Page 44 of Moon Tamed

“You did. There’s more in the next printer room down the hall.”

“There are more printers?” I blurted.

He laughed, nodded, and pointed in the appropriate direction. “We have thirty in total on this floor because we seem to have issues with paperwork. I’ll go fetch your other sheets. How many are you expecting to print?”

“A little over three thousand,” I admitted.

His eyes widened. “How did you get those all queued in at the same time?”

I snickered. “Select all and print all. It’s not that hard to print multiple files at once.” I’d about murdered my computer doing it, but some patience had saved me a great deal of time, especially as the email software had a button allowing me to download all attachments at one time.

I’d lose time manually sorting the invoices and delivering them to the appropriate people for signature, making a photocopy of all the signed invoices before delivery to the payments department, and otherwise enslaving myself to paperwork.

“I can’t say I’ve tried it. I tend to do one thing at a time.”

“I did not want to hit the print button that many times. Granted, if I had done that, I’d have to add several weeks to my contract here.” As I could readily imagine Calden or his father revoking my print all privileges, I said, “Please don’t take away my printing functionality.”

He chuckled. “I’ll make sure my father doesn’t catch wind of your general efficiency, else he might. He’s convinced if he must suffer through the red tape, everyone must suffer through the red tape.”

“Maybe I should be auditing the red tape,” I muttered.

“It would be the sole report on this planet that would garner the general support of all people. If the red tape could be vanquished, my father would spend a great deal less time in the office.”

Interesting. While I monitored the stream of invoices printing, loading the poor table and locating the reams of new paper I’d inevitably chew through, I considered his statement. While I doubted Calden would be satisfied with merely improving his father’s situation, I could angle the reports to showcase the inefficiencies of the system.

Something was better than nothing, and if I couldn’t find anything noteworthy about his father’s general performance, I would hope for the best while bracing for the worst.

I found it easier to get through life when ready for anything it flung my way, although Earth’s fate had taught me an important lesson.

Sometimes, there was nothing anyone could do to prepare for life’s tragedies and setbacks.

All we could do was our best.

TEN

They want hugs.

Over the course of the day, Allasandro Stephans had decided to go on an unloading spree, freeing his inbox from the weight of thousands upon thousands of contracts, invoices, and other documentation destined to test my patience and drive me to the brink of my sanity. I managed to file away a small percentage of the burden to filters, but everything else either required a signature, some special notation, or personal attention from somebody.

With so many refugees needing general assistance, I became the somebody handling the fine print so others could take care of the displaced people and animals. Sorting and prioritizing the invoices took the rest of the day, with the most important being taken to the appropriate person immediately while the others went into a pile. Tomorrow, I’d have an even larger mountain of invoices to climb, but I’d managed to sort, deliver, and otherwise tame over five hundred of the rascals before the end of the day rolled around. To simplify matters for me, I used a system of notations to help me track when the invoice had been delivered, who had accepted it, and what it was for, which went into a spreadsheet.

Anyone to follow in my path would be screwed if they tried to make sense of it, but I’d handle that problem later—a lot later.

All that mattered was making sure the appropriate people received money to make certain the refugee efforts continued without interruption.

Ten minutes after I had been scheduled to leave, Calden showed up at my office, tapping on the door before letting himself in. “My father has dictated that all children and parental units are to leave the building.”

“Units implies one or both of my parents are here.”

“Both. They want hugs and to visually confirm that you are still living.”

I rolled my eyes. “They confirmed that while I was sick. I do remember that much!”

“Ah, but they need to confirm that you were not brutally slain by work today.”

My parents enjoyed driving me a little crazier each and every day. “I like to think I conquered a rather challenging foe.”

“Having seen part of the foe, I agree with you. As you won the wager, I’ve decided to give you a choice. I can cook for you and we can eat in or we can go out. I’m warning you, if we eat in, there will be book reading by the fireplace in the schedule.”

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