My
first day there, I noticed some blunt yellow No. 2 pencils in the out box.
“Clarice, what do we do with these?” I asked the other assistant. Mr. Joslin
was out at a meeting at the time, and I was barely on speaking terms with the
old grouch, anyway. He made it known that you only spoke to him when spoken to.
. .
“I
dunno,” Clarice shrugged, going back to her work, which was mostly as a
Portuguese/English interpreter, as far as I could tell. She fielded a
considerable volume of phonecalls from Brazil for Mr. Joslin. He had some
businesses going in South America as well as his work at Hearst, as far as I
could tell. . .
I took
those blunt yellow No. 2 pencils from his out box to my desk and sharpened them,
one by one. I then placed the sharpened pencils in his in box, awaiting a
reaction.
I also
put a draft of some typing I did for him along with the pencils in his in box.
Later on, when he came back from the meeting, I heard him say, “Sharp!” in his
office, with a happy tone to his voice.
I never
knew by that monosyllabic reaction if he meant, 1. The pencils were sharp,
which pleased him, or, 2. That I was sharp, for sharpening the pencils, or, 3.
That I was a “sharp” temp who could type well. Beats me. . . other than that,
he was truly cranky and deserved every mean wrinkle on his wizened-apple face.
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