Right on cue the girl walked in. Just as Mrs Stretton came up to the counter with a rather large book. "Such a wonderful thing you do with these youngsters Ms McCall, keeping them off the streets, giving them somewhere to... Ah, what's the expression? Hang out? Hee hee. If I were to hang out anywhere I'd probably be arrested!"<br/><br/>"Quite, Mrs Stretton. And we wouldn't want that, would we...!" Andrea laughed politely, then turned to Kaileigh, who was hovering impatiently. "In a moment dear. You go sit and wait for me. The door's not locked." Everything else in the office, including the expensive computer, desk drawers, filing cabinet and smartphone, however, was most definitely locked. It wasn't that Andrea didn't trust Kaileigh, it was more that there were things that the teenage girl was not yet ready to know.<br/><br/>Andrea's office was her sanctum sanctorum at the shop, a place she would retreat to when she needed peace and quiet, a place where she would go to do her accounts and paperwork during quiet periods, a place where she would conduct important meetings with suppliers too. And it was the place she took some of the more interesting young people in order to counsel them privately. The desk was a simple affair of HDF and Chipboard on a simple metal frame, clearly a self-assembly job. The computer was sleek and black and the size of a small flat-screen TV, with integrated touch-screen, cordless mouse and cordless keyboard. The WiFi router sat in the corner of the office on top of a four drawer filing cabinet made from sheet steel, probably from some government surplus yard-sale. Two moderately comfortable<a class="link link--external" data-proxy-href="/proxy.php?link=http%3A%2F%2Fmaschenzauber.info%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fbuy-conference-meeting-room-chairs-free-delivery-conference-chairs.jpg&amp;hash=e07980c6ca7dedde104afe5f2e24697a" href="http://maschenzauber.info/wp-content/uploads/buy-conference-meeting-room-chairs-free-delivery-conference-chairs.jpg" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank"> office-style chairs</a>sat against one wall, but the chair in front of the desk was definitely top of the range, probably the second most expensive thing in the room, after the computer. Andrea explained that if you are going to sit in a chair for any length of time you need it to be comfortable.<br/><br/>She waved the girl away and turned her broad smile onto the customer. "Now then, just this one?" The book was actually one of her best sellers, Medical Herbalism: The Science and Practice of Herbal Medicine: Principles and Practices, by David Hoffman. "That's fifty four dollars please, plus five cents for a carrier bag." The list price was $60, but the shelf was marked 10% off. She accepted the debit card and took the payment, popped the hard-back book into a plastic bag, and handed it back. "Receipt's in the bag, thank you, Mrs Stretton, have a good day now." She watched as the middle-aged woman waddled out of the shop, the door jingling as it opened. "Matthew Reynolds, put those down unless you intend to buy them, they aren't toys!"<br/><br/>The young man who thought he was unobserved behind a shelf and was playing with a couple of the fantasy statuettes, jumped up guiltily. "Sorry Auntie Andie." He vanished upstairs with the other kids.<br/><br/>Andrea looked around the shop. All was in order, there were no actual customers and all the kids were upstairs - she could hear what passed for "music" drifting down. One of her rules was that the digital decibel meter she'd installed in the upstairs lounge not go into the red and only go into the yellow once per minute. Of course the latter was not strictly enforced, but the kids did respect it. She took the sign out of the window and headed back towards her office, pushed the door closed behind her and sat on the edge of her desk. "Right, about the job. It pays twelve dollars an hour for the first month, which is a probationary period, going up to fifteen an hour if you last the month. After that I'll review your pay on an annual basis. There will be a profit share bonus, that basically means if the shops profits increase, at the end of the financial year you'll get ten percent of whatever profit we make, pro-rata-ed for the first year. Your hours are nine to five Tuesday to Friday and nine to seven on Saturday, with half an hour for lunch and two fifteen minute comfort breaks, that you can take in the lounge upstairs or off the premises. We're closed Sunday, mostly to keep the Jesus Freaks off my back, and you can have Monday off in lieu of Saturday. If you'd prefer to have a different Lieu day, please let me know. You will get staff discount on any purchases, basically cost plus tax. But if you abuse that by buying stuff for everyone on your contact list, I reserve the right to revoke the privilege. You can either pay up front or have purchases deducted from your salary. If you choose the latter you will need to keep the receipts because the IRS get quite irritable if you don't! Oh and any breakages will come out of your pay as well. I can pay you in cash, or into a bank account, but I will need to know which before the end of the week."<br/><br/>She stopped and smiled at Kaileigh, chuckling at the girl's expression. "You can start today, as a trial. I'll pay you cash for the hours you do today, when you finish. If you decide you want the job after today, I'll have all the paperwork ready to sign on Tuesday morning for you. Oops, I'm needed. Sit there and think it over for a bit..."<br/><br/>And Andrea left her office without giving the teenager a chance to say whatever it was that she had wanted to talk about. "Ah, Miss Sveltlan, that particular garment will set you back a mere twenty nine dollars and ninety five cents..."