THE MOMENT
"This is one of our newest acquisitions, we call it Subject 016," Lana explained as she gestured at the small room on. On the other side of the glass, a young child seemed to be having the time of his life playing with a large colorful flag. Yvette, the hopeful intern, watched him running back and forth in small space to give the flag plenty of wind.
Yvette was initially thrilled at being offered the job. She'd gone through several rounds of interviews and this was finally her first day. 'Inter-Labs' was one of the top tech companies in the world and Yvette was talented enough to get on their radar and a spot on the research team. Lana was her immediate supervisor and they'd got along okay in few hours that Yvette was getting oriented. This was the last leg of the tour; but, she was nowhere near as impressed as she expected to be.
She had yet to see anything that really lived up to her expectation from a bleeding edge tech company. In fact, she'd seen mostly mundane things. Subject 013 was a simple bonnet placed on a mannequin's head. Subject 022 was a single boot, not even the pair. All of them had been placed in small, secure rooms similar to the one the child was enjoying. Maybe it was all a joke, or an initiation. This was technically her first day after all.
"Ma'am with all due respect that is clearly a 5 year-old." She replied with mild annoyance in her voice. She was there to work not fool around.
"Haha, yeah," Lana giggled. "You're not wrong, but it's actu-,"
"So, is this the kind of regular shenanigans I can expect if I'm working here?" Yvette asked with a stern expression. She may have been new but she was going to do a good job, with or without support from the senior employees.
"Well, it's kind of harmless. He's not hurting-," Lana began to give an explanation; but, Yvette shook her head.
"I've been here for six hours for paperwork, orientation, and a tour. The first two went fine; but, the only thing I've seen on this tour are thrift store rejects. When am I going to learn about the actual job!?" she asked.
"Oh," Lana said it suddenly and her expression changed as she looked down at Yvette with slightly colder eyes. "I think we may be in the middle of a miscommunication," she said. "Let's clear this up real quick; what's wrong?" she asked.
"I'm supposed to be learning about what you do here and what my responsibilities are! Instead, you've given me a tour of prop storage, and finished it off with a joke about some 5 year-old being one of your subjects!" She laid it all out confidently and, she was surprised with Lana smiled again.
"That's what you got out of all this?" she asked. "Well, at least now I know why that random assertion popped out of nowhere. "'That's a 5 year-old!'" she laughed.
"What?" Yvette asked. Lana shook her head.
"Let's explore this from my point of view," she said. "I spent the morning talking about our company and laying out some of your responsibilities. After which, I gave you a tour of the facilities."
"I was here for all that," Yvette nodded.
"You were," Lana agreed and continued. "Then, one by one I showed you some of our most prized subjects. I referred to them as 'relics' a time or two, but I think you didn't quite register it. Every single item I showed you was just an inanimate object, right?"
"Yeah," Yvette said. "A barrel, a pitcher, a boot, just random junk."
"Ah, so there's the issue. Even when I attempted to highlight how special they were, you seem intent on dismissing them as just 'junk'," Lana giggled with a sparkle in her eyes. "Do you really.. honestly and truly believe that our company would waste the resources on a setup like this if they were 'just junk'?" she asked.
"I don't know...," Yvette shrugged. "It could've been a practical joke I guess....,"
"PRACTICAL JOKE!?" Lana burst with a wheezing cackle as she laughed at the idea. "How special do you think you are? It's your first day as an intern, we don't have the resources to spend on practical jokes for all our new hires."
"So... what? Subject 016 is the flag?" Yvette asked. It was an attempt to try and change the subject.
"YES!" Lana nodded. "I've shown you literally nothing but inanimate objects until we got to this room. Assuming I was talking about the flag is the right assumption.
"Then who's the kid?"
"That's my son, Landon, and he's been cleared for interacting with the relics," Lana replied.
"I'll bet...," Yvette chuckled to herself. She tried to keep it under her breath, but Lana heard it nonetheless.
"The relics respond to him for some reason, and the owners of the company, whom I have no relation to, have cleared Landon for this project," she said. "But, don't worry. None of that will be your concern, you're fired," she said.
"What? What for!?" Yvette asked.
"The broad reason is because you lack the attention to detail necessary to work with us. But, if you want a specific reason, I'll just point to your little 'That's clearly a 5 year-old' comment."
"That insulted you?" Yvette knew this particular battle was lost already; but, she was going to make sure to get a few digs at Lana. "Boy, you've got thin skin."
"Insulted? Not at all," Lana shook her head with a smile. "As I said, it's strictly the details thing. That comment feels like a red flag."
"Why? I didn't insult your son or anything," Yvette asked.
"No, you didn't," Lana nodded. "And, there's absolutely nothing personal here, I think you're quite intelligent and you'll have a bright future ahead of you. Just not with Inter-Labs. You're not ready to work with us yet," she said.
"Because of a stupid joke?" she asked. Lana nodded again.
"Not specifically because of the joke, more of what it represents," she said. "You saw a child playing with a flag. First of all, by now you should have been able to identify the flag was the subject of interest in there, and not the child. Second of all..., I'm standing right here," she said. "I can clearly see what you see. If you see a child, there's a very good chance I see the child too, wouldn't you agree?" she asked, but didn't give Yvette a chance to answer.
"Third of all, it's your first day. Even at this point you yourself don't quite know what we do here, right?" she asked. Again, she kept talking without giving Yvette space to comment, but the younger woman did kind of shake her head.
"So, let's take this the other way. Let's say for the sake of example my son was indeed Subject 016, and he wasn't my son but some supernatural entity in the shape of a 5 year-old. Do you think we would reach a point with him in our care WITHOUT knowing what he is or what he looks like? This company has existed for many many years before your first day. Do you think we would just shove some random kid in there without doing any sort of tests? Honestly, what did you hope to accomplish with your little 'quip'? If it's just to sound like a smartass, then we definitely don't need you here. If it came about due to lack of critical thinking, then you're not quite ready to join us. But, maybe you can try again in a few years."