Chapter 11


Jane was feeling quite positive when she arrived at work the day after: having the day off on the Tuesday had given her the chance to spend some time with, and talk to, her mum & dad. She was actually a bit early, and the first one in.

She put her bag, along with the tins she's brought in with her, onto her desk, switched on her laptop, then went to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. The kettle had just boiled, and she was filling up a cafetiere with hot water, when her boss, Brian, walked in.

"Oh, hi there Jane! Good to see you!". Jane wasn't quite sure whether he was being nice, or a bit sarcastic.

"Good morning Brian!" she replied

"Ah, yes... Jane... when you're ready, can you come into my office - and bring your coffee with you!"

"Ok!".

Jane went and logged into her laptop, checked to see if there were any important emails - there weren't, apart from one saying that there would be a short departmental meeting at 10am. Next she took the picture, in it's frame, out of her bag - it was a nice picture of Peter that she's got printed yesterday - and put it in pride of place on her desk. She didn't know why she hadn't thought of doing that before.

Finally, Jane picked up her cup of coffee, and went to Brian's office.

"Close the door, and sit down" said Brian as she entered.

"Am I in trouble for yesterday?" asked Jane

"No, of course not - thanks for the text by the way: you clearly had a bit of a late night! Sarah reminded me what it was all about. Look, if you need any more time off, it's not an issue. Anyway, I need to talk to you before the 10am meeting"

"Yeah, I saw about that, what's happening?" asked Jane. Jane knew that these meetings usually meant that someone important was leaving. Or joining. Or being moved around in the organisation

"You know, I realised yesterday that I've never really taken a good look at your HR record since I joined the company 2 years ago, so I took the opportunity to do so. You joined us 10 years ago, on the traineeship program, didn't you? Then moved into IT. And you've have been progressing amazingly well ever since. And you're still with us. Have you ever thought about leaving, moving on to something different, something more interesting?"

"No, I haven't. I enjoy working here: the people are good, and the job keeps me interested."

"From what I read, I get the feeling you're ok with change, with challenges. You've been responsible for coming up with several of the ideas for new things that have helped improve things here"

"I.T.'s moving fast, and we need to keep up with what's happening out there, change is going to happen, if we like it or not. If we don't keep up, none of us will have a job"

"Yes, very true. 'Very business aware' I seem to remember it said in your HR record! So, the question is whether you're going to be ok with some more changes around here?"

"You're not leaving are you, Brian?"

"No..."

"John?" (John is Jane's 'Team Leader')

"No...."

"Ok, what then?"

"Over the last couple of years, you've probably noticed that the size of the Cloud team has been slowly growing, and I've been talking to John about it. We've decided we need to split the team into two. One, headed by John, will mainly manage and maintain the existing setup, and the other team will be responsible for managing the major updates, developing new applications, and looking at new technologies"

"Ok, so I guess that means you have someone new joining us to head up that team?"

"Actually, no..."

"So who?"

"Jane, you really do underestimate yourself...."

"Pardon?" 

"How would YOU feel about heading up that team?"

"Me?"

"Why not? Technically you are *more* than capable. I've seen you working with others out there, helping them to understand new stuff, helping them work out what they need to do to make something happen. Plus I've had some great feedback from some of our end-users about those 'how-to' guides you've been doing. You are also very good at searching for new technologies that might help us, so that's something we want to actually include as part of your job role."

Wow... Jane was shocked, but in a very positive way! "You really think I'm ready to be a Team Leader?"

"Absolutely. Ok, I suspect you will need some training on the 'leading teams' side of things, but that's no different from what John needed when he got promoted... he can probably suggest some suitable courses. Look, there's no actual 'man management' in the job, that's what I'm here for, it's more about taking on a technical task, and getting the team to deliver it for us. You, and your team, would be working closely with John and his team, and I have no doubt occasionally you'll need to borrow people from each other. So, what do you think?"

"Ummm..."

"Oh, I forgot one thing - you're going to have to take a slight pay rise! Look, if you need a day or two to think about it, that's fine...."

Jane took a very big breath, then exhaled. "No, that's ok.... I'll do it!" she replied with a big grin on her face. In fact the big grin revealed her crooked teeth, but for once, Jane didn't really mind.

"Great news, thank you Jane! I have no doubt you'll cope very well with the changes! Look, I'll be telling everyone about what's happening in the meeting at 10, so can you keep it under your hat till then?"

"Yeah sure"

"And Jane.... thank you, you're a great asset to the company!"

Jane was on cloud 9 as she came out of Brian's office. It was 9:30, so she had plenty of time to send out the email to her colleagues that she had been thinking about yesterday, and in fact, what had just happened made it even more relevant.


"Good morning all" the email started. "Sorry about making many of you you feel a bit awkward on Monday afternoon. But don't worry, I understand that it's often hard to know what to do in such circumstances.

Many of you will know what happened last year: my brother was killed - we found out at 4pm, a year ago to the day on Monday. Peter and I were very close, and it hit me hard... this last year has been hard for me at times, but having such a great team to come to work with every day made it all a LOT easier, so thank you all very much for being so understanding! The good news is that things seem to be getting better for me.

One of the things I do to help with my stresses is to cook, so you'll be happy to hear that I spent a bit of my day off yesterday cooking you all some Bakewell Tart - so please go get a coffee and grab a piece, it's in the kitchen!

You may have also noticed I just put a picture on my desk: it's a picture of Peter, my brother. Please, come across and take a look. Come and talk to me. It doesn't need to be about him, you can talk about anything. Even about old episodes of Red Dwarf, if you must! Just please don't just ignore me - I'm still a part of the team!

Love to you all!

Jane
xxx"


Jane double-checked the email, and hit 'send'. Then she took the tins of Bakewell Tart into the kitchen. When she got back to her desk, Sarah was there.

"Nice picture" said Sarah. "... and good to see you back in the office!" she added, giving Jane a quick hug.

"Thanks" said Jane. "And thanks for last night too"

"So, what were you talking to Brian about in his office? Something to do with the 10 o'clock meeting?"

"You'll have to wait till the meeting..."

"Oh, come on..."

"Don't worry, it's nothing bad...."

-------

"Oh wow, Jane, I'm SOOO pleased for you - you deserve it!" said Sarah after the meeting was over.

"Thank you" replied Jane.

"So who's gonna be in your team then?"

"Oh, come on Sarah, I only got the news myself less than an hour ago! I don't know! But here's a question for you: which team do you want to be on? And if you were in my team, would you be ok with me being your boss?"

"First question first.... I'm kinda torn between the two. I like stability, but new things can also be interesting. As for the second question: I have no problem with that at all!"

"Hey, Jane... well done" said Sunil, one of her other colleagues that she had spent a lot of time working with: she had no doubt that he would want to be part of her team, he loved trying out new stuff.

The short meeting caused a lot of chat and speculation, and many of her colleagues came over and chatted to Jane, both about her email, as well as to congratulated her, and fish a bit about who would be in her team.

Later in the day, Jane, John and Brian had a short meeting: they decided that they needed to have a very short chat with each person in the department to find out if they had a preference for which team they wanted to be in. Without much thinking, there were 3 people that Jane knew would want to be in her team, they all loved new things, but they would still need to be formally asked. Similarly, there were people who preferred working with the existing systems, and they would therefore be better working in John's team.

Jane also spent some time with John, talking a bit about the responsibilities of being a team leader, plus finding out about suitable training for her.

It was very clear to Jane that her life was about to start changing, and that she needed to change with it. Yes, Jane was ok with technical change, she'd proven that at work. She was still a little less certain about her personal life though - if only she could talk to Peter about it all, he would know what she should be doing, but that wasn't an option any more was it, so it was really going to be up to her.

Chapter 13

(Thursday)

Jane was not at all apprehensive as she boldly walked into her office, dressed in her goth outfit. Like last night, she was all in black, with dark eye-shadow, and heavy dark lipstick, not forgetting her old DMs. There were probably only 2 people in the office who would remember that Jane sometimes used to dress like that, and that was about 7 or 8 years ago: a lot of things had changed in that time!

Eyes turned to look at her, and the place went almost silent. Jane smiled back at them all.

"Respect, Jane, you look pretty amazing!" said one of the guys.

"Ah, going for the alternative look now you're a team leader, eh?" said another, very clearly joking.

"Jane, not seen you dressed like THAT for a few years" said Sarah. "It actually looks pretty good!"

"Probably the last time you'll see me like this too... it's time for a change, but I wanted to have a bit of fun first!" replied Jane. "Oh, by the way, what you and Simon doing on Saturday night?"

"Um, not sure, why?"

"My band is playing at the Anchor.."

"You kept that quiet!"

"It only got arranged last night, it was very much a last minute thing"

"You're in a band? I never knew that! And you're PLAYING at the Anchor? Cool! What's the band called?" asked Jim, one of her colleagues.

"It's odd, but we don't actually have a name.... and yeah, I play bass. Come along if you like rock stuff"
 


Jane was in the kitchen a few minutes later, making herself a coffee, when her boss Brian, walked in. Needless to say, he stared at Jane: he'd never seen her dressed quite like this before.

"Don't worry, Brian, it's just for the one day, something I need to get out of my system...." explained Jane.

"And there was I, thinking it was your new 'Team Leader look'!" joked Brian

"Hmm, don't tempt me" replied Jane. "Hey, Brian, you gonna be ok if I work short afternoons today and tomorrow?". Jane's company worked flexible hours, so it wasn't as if she was actually taking time off, she knew she had plenty of time banked. It was more out of politeness that she asked.

"Yeah, sure, that's fine...."

By leaving this afternoon at about 4, she would have an hour or so to go visit a hairdressers, and discuss what she could do with her hair. She also wanted to go and have a word with that girl about makeup tutorials.

You may be wondering why she's not spending that time looking for an orthodontist... well, whilst Jane is feeling quite a lot better about herself, she's not yet feel THAT much better. The idea of going to see an orthodontist still worries her. I don't know WHY, I guess it's like some people don't like going to the dentist. Or to school. Or to work for that matter!

Jane had done a bit of checking about the three main hairdressers in town. It was very clear that one was aimed much more at 'the older lady', and of the other two, one was getting good reviews. She rang them, and asked if it would be possible to come in and have a short chat about what she'd like doing with her hair: that was not a problem, and could she make about 4:15?



"Good afternoon, I'm Jane Smith, here to see Amber" said Jane to the receptionist, as she arrived at the hairdressers a few minutes early. We have to remember that Jane was dressed as a bit of a goth, but the receptionist didn't seem to care, clearly she had seen all sorts of looks in her time!

"Hi Jane, Amber is just finishing with a client, so please take a seat, and I'll let her know you are here"

"Hi Jane, I'm Amber, would you like to come with me?". She was lead to one of the cutting chairs, and Amber brought a chair over and sat next to her. "So, you are looking for a restyling then? Staying with the same look though?"

Jane explained that the goth thing was not her normal look, it was just for a day or two, that she needed to 'move on with her life', and felt that it was time that her waist-lenth hair was gone.

"So how short would you like to go?... hey, let me get a couple of books of pictures, to give you an idea". She opened the book that showed a model with very short hair, and passed it to Jane

"Oh, no, definitely not THAT short...".

"Ok, how about this then?" suggested Amber, showing her a couple of different bob cuts. "Ok, how about this one?": Amber showed her a cut that was just above the shoulders.

"Oh, yes, that's nice, yeah, that sort of length..."

"Ok" said Amber, picking up the other book, and turning to a page partway in. "Have a look at those, see if anything inspires you. Oh, you thinking about a fringe? There's several there with a fringe, if you're interested"

Jane took a look through the pictures. The idea of a fringe did appeal, but she was worried that it was a pretty drastic step: if she didn't like it, it would take a while to grow out again. While she looked through the pictures, Amber brushed Jane's hair, trying to feel what it was like.

"You have nice hair, what's your natural colour then?"

"Ah, yes, I'm a browny-reddy colour. I just fancied going black for a bit, to go with my goth look - it's one of those 'lasts a week' ones"

"So, you wanting to reverting to your natural colour when I cut it? Or want to stay black?"

"I need to stay black for a couple more days - I'm playing a gig on Saturday, and I was planning on it being my last outing dressed like this!"

"Ok... so you decided about the fringe?"

"I really don't know, I mean, would it actually suit me?"

"Want a quick preview?"

"What do you mean?"

"I can pin your front hair back, and give you a sort-of fringe, so you can see what it looks like.... if you don't mind me trimming the hair a tiny bit"

"Ok....". Amber brushed her hair straight at the front, then took the front hair, and folded it and clipped it over the back of her head, using the ends to create a fringe, which she trimmed. Jane looked at herself in the mirror. "So, what do you think?" asked Amber.

Jane smiled: she actually liked the look. "Yeah, lets go for the fringe!". She spent a few more minutes looking at pictures and chatting with Amber before they worked out what Jane wanted doing. Then they walked over to reception together.

"Can you make 3pm tomorrow?" Amber asked jane, "I seem to have a nice slot just then"

"Yeah, why not, let's get this done!"



So, Jane left work on the Friday at just before 3, and went to have her hair cut: first a shampoo, then a wet cut, then a gentle blow-dry. She was dressed rather more normally, with very little makeup, as she wanted to be able see what it would look like normally, and she wasn't disappointed: her normally reddy-brown hair - currently still quite black - was now just above her shoulders, plus she had a fringe. With the weight removed from her hair, it now had a bit of a wave to it. Jane thought back: she'd not had hair this short since she was at primary school! And she'd never had a fringe before.

"You look happy with what I've done" said Amber

"Absolutely, and thanks! It's even better than I thought it would be!"

"I've tried to do it in a way that you should be able to do yourself" explained Amber. "Just give it a good brush out when you've washed it, and either let it dry naturally, or use a hairdryer whilst brushing it. You should find it a lot easier to look after now it's a lot shorter"

Jane was really pleased with her new look, and it had the added bonus that her hair felt so much lighter!

"Hey mum.." called Jane, when she got back home a little later.

"In the lounge" her mum replied. Jane walked in to the lounge, but said nothing. Her mum looked up at her... and stared, then a big smile appeared on her face. "Oh my goodness, I wasn't expecting that.... but it actually looks rather nice on you. I bet it feels strange, you've had long hair for so long"

That night, Jane went to bed feeling good with herself. She had chatted with her mum and dad a bit more this evening, and she was taking small steps to allow herself to move on with her life. Once again, she was sufficiently relaxed that she didn't feel the need to bite her arm. If only the bad dreams would just go away, Jane could really start to move on with her life.

"I love you Peter!" she said as she closed her eyes. Moments later she was fast asleep....

such an interesting story!

Thank you for your feedback, it's always nice to hear people are enjoying the story! You've probably spotted that I'm currently posting every other day, which seems to be about the pace I can write, although that might drop next week, as I'll be a bit busier. So another chapter for you all tomorrow!

It's good to see things looking up for Jane. I always look forward to your postings.

Chapter 15



We're almost 2 weeks later. Jane now has 3 members of IT working with her in her team, the other 7 are still with John. Of those, 4 wanted to stay in John's team, maintaining the existing stuff, the other 3 would work in which ever team needed them at the time, so might work with Jane in the future... the idea was to ease Jane in gently. Luckily the workload was currently on the low side, giving Jane and her team some time to work out what new things they felt should be done... that's on top of the preparations for a fairly major upgrade of the software the company used, due in a month or two's time.

During the team's chatting, Jane found out that one of them had a YouTube channel, and was pretty good at editing videos, so they decided that they would replace the weekly IT emails that she had started putting out several months ago, with a video. She ran the idea past Brian, and he said they should try it for a couple of weeks, and see what the response was.

Jane actually found being a team leader was better that she had thought, and her current team of three were very happy to work with her, which has made it a lot easier for her.

In terms of her dreams, since she had told the truck to 'Go away!', it HAD... she'd had no bad dreams since, which pleased Jane greatly: it was nice being able to sleep through the night, with the added bonus of being dry when she woke up.


----

So, Jane is sitting in the orthodontist's waiting room. There's a couple of other teenagers there, a girl and a boy. They both have braces, but the boy has glasses and a facebow, and to be honest, looks a bit geeky. Jane feels a bit sorry for him, it must be horrible wearing that metal wire thing on the front of your face!

"Jane Smith" says a voice. Jane looks to the door, where a lady in her 40's is standing. Jane gets up and follows her into the treatment room. "Sit up in the chair please" she commands rather brusquely. Jane does as told, and sits in the treatment chair. An older man, definitely in his 50's, maybe even in his 60's comes over, and sits on a stool next to her.

"Ah, yes, Jane Smith, we've got a bit of work to do on you today!" he said. Jane wasn't too keen on his manner, but there was little she could do about it. On her last visit, he had taken impressions of her teeth, both top and bottom, and she could still feel the spacers between several of her teeth: they had been sore for a couple of days.

The older woman, his assistant, brought a tray over and put it on the small table next to the orthodontist: Jane could see plaster moulds of her top and bottom teeth, and each had a metal appliance on it. The assistant gave Jane some dark glasses to put on, then the orthodontist reclined the chair. "Open your mouth please..." he said. Jane remembered this from her last visit: he put in a lip spreader, to hold her lips apart, to make it easier for him to work. He turned on the light and pointed it at her mouth, then picked up a long thin tool, and went into her mouth with it: a few moments later, she could feel that the pressure between her molars had gone... he must have removed those horrible spacers.

Next, he spent quite a bit of time making sure that the two metal appliances fit in her mouth, over her teeth. This involved attempting to push them in to place, then removing them, adjusting them, and trying again. The bottom one had a metal band on each side, that would fit over her front full-molars, with thick wires going to the front, where there was a lumpy adjuster screw thing. The top one was worse: it had 4 bands, that went over her front main molars and her front pre-molars, with thick wires between them, and a screw adjuster thing in the middle. But that wasn't all: in front of that, there was a thick zig-zag wire, which was going to stop her pushing her tongue too far forward.

Finally, he was happy that they both fit ok, so he then had to glue them into place. It's odd, but Jane was having a slight feeling of deja-vu, though she had no idea why..  after all, she'd never had braces before. After that, she had brackets glued in place on her other teeth, and after that he fitted the archwires, and put on some tiny rubber round things to hold everything in place.

"Thank goodness" thought Jane, "It's all done!". How wrong she was!

The orthodontist picked up another wire appliance, just the same as the one the boy in reception had been wearing. It seems that both her top and bottom appliance both had little tubes that this would fit into. The orthodontist spend a few minutes adjusting the ends of the inner bow, so they fitted into her top teeth. Then he picked up a second facebow, and fitted it to her lower teeth, then did a bit of fiddling around inside her mouth. Then he got a thing that went over her head, loads of straps, with plastic bits to the front, where he attached 4 elastics, which attached to the ends of the facebows. (Those of us who know about such things would recognise this as an Interlandi headgear with dual facebows!)

"You need to wear this as much as you can." he explained. "The metal facebows are fixed in, so they won't come out, but you'll need to remove the headgear when you shower, to stop it getting wet. Otherwise, you'll be wearing it all 24/7".

The assistant lady handed Jane a hand mirror, so she could see her braces. As Jane saw the two facebows, she started to panic a bit. Then she opened her lips, and saw the large metal brackets on her teeth, with the bright red ligatures on each bracket.

"No! No! I can'k wear all thith thuff. And I can'k thpeak....". Jane started to cry, and put up her hands to pull the facebows out of her mouth: of course neither would come out. "No! No!" she repeated. She closed her eyes and continued to cry.


Jane opened her eyes again: she was no longer at the orthodontist's, she was home, in her bed. She had tears in her eyes, and she was sweating... but at least, as she discovered a few moments later, she was dry.

Well, at least she wasn't being chased by a truck any more! But the dream felt familiar.... so while she could still remember a bit of the dream, she thought about it, and realised that she'd had pretty much the same dream a few times when she was a teen: the two teenagers were a boy and girl who she vaguely knew from school. Thinking about it, the dream was probably part of the reason she'd refused to get braces.

'It was just a dream' thought Jane, 'I'm sure getting braces won't be any where as near as bad as that dream! Maybe it's time to actually do something to get my mouth sorted out...."

aaaaaaand there is the lisp (which she should definitely keep - dream or not ;-) )

I love it when i can have a bit of fun like that! Sounds like you all enjoyed the fun.... the idea was give her a bad braces experience, that would have (as a teen) helped her decide NOT to have braces! But yeah, jane seems to have a few insecurities.... losing her brother didn't help.

 I guess I need to get her to the orthodontist soon, don't I, so you lot don't get bored...... but first, she needs to......