The Circle (6 page)

Mae followed Renata’s eyeline and saw a trio of young faces making their way to her.
A balding man in his late twenties extended his hand. Mae shook it, and he put an
oversized tablet on the desk in front of her.

“Hi Mae, I’m Rob from payroll. Bet you’re glad to see me.” He
smiled then laughed heartily, as if he’d just realized anew the humor in his repartee.
“Okay,” he said, “we’ve filled out everything here. There’s just these three places
you need to sign.” He pointed to the screen, where yellow rectangles flashed, asking
for her signature.

When she was finished, Rob took the tablet and smiled with great warmth. “Thank you,
and welcome aboard.”

He turned and left, and was replaced by a full-figured woman with flawless, copper
skin.

“Hi Mae, I’m Tasha, the notary.” She held out a wide book. “You have your driver’s
license?” Mae gave it to her. “Great. I need three signatures from you. Don’t ask
me why. And don’t ask me why this is on paper. Government rules.” Tasha pointed to
three consecutive boxes, and Mae signed her name in each.

“Thank you,” Tasha said, and now held out a blue inkpad. “Now your fingerprint next
to each. Don’t worry, this ink won’t stain. You’ll see.”

Mae pushed her thumb into the pad, and then into the boxes next to each of her three
signatures. The ink was visible on the page, but when Mae looked at her thumb, it
was absolutely clean.

Tasha’s eyebrows arched, registering Mae’s delight. “See? It’s invisible. The only
place it shows up is in this book.”

This was the sort of thing Mae had come for. Everything was done better here. Even
the
fingerprint ink
was advanced, invisible.

When Tasha left she was replaced by a thin man in a red zippered shirt. He shook Mae’s
hand.

“Hi, I’m Jon. I emailed you yesterday about bringing your birth certificate?” His
hands came together, as if in prayer.

Mae retrieved the certificate from her bag and Jon’s eyes lit up.
“You brought it!” He clapped quickly, silently, and revealed a mouth of tiny teeth.
“No
one
remembers the first time. You’re my new favorite.” He took the certificate, promising
to return it after he’d made a copy.

Behind him was a fourth staff member, this one a beatific-looking man of about thirty-five,
by far the oldest person Mae had met that day.

“Hi Mae. I’m Brandon, and I have the honor of giving you your new tablet.” He was
holding a gleaming object, translucent, its edges black and smooth as obsidian.

Mae was stunned. “These haven’t been
released
yet.”

Brandon smiled broadly. “It’s four times as fast as its predecessor. I’ve been playing
with mine all week. It’s very cool.”

“And I get one?”

“You already did,” he said. “It’s got your name on it.”

He turned the tablet on its side to reveal that it had been inscribed with Mae’s full
name:
MAEBELLINE RENNER HOLLAND
.

He handed it to her. It was the weight of a paper plate.

“Now, I’m assuming you have your own tablet?”

“I do. Well, a laptop anyway.”

“Laptop. Wow. Can I see it?”

Mae pointed to it. “Now I feel like I should chuck it in the trash.”

Brandon paled. “No, don’t do that! At least recycle it.”

“Oh no. I was just kidding,” Mae said. “I’ll probably hold onto it. I have all my
stuff on it.”

“Good segue, Mae! That’s what I’m here to do next. We should transfer all your stuff
to the new tablet.”

“Oh. I can do that.”

“Would you grant me the honor? I’ve trained all my life for this very moment.”

Mae laughed and pushed her chair out of the way. Brandon knelt next to her desk and
put the new tablet next to her laptop. In minutes he had transferred all her information
and accounts.

“Okay. Now let’s do the same with your phone. Ta-da.” He reached into his bag and
unveiled a new phone, a few significant steps ahead of her own. Like the tablet, it
had her name already engraved on the back. He set both phones, new and old, on the
desk next to each other and quickly, wirelessly, transferred everything within from
one to the other.

“Okay. Now everything you had on your other phone and on your hard drive is accessible
here on the tablet and your new phone, but it’s also backed up in the cloud and on
our servers. Your music, your photos, your messages, your data. It can never be lost.
You lose this tablet or phone, it takes exactly six minutes to retrieve all your stuff
and dump it on the next one. It’ll be here next year and next century.”

They both looked at the new devices.

“I wish our system existed ten years ago,” he said. “I fried two different hard drives
back then, and it’s like having your house burn down with all your belongings inside.”

Brandon stood up.

“Thank you,” Mae said.

“No sweat,” he said. “And this way we can send you updates for the software, the apps,
everything, and know you’re current. Everyone in CE has to be on the same version
of any given software, as you can imagine. I think that’s it …” he said, backing away.
Then he stopped. “Oh, and it’s crucial that all company devices are password
protected, so I gave you one. It’s written here.” He handed her a slip of paper bearing
a series of digits and numerals and obscure typographical symbols. “I hope you can
memorize it today and then throw this away. Deal?”

“Yes. Deal.”

“We can change the password later if you want. Just let me know and I’ll give you
a new one. They’re all computer-generated.”

Mae took her old laptop and moved it toward her bag.

Brandon looked at it like it was an invasive species. “You want me to get rid of it?
We do it in a very environmentally friendly way.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” she said, “I want to say goodbye.”

Brandon smiled indulgently. “Oh. I get it. Okay then.” He gave a bow and left, and
behind him she saw Annie. She was holding her knuckle up to her chin, tilting her
head.

“There’s my little girl, grown up at last!”

Mae got up and wrapped her arms around her.

“Thank you,” she said into Annie’s neck.

“Awww.” Annie tried to pull away.

Mae grabbed her tighter. “Really.”

“It’s okay.” Annie finally extricated herself. “Easy there. Or maybe keep going. It
was starting to get sexy.”

“Really. Thank you,” Mae said, her voice quaking.

“No, no, no,” Annie said. “No crying on your second day.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just so grateful.”

“Stop.” Annie moved in and held her again. “Stop. Stop. Jesus. You are such a freak.”

Mae breathed deeply, until she was calm again. “I think I have it
under control now. Oh, my dad says he loves you, too. Everyone’s so happy.”

“Okay. That’s a little strange, given I’ve never met him. But tell him I love him
too. Passionately. Is he hot? A silver fox? A swinger? Maybe we can work something
out. Now can we get to work around here?”

“Yup, yup,” Mae said, sitting down again. “Sorry.”

Annie arched her eyebrows mischievously. “I feel like school’s about to start and
we just found out we got put in the same homeroom. They give you a new tablet?”

“Just now.”

“Let me see.” Annie inspected it. “Ooh, the engraving is a nice touch. We’re going
to get in such trouble together, aren’t we?”

“I hope so.”

“Okay, here comes your team leader. Hi Dan.”

Mae rushed to wipe any moisture from her face. She looked past Annie to see a handsome
man, compact and tidy, approaching. He wore a brown hoodie and a smile of great contentment.

“Hi Annie, how are you?” he said, shaking her hand.

“Good, Dan.”

“I’m so glad, Annie.”

“You got a good one here, I hope you know,” Annie said, grabbing Mae’s wrist and squeezing.

“Oh I
do
know,” he said.

“You watch out for her.”

“I will,” he said, and turned from Annie to Mae. His smile of contentment grew into
something like absolute certainty.

“I’ll be watching
you
watch
her
,” Annie said.

“Glad to know it,” he said.

“See you at lunch,” Annie said to Mae, and was gone.

Everyone but Mae and Dan had left, but his smile hadn’t changed—it was the smile of
a man who did not smile for show. It was the smile of a man who was exactly where
he wanted to be. He pulled up a chair.

“So good to see you here,” he said. “I’m very glad you accepted our offer.”

Mae looked into his eyes for signs of disingenuousness, given there was no rational
person who would have declined an invitation to work here. But there was nothing like
that. Dan had interviewed her three times for the job, and had seemed unshakably sincere
each time.

“So I assume all the paperwork and fingerprints are done?”

“I think so.”

“Like to take a walk?”

They left her desk and, after a hundred yards of glass hallway, walked through high
double doors and into the open air. They climbed a wide stairway.

“We just finished the roofdeck,” he said. “I think you’ll like it.”

When they reached the top of the stairs, the view was spectacular. The roof overlooked
most of the campus, the surrounding city of San Vincenzo and the bay beyond. Mae and
Dan took it all in, and then he turned to her.

“Mae, now that you’re aboard, I wanted to get across some of the core beliefs here
at the company. And chief among them is that just as important as the work we do here—and
that work is very important—we want to make sure that you can be a human being
here, too. We want this to be a workplace, sure, but it should also be a
human
place. And that means the fostering of community. In fact, it
must
be a community. That’s one of our slogans, as you probably know:
Community First
. And you’ve seen the signs that say
Humans Work Here
—I insist on those. That’s my pet issue. We’re not automatons. This isn’t a sweatshop.
We’re a group of the best minds of our generation. Genera
tions
. And making sure this is a place where our humanity is respected, where our opinions
are dignified, where our voices are heard—this is as important as any revenue, any
stock price, any endeavor undertaken here. Does that sound corny?”

“No, no,” Mae rushed to say. “Definitely not. That’s why I’m here. I love the ‘community
first’ idea. Annie’s been telling me about it since she started. At my last job, no
one really communicated very well. It was basically the opposite of here in every
way.”

Dan turned to look into the hills to the east, covered in mohair and patches of green.
“I hate hearing that kind of thing. With the technology available, communication should
never be in doubt. Understanding should never be out of reach or anything but clear.
It’s what we do here. You might say it’s the mission of the company—it’s an obsession
of mine, anyway. Communication. Understanding. Clarity.”

Dan nodded emphatically, as if his mouth had just uttered, independently, something
that his ears found quite profound.

“In the Renaissance, as you know, we’re in charge of the customer experience, CE,
and some people might think that’s the least sexy part of this whole enterprise. But
as I see it, and the Wise Men see it, it’s the foundation of everything that happens
here. If we don’t give the customers a satisfying, human and
humane
experience, then we have
no customers. It’s pretty elemental. We’re the proof that this company is human.”

Mae didn’t know what to say. She agreed completely. Her last boss, Kevin, couldn’t
talk like this. Kevin had no philosophy. Kevin had no ideas. Kevin had only his odors
and his mustache. Mae was grinning like an idiot.

“I know you’ll be great here,” he said, and his arm extended toward her, as if he
wanted to put his palm on her shoulder but thought against it. His hand fell to his
side. “Let’s go downstairs and you can get started.”

They left the roofdeck and descended the wide stairs. They returned to her desk, where
they saw a fuzzy-haired man.

“There he is,” Dan said. “Early as always. Hi Jared.”

Jared’s face was serene, unlined, his hands resting patiently and unmoving in his
ample lap. He was wearing khaki pants and a button-down shirt a size too small.

“Jared will be doing your training, and he’ll be your main contact here at CE. I oversee
the team, and Jared oversees the unit. So we’re the two main names you’ll need to
know. Jared, you ready to get Mae started?”

“I am,” he said. “Hi Mae.” He stood, extended his hand, and Mae shook it. It was rounded
and soft, like a cherub’s.

Dan said goodbye to both of them and left.

Jared grinned and ran a hand through his fuzzy hair. “So, training time. You feel
ready?”

“Absolutely.”

“You need coffee or tea or anything?”

Mae shook her head. “I’m all set.”

“Good. Let’s sit down.”

Mae sat down, and Jared pulled his chair next to hers.

“Okay. As you know, for now you’re just doing straight-up customer maintenance for
the smaller advertisers. They send a message to Customer Experience, and it gets routed
to one of us. Random at first, but once you start working with a customer, that customer
will continue to be routed to you, for the sake of continuity. When you get the query,
you figure out the answer, you write them back. That’s the core of it. Simple enough
in theory. So far so good?”

Mae nodded, and he went through the twenty most common requests and questions, and
showed her a menu of boilerplate responses.

“Now, that doesn’t mean you just paste the answer in and send it back. You should
make each response personal, specific. You’re a person, and they’re a person, so you
shouldn’t be imitating a robot, and you shouldn’t treat them like they’re robots.
Know what I mean? No robots work here. We never want the customer to think they’re
dealing with a faceless entity, so you should always be sure to inject humanity into
the process. That sound good?”