Thursday - Kid Gloves

Jo's appraisal. I tracked her down in the rest room and overheard her talking to Dan before I dragged her along to the interview room.

"I'm really nervous," Jo told Dan.

"You'll be all right. You'll just flutter those eyelashes and he'll forgive you anything."

"I'm not like that. He had to have a word with me about lateness and sickness this year,"

"Oh sorry Luke. I promise I'll be a good girl from now on," Dan said bending backwards and fluttering his eyelashes at Jo.

I cleared my throat to give them warning and entered the room. Dan almost spilt his coffee over himself.

"Ready Jo?" I said, pretending that I hadn't heard any of the earlier conversation.

She cast Dan a look as we left for the interview room, like that of the condemned (wo)man walking the green mile.

Jo was right in that the main issue with her work output was her loose grasp of the concept of punctuality and the number of hangovers she'd had to face under the guise of food poisonings, migraines and viral infections. Jo wasn't as dispassionate as she appeared. She had been known on rare occassions to burst into a flood of tears, usually after one of Anne's barbed comments. I had to raise this subject with her and after overhearing her earlier concerns, very, very, carefully and with a immense amount of compassion.

Fifteen minutes later and I'd run out of tissues.

"It's ok," I said. "You just need to be careful of your sickness levels,"

"But you said I'd be sacked," Jo cried, he face burried within a crumpled mass of kleenex.

"No. I said that if you take too many days then as you know your performance will be reviewed under second level sickness procedures which can lead to a dismissal for ineffective performance,"

"You're saying I'm ineffective," wailed Jo.

I was fed up of this. "It's ok," I said, for once thanking Anne. "You've got a 3 anyway,"