Page 3 of Daddy's Unexpected Gift

“Oh. I thought I was going to be more of an office worker. I guess I didn’t realize,” I managed to say.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. We’re starting you off small, only one client.”

“But clients?” I interrupted. “I haven’t had any training, Ms. Nelson.”

“Call me Greta, and no, we don’t have any training. You’ll learn as you go.” She opened and closed a few drawers, pulling out a stapler, a tape dispenser, and other office supplies. She set them out on display.

“You aren’t even going to sit me in front of video training? Protocols?”

Geta flipped through her collection of file folders. She handed over a dark blue folder.

I opened it. It had photocopies in pockets and another set of photocopies clipped in with those poke and fold tabs instead of a three-ringed binder.

“This is the information you want. Read through everything before you visit with your client. These are the forms you will need to have completed.” She handed me another folder. “Make copies. These are your masters. You’ll copy a fresh set each time. If you accidentally forget and fill this set out, don’t worry, there’s a complete set of all originals in the copier room.”

“Isn’t everything online? Can’t I just download the forms as I need them?” I asked.

Greta let out a sigh and then a little laugh. “This must all look so terrifying and old-fashioned. But it's temporary, I promise. We’ve been scrambling a bit since we had to relocate in a hurry. Our previous offices flooded, and we’ve simply been trying to catch up. The server room was completely destroyed. And we found out the hard way, the only thing that was stored in the cloud was our IT person’s head. We’re rebuilding from copies employees had saved to their laptops.”

“That sounds horrible,” I commiserated.

“Worse than horrible. We lost a lot in the flood, but we have no idea how much we had lost prior to that due to the incompetence of the department. It’s leaving us in the dark ages.”

I nodded. “Oh, okay. That makes sense.” It was hard to have a database of documents when the database short-circuited.

“On the upside, you’ll learn how to do things the old-fashioned way, pen and paper and filing documents in triplicate. So, if the network ever goes down again, you’ll already know what to do without skipping a beat.”

“I was told I’d be getting a laptop?”

“Oh, no. Not while the system is down. Nothing to access online,” she said.

“So, you don’t need me to help with data entry?”

“We need you to help with…” She took a moment to flip through the files in her arms. She pulled out one of the thicker ones. “Georgie Alexander,” she announced as she handed over the file.

I accepted the folder and started to flip through pages of notes. A photo of a baby was clipped to the inside front of the file.

“Baby Georgie,” Greta said. “Her mother was found overdosed. It’s so sad, it really is. Her uncle has temporary emergency custody while the biological father is being located.”

I trailed my finger down the edge of the photo. Georgie. She was adorable with short, looping curls, the biggest blue eyes I had ever seen, and a little cupid’s bow of a mouth. She looked more like a baby doll than a human baby.

“You’ll check in on the family and offer them assistance as they adjust,” Greta continued, describing the basics of my assignment.

“What kind of assistance?”

“Anything, everything. In cases like these where guardianship was outlined in a living directive?—”

“A what?”

“Directive. It’s not exactly a will, but like a will. Georgie’s mother indicated that her older brother would look after the child if anything were to happen to her or the father. And due to certain legalities, the estate is now attempting to locate the father, and we have to make sure the child is properly cared for.”

“But if she’s not in the system…?” I started to ask.

“The child isn’t officially in the state’s system, so we can’t place her with a foster family. Those families have already gone through rigorous assessments. Georgie is one of our private sector cases. We are actually a private agency. You were aware of that, of course.”

“So, I just show up and make sure Georgie is okay?”

Greta nodded. “It’s my understanding that she was left with an uncle who was not prepared for her. It’s all in the notes. You have an appointment tomorrow, so you have time to read up.”

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