Quote:
Occurs prior to May 15th.
Theatre tech had turned out to be a strange job with an unnecessarily intense amount of physical exercise. At least, Laike thought it was so — the amount of running back and forth, moving heavy equipment, and manual construction of set pieces was enough for him to realize that there wasn't enough money on earth to justify how tired he felt after work. He was still going to work, though; it was that, or starve. Though it often felt like he was starving by the time he got home.
Laike managed it for a week, then two. Slowly, he found, he was able to function outside of work. He could play fifteen minutes of Genshi, or one match on LoL. Then it stretched to a half hour. Then an hour. Then, he found, he was starting to develop muscles. His shirts fit differently, though he did not yet outgrow any of them. That in itself was alarming; being a willowy stick was who he'd been all his life, and to start gaining muscle now? More muscle meant more visibility, and Laike was loath to compromise on his status as an easily overlooked wallflower.
If he got ripped because he worked as a theatre tech, what would it do to his routines? To his identity? To the way he had to deal with the public already? Unacceptable. Unforgivable.
So Laike returned to his job hunt. He placed another hundred resumes with another hundred entry-level jobs and their recruiters. And. more importantly, he kept talking to anyone he could find in the Negaverse, for that was where all of his assistance had come from so far.
Unsurprisingly, it was the Negaverse that came to his rescue again. They'd gotten ahold of a bank, and Laike could only imagine that it was acquired by the Big Tall Guy with All the Money in the same manner that he got ahold of the hospital for the Negaverse, and now they were in dire need of warm bodies to fill slots. Laike wasn't firm on the details, but it sounded like any other business changing hands to him — the old employees weren't guaranteed their jobs, and the acquiring company wanted to put their own employees where the old ones were. So they needed, like, everything.
Laike's resume didn't have much to offer to a bank. By experience alone, a bank teller would be the best spot for him, but his off-hours job involved a lot of niche tech, so he tried to spin it as something IT-worthy per his grandmother's guidance. It had been enough to earn him an interview, though he suspected his identity as Niter helped him along, too. Rather, his identity as Niter might've been what got him into the recruitment pool in the first place.
The interview itself, however… Sure did happen. Laike struggled to sound confident, especially when under pressure, and he choked on two of the questions asked of him. He didn't know what his strengths were, nor could he talk about a time in which he had to rely on coworkers for help. He didn't sleep that night, choosing instead to try speedrunning Breath of the Wild in preparation for the sequel's release. It left him exhausted, but blessedly distracted, and Laike eventually went to bed at a reasonable 7 o'clock in the morning. When he woke the next day, his poor performance on his interview only took up eighty percent of his thoughts instead of all of them.
Four days had passed. By then, Laike had gotten over it enough that he returned to applying for other jobs, and was presently filling out an exhausting app for McDonald's when his cell rang. Instinct told him not to let it go to voicemail.
And instinct taught well; not only did Laike find out that he got the job for IT at Augusta Bank, but he was also starting the coming Monday, the eighth. His shift started at a regrettably early 9AM, was Monday through Friday, and lasted an entire eight and a half hours, but the job made up for it by paying him handsomely for his dubious experience. He wasn't sure how much the Negaverse factored into his good tidings, but considering what he knew of what went down with the bank? He imagined it was a healthy 90% of him getting the job.
And the job was — it sure was. Laike was on time, or he told himself that two hours early was on time for his first day. He canvased the front door to the building for two hours, too, loitering by a tree and pretending that his awkward-looking button down wasn't too awkward, and that his dress shoes weren't too shiny because he never held down a dress-nice job before, and that he wasn't suspicious at all. He even told himself that he wouldn't screw up everything on his first day — only most things — and that he'd leave a thoroughly mediocre impression that would have them reasonably consider inviting him back the following day.
But they did. And they invited him back the day after, and the day after, and the day after that. Each day he came away just as confused about his job as the last, and with no clearer idea of what he was supposed to do as IT. His coworkers were nice to him, however, and Laike decided he liked the job well enough, regardless of the money. Not only did it give him stable, consistent hours, but he also got to sit around as much as he wanted. All he had to do was answer the phone occasionally, and sometimes walk other bank personnel through rebooting their router, or service a laptop onto which someone accidentally installed porn.
Even though he didn't really understand his job description, and even though he never once felt qualified to crack open a computer and perform hardware surgery on it, Laike was starting to enjoy the job. It paid him. It put food on the table. It lowered his anxiety levels for being previously unable to pay rent. It was doable, even if he wasn't qualified.
And, most of all, it was a turning point in Laike's life where he finally felt in control of himself.
WC: 1059
