genessia | Chapter 2 | Closed to Weiss

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Chapter 2 | Closed to Weiss | Audio + Action

[It's been a couple days since he's arrived, and though he's not all right - it'll be a long time before he will be able to truthfully claim that - he's well enough to realize that, without a job, he's nothing but a burden on Eren and Mikasa. And he refuses to be a burden.

Looking up jobs in the paper, he has to admit to himself how life as a soldier did little to prepare him for this - but sees a number of promising ones at the Schnee Company, and after doing a little more research, decides that he likes what they are trying to do.

He finds the number to contact, and after taking a long moment to composes himself, makes the call, trying to sound as confident and professional as possible. After his experience in the theatre last month, he's surprisingly good at it.]

Excuse me, Ms. Schnee? My name is Armin Arlert. I arrived here a few days ago. and I'm interested in applying for a few of the positions listed available for your company.

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[He nods at that, glad it's not too much to his detriment. He's not smiling either - with the military as his only basis of comparison for a professional setting, it wouldn't seem appropriate.

He listens and considers her words carefully. Difficult, bossy, and demanding he can handle - if she manages to hold a candle to Instructor Shadis or Captain Levi in that respect, he'll be deeply impressed. Perfection - well, he can only do his best. And being fair and ethical are positive, and make him feel a little more confident. Plus, it's good she's up front about all of this - it doesn't mean that it'll be any easier, but he can believe that she really is fair, and there's less likely to be unpleasant surprises later on.

After a long moment, he nods decisively.] Yes, Ms. Schnee. I understand and accept all that you've said.

Good.

[ She's not military strict, to be certain. It's more of a warning about how difficult she knows she can be. Better to get that out of the way and then if he likes her when she's having her silly moments, then that's better for them both. Weiss starts walking further into the building, expecting him to follow. She's set out a test for him, basically involving disorganized files, a schedule with multiple conflicts on it, and a business letter that needs proofreading and being put in a better customer service-oriented attitude-- only the last of which she is really worried about, but she decided to make sure he had all of those skills. There's a video of a meeting on the computer in the office as well, with instructions to 'take minutes during the meeting' and lastly, there's a simulated budget based on donations and partnerships with other businesses with a list of 'requests' from various parts of the business.

Once they're in the room, she turns swiftly and looks him directly in the eyes. ]

There are a number of tasks in this room that you'll be performing, both on and off of the computer. What I want you to do is make a complete list of the activities in this room that you believe would be your job, in order of priority, and the time you believe that you can complete each task in the form of a time management plan. Consider that all of the tasks need to be completed within a single day.

Edited 2015-02-20 07:57 (UTC)

[Armin follows promptly, but gets an uncomfortable look on his face as soon as they get into the room, especially when she mentions the computer.] I will work hard to improve in this respect, but I should t-tell you... until two days ago, I had never even touched a computer before.

[Technically true; he'd worked with computers at The Spark, but those were so advanced they could hardly be recognized as such - responding to the merest thought. And he'd been brainwashed to believe he was an anti-technology revolutionary at the time. He was back to himself after a month or so, but the experience left an impression - and as such he has an instinctive aversion to some of the newer technologies.

Obviously, he'd now have to rectify that. But though he tried using the computer at the library, the librarians was too busy to really show him how, so he hadn't had much success.

He spends a good thirty seconds simply looking around the room, getting a feel for the office and everything it contained, before diving into it. Within the first ten minutes, he has a list of all the tasks she'd prepared for him. They're in the correct order, with conservative but nevertheless impressive estimates of how long he will take to complete them, and fit nicely into an extremely logical and orderly time management plan. There's only one thing missing. He spends another two minutes making absolutely sure he has everything, and has it right - and then, with no small amount of trepidation, approaches the computer.

Here, he does not do so well. It takes him several full minutes to locate and figure out how to start the video, and it's clear that his typing skills are extremely sub-par. Furthermore, unless she stops him, he spends another twenty minutes searching the computer to see if there's anything else she would have him doing on there - and at the end, it's unclear if he would have found it if there was.

He puts the video in the correct place in his plan, though.

Biting his lip and trying not to look too worried, he hands her his time management plan for inspection. That... could have gone better. He thinks he did okay otherwise, but his display with the computer - well, he just hopes it's not a deal-breaker.]

[ Fortunately for Armin, Weiss wasn't entirely unsympathetic to people without experience with technology. Once upon a time here she might've been a harsher critic of it, and most certainly was, but dating someone who had all of zero experience with it had opened her up a little more. She was more than willing to have someone train him to use the computer, at least, and he managed to find the video and was thorough enough to keep looking even after that.

Weiss scribbles down a couple of notes from time to time- things to watch out for if she does hire him, things to train him on, and when she finally sees his list, she's pretty impressed with it. Except for the computer, he did fairly well. Of course, she doesn't say that yet. She wants to ask him a few more questions first. ]

Alright, now that we've finished that: Tell me about a time that you worked on a team to accomplish a task. Be sure to include what your role in the team was and how using a team was beneficial to accomplishing the task at hand.

[Armin would improve quickly once he started studying - he's always been a quick learner, and if he gets the position he'll be motivated to do the best he can.

He bites his lip, thinking. A time they worked as a team - nothing innocuous comes to mind, all the examples he could give are pretty grim. And he doesn't really want to have to explain the titans... ah.]

Several years ago, I was on a training exercise with the other members of the 104th trainee corps. The exercise was simple - split into two groups, travel by different paths and meet in a designated spot in the forest 40 km away, recording everything as we go. Then we exchange notes with the other team and travel back by their route, all within a given time. The objective was to evaluate how we handled ourselves in a non-crisis situation, I think. To see if we would grow bored, become lax, or let our guards down. I was in charge of the record-keeping for Marco's group.

That night, when we made camp, we were ambushed by bandits. They stole our maneuvering gear, and kidnapped one of us to be sure we wouldn't try to come after them. We decided to go after them anyway - but they had wagons, and without our gear we didn't know if we could catch them, or where they were even going.

Sasha had the idea of climbing up a nearby bluff so we could find them. When we spotted them by their dust trail, that's when I came up with a plan. Given their actions up to that point, I was able to deduce where they would likely be going - someplace nearby where they could sell our gear on the black market. Cutting through the forest, we sent a couple people to beat them to the crossroads, concealing the fork in the road and making sure they took the longer route, giving us time to set up our trap.

At his suggestion, Marco was the one to listen for the rattling sound that would tell us which carriage held out gear, and he signaled the others. Then Jean and Eren jumped into that wagon from above, and took out the bandits.

Unfortunately, they shot out the wheel of that carriage - and Krista was in the other carriage. We had our gear back, though, so we could pursue them properly. I was still worried about a direct assault, though - even if we outnumbered them now, they still had a hostage. So I used a signal flare to tell the other team which direction we were going in before we set out after them again.

We managed to catch up with them again, and to cut the hitching lines tying the horses to the carriage. It crashed, but before we could get in there, one of the men had a sword at Krista's throat. He ordered us to give up our maneuvering gear again, and we had to comply - until Mikasa and Annie from the other team took them by surprise and took them out.

[He says it all rather matter of factly, albeit in a subdued tone. He seems to downplay his own role in events, not mentioning how Jean and Eren would have simply charged in and gotten themselves killed without a plan, or how Annie and Mikasa only made it in time because he thought to send up a signal flare.]

It's something none of us could have managed by ourselves, or even probably in a smaller group. Sasha lead us up the bluff to spot them, I c-came up with a plan, Sasha, Mina, and Connie got to the crossroad first and blocked off the other path, Marco told us which carriage to attack, and Jean and Eren were there to carry out the actual attack - not to mention Mikasa and Annie coming in at the end to disarm the last two. Even Krista helped, when she struggled with one of them and he ended up shooting the carriage wheel instead of Jean or Eren.

Because we all worked together, we managed to come out without any casualties.

[ Weiss listens quietly, scribbling a few things here and there while he speaks. Hearing the story told her a lot about Armin, more than simply the course of the story. It told her that he was the one who did the thinking, even if the majority of his story was about his teammates. That told her that he focused on the other people on his team more than himself. He was either humble or he didn't think he deserved the credit. A bad thing typically during an interview, since he's supposed to be playing up his capabilities, but Weiss appreciated that he worked it into a team effort instead of focusing on his role in the team. That showed her he had the mentality of someone who thought about the group more than himself if she gave him the benefit of the doubt. ]

So I take it you're more of a strategist than a man of action?

[ She wouldn't let him know what she thought of his story until after she'd finished her follow up questions. ]

[Since this is his first ever job interview, Armin's not really up to date on the proper etiquette and techniques for such thing - but he'd probably have trouble talking himself up too much even if he was.

Armin doesn't really know what to think of Weiss' question - was that a good thing or a bad thing, in her mind? Actually, that's how he's feeling about the whole interview - he has no idea how it's going. But there's nothing to do but keep moving forward, so that's what he does, as confidently as he can (read: not very).]

That's right. I'm u-usually the one to come up with the plans, but though I'll do what I have to, I'm not as good at carrying them out myself.

[Or if he does follow through on the plan, he's usually not one of the main players in it. Climbing that bluff at Sasha's suggestion? He damn near collapsed, before coming up with his plan to save Krista.]

[ So far she knows he has good time management, may not give himself enough credit, but puts his teammates above himself. Add onto that now that he's a brains-over-brawn person-- which for the job, is perfect. ]

Alright. Tell me about a time that you've had a disagreement with a coworker and how you resolved it.

[A disagreement? Armin frowns, considering. He doesn't generally get into a lot of disagreements - that's more Eren and Jean. Or Eren and Mikasa, or Jean and Connie, or Reiner and Annie - come to think of it, he's been around for disagreements between most of the members of the 104th. But he can't think of any that he himself has been in. Maybe...]

I can't think of any disagreements I've had with a - a coworker. [The terminology is obviously a bit awkward for him.] But there was a time, when we'd just become refugees, a couple of years before we joined the trainees. When they were handing out food, we overheard one of the soldiers complain that more of us hadn't been ea -

[He falters suddenly, an almost frightened look on his face, before an abrupt look of determination overtakes it. He continues, though he changes a little of whatever it was he'd been about to say.]

- complained that more of us hadn't died. There was already a food shortage, you see, and people who lived in the outer districts were always looked down upon. When Eren heard that... he went up and kicked the man, saying that he didn't understand what we'd been through. They kicked him down, and were about to do a lot worse...

I got in the way, apologizing to the man and drawing the attention of the crowd before he could get beat up any further. He didn't want to make a scene, so he let us go. It's not that I disagreed with Eren - but there was nothing we could do about it at the time, and Eren getting beaten or worse wouldn't help anyone.

Eren was angry with me for that, though Mikasa and I talked him out of doing anything rash. But in a way, they were both right. The soldier was wrong to wish for the deaths of the people he should have been protecting, obviously... but it was true that at the time, we were nothing but a drain on resources. There just wasn't enough food to go around. [Nevermind that they were only ten at the time. In a way, that story ends when they became soldiers - when they started contributing and fighting back.

Armin knows he's leaving a lot out of the story - it doesn't make as much sense without knowing about the titans. He'll explain further if she asks - but he really hopes he doesn't have to. For both their sakes.] I'm s-sorry, I guess that's not quite what you asked...

[ Weiss knew from the second that he said refugees that this wouldn't be a story she could understand on an in-depth level and relate to. She never had that unfortunate circumstance to deal with, given her upbringing and her family's situation. But she knew those who had to deal with difficulties- even if she didn't know any details that would've lead her to believe it was as bad as this. She couldn't relate, but she wasn't unsympathetic.. but regardless of her feelings about the situation, this was an interview. It wasn't a feel-good party.

Steeling herself a little better, she continued listening to the story. The fact that Armin recognized that there were two sides to that story was a huge positive in his checkbox. He would be capable of playing devil's advocate and thinking without bias in a job- something that was important. Something Weiss needed because she tended to get caught up in her own biases from time to time. Something like that in an assistant.. ]

No, it answered the purpose of the question, so it's fine for an answer. Is there anything you can tell me about why you would be good for this job, above other candidates? Clerical experience of any kind, the ability to anticipate needs?

[Armin nods, glad that the story had answered what it was supposed to. He bites his lip at her next question, thinking. A little hesitantly, he reaches into his shirt and brings out a small, worn, leather notebook.]

I suppose... this kind of answers both of those questions. I'm good at adapting quickly to new situations, working things out and making hard choices with little information. Genessia... isn't the first world I was brought to after being taken from my home world. For more than the past year, I've been thrown from world to world, one every month or so, with a group of people much like the populations of the cities here. There, there would be some event, some turning point for a city or a country or even a planet that we were intended to influence - but we were never told what the event was or how we were meant to shape it.

Given how little information we had... I did my best to write all of it down - the places we went, the situations we faced, the people I traveled with, and the deeper meanings behind everything, along with my thoughts and speculations. I figured eventually we'd have enough data to start seeing patterns and figuring out the larger picture.

[He hands the notebook over to her, albeit with a little trepidation. With no object permanence in liminal space, he's used to having to pay careful attention when he hands his notebook to someone else, lest it vanish and all his work be lost.

The notebook itself is superb - containing careful and meticulous notes and accounts on all the subjects Armin mentioned, and more. Most is written in Armin's small, neat script, though a couple passages - mostly about worlds that other Travelers came from - were clearly written by someone else. There are even some illustrations on a few of the pages, and what they lack in flair they more than make up for in detail.

Taken without context, it all seems a fantastical tale - stories of crashing space stations, star crossed lovers of warring crime families in 1930s Brooklyn, fighting both dragons and half-immortal master mages in a strange, magical medieval kingdom, even a story about pirates and mermaids - told mostly from a mermaid's point of view. There was a place where a ceremonial dance supposedly drove the movement of the celestial bodies. Except instead of told to entertain, the stories were told from more of a historical and personal perspective, and how they all fit into the larger narrative of the Traveler's journey.

Most of the stories seem to imply that, for a time, Armin or some of his companions believed themselves to be denizens of whatever world they were in, with their own lives and memories and motivations, not remembering their time as a traveler or even their home worlds at all. There were also accounts of fantastical places that seemed to be not so much worlds as waiting rooms - places where the Travelers rested and recouped for the next jaunt, though reality in these places was malleable. It never made sense, and it was shaped, at least in part, by consciousness - beyond which, rules like gravity were easily broken.

The whole things tells of a harrowing and at times tragic or even traumatic experience - but though Armin's own role is often minimized, the notebook clearly shows that he's a clever, perceptive, caring, and methodical individual.]

[ Weiss pages through the notebook, quickly scanning through any emphasized words, headers, drawings. A habit of previewing things she'd picked up from having excellent study habits. The amount of detail was interesting. She obviously couldn't read it all right now but she.. definitely wanted to.

It showed her what she needed to know- different traits that made him an ideal candidate, that he had experience with at least doing detailed and effective work. Though she did want to ask one thing: ]

Can I borrow this?

[Armin looks frankly taken aback by the question. She... wanted to borrow it? Was that because she wanted to take longer on deciding whether his work was good enough for the position, or because she genuinely wanted to read it all? The latter, in all likelihood. He's not quite sure how he feels about that - but he supposes it doesn't particularly matter too much, because there's no real reason to say no.

If he's going to remain stuck here, it's not like it's probably of much use to him anyway. Still...] All r-right - as long as you're very careful with it.

Of course! I'm just the type of person who likes to learn about anything I can.

[ She pauses for a moment, looking at something before closing the notebook carefully and tucks it under her arm for now, safe and sound. She looks back to Armin and holds her hand out to shake his. ]

I think you're qualified for the job so I'm going to hire you on a trial basis. The lack of knowledge regarding technology may be a problem, so I'm going to give you two to three weeks to get at least basic skills down. If you can manage that, you can consider the position yours.

[He nods - that is something they share, though survival and other larger concerns have taken precedence over Armin's dreams and his desire to learn for many years now. Still, it's nice to hear in someone else as well, especially when that someone is going to be his boss.

Which happens to be the next thing he finds out as he listens. A small, happy smile slowly spreads across his face at the words. For the moment, he looks sharper, more confident than she's seen him yet.] Yes, Ms. Schnee. Th-thank you. I'll do my best.

When would you like me to start?

Tomorrow. Today, you need to go shopping for new clothes.

[ She's not going to let up on that. Look professional or get fired. That's non-negotiable. ]

All right. I'll do that. Tomorrow, then.

[He gets up to leave, ready to leave, but pauses in the doorway.]

Eight o'clock?

Nine to five would be standard hours for the position, but you're welcome to come in earlier if you'd like. I might be here earlier on some days, but if I'm not here by 9 you can typically assume something happened if I didn't call to tell you otherwise or make not of it ahead of time.

If you need time off, please try to notify me at least a week in advance unless you're really ill. If you come into work and make a sickness-related mess because you have a really strong work ethic, I'll dock your pay.

[ It sounded dramatic, but she wasn't kidding. She didn't want to get sick and she didn't want anyone else to get sick. ]

[Armin nods again - everything she's said makes sense, and he's fine with it. It might seem dramatic to some people, but Weiss has nothing on the military as far as that goes. For Armin, the rules here are going to seem positively lax - though of course he won't let himself do any less than his absolute best.]

I'll see you tomorrow at 9 then, Ms. Schnee. Thank you again for the opportunity.

[ Weiss only gets incredibly strict when things are being done wrong. If they aren't going the way she wants them to, that's when Armin will start seeing how much of a pain she can be. As long as that doesn't happen though, a happy Weiss is a semi-relaxed Weiss. ]

You're welcome. I'll see you tomorrow.

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Chapter 2 | Closed to Weiss | Audio + Action

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