The Smiling Office Angel
A tale of non-conventional ‘office culture.’
Whenever anyone got to the office in the morning Ally was already there. No one knew when she arrived. And she was always the last to leave.
She had only been working in the office for a little over a month but in that time everyone seemed happier and friendlier and more productive. Ally was always smiling and encouraging and this seemed to rub off on everyone else.
Whenever anyone was stuck on a project and in need of just the right idea to push everything forward Ally would suddenly show up next to their desk and say something that would put everything into perspective for that person and get them unstuck and moving forward again.
Ally never spoke much about herself. And she never gossiped about others. She just went about the office from desk to desk always smiling and changing everyone’s day for the better.
No one even knew who had hired her. For lunch Ally just seemed to disappear for half an hour. She never ate with anyone else and no one knew where she went.
While Ally was very pretty she was also very down to earth and never flirted or played any office games. She did not seem to care about her own advancement in the company but was very concerned with helping everyone else do a better job.
While she had her own small desk in the back near the exit to the restrooms, she spent little time sitting at it. She was always walking about helping everyone else.
At office meetings Ally would stand towards the back and listen with a smile. She spoke up only rarely and when she did it was always a suggestion that suddenly made sense to everyone and resolved all issues. Often after she spoke everyone went silent for a moment, some with dropped jaws, and then there was a collective click in everyone’s minds and they would all break out in cheers and claps.
In private many of the office workers began calling Ally, ‘The Smiling Office Angel.’ They all wanted to know more about her but they were so grateful for her presence in the office that they could not bring themselves to ask her any personal questions — as though they were afraid to jinx the newfound joyful state of the office and the newfound success everyone was having.
One day, the company CEO Jared Hightower called Ally to his office on the seventeenth floor. He invited her to sit in the chair in front of his desk as he leaned back in his own chair.
“Ally, we just had the most successful month in the company’s history. It’s quite literally mind-blowing. I’ve been asking around trying to figure out what happened to turn things around so dramatically and everyone I talk to says it’s because of you.”
Ally looked down into her lap.
“Ally, it seems that you have done more for this company in the last month or so than all the other workers combined.”
Ally looked up at Mr. Hightower, “Oh, no, no. The success is all because of them. All I did was help them and offer encouragement. It wasn’t me who did it.”
Jared Hightower leaned forward and put his elbows on his desk and his chin on his hands, “Ally, I don’t even know your last name and no one else seems to know it either. I did some research and found out something quite remarkable!”
Ally again looked down into her lap. She was not smiling.
“I found out that you don’t even work here! Is this true?”
Ally slowly nodded her head affirmatively.
“I would like to ask you who the hell you are and what you’re doing here and why but for liability reasons you can’t be working here unless you are officially on our payroll so I have a more important question to ask you…”
Ally slowly raised her gaze to look him in the eye.
“Ally, I’ve conducted thousands of job interviews with job seekers over the course of my career but this is the weirdest one ever. What I want to ask you is would you please accept a job with our company? Can we please hire you and put you on our payroll? We’ll pay you well and we’ll even give you back-pay for the last month. All I ask is that you keep doing whatever it is that you do. Would you please accept a job from me?”
Slowly standing up, Ally looked down at her shoes then back up at Mr. Hightower, “Thank you for the job offer. I am flattered. But I cannot accept the job offer because I already have a job.” With this she turned and walked out of his office.
With jaw agape, Jared Hightower dropped his hands to his desk.
No one in the building ever saw Ally again.
Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction. The Writings of White Feather
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