowned a little when Pam said he could clean the bar. He and Kate made sure to keep most of the bar clean during their shift, but Tyler knew that Pam really mean the things that tended to get left and build up. Still, he was grateful to still have a job. “Yeah, I can do that. And thanks, Pam. For not firing me.”
“You’re welcome, Lockwood. Make sure I don’t regret that decision,” Pam gave him a small wave as she pushed through the door to the back. And yes, the bar might be mostly clean, but it was really the only weird menial task that she could think of. At least this had been an easy conversation and she was going to make sure to print off the email with the moon cycles and put them up so they wouldn’t run into this issue once again. Finding good people was a hard task and she didn’t want to deal with that.