Karen had no idea what to expect when she showed up at Solutions Incorporated on Friday morning. The receptionist desk sat there in front of the door looking lonely and she assumed that would be her work area. She looked around the reception area thinking that it could use a bit of decorating. The three functional chairs and one potted plant just didn't give it a very relaxing atmosphere. It wasn't clear if that effect was intentional or not; all she knew was that it would be very uncomfortable sitting at that desk for hours at a time.
She put her purse on the floor behind the desk and took a seat. Magus came out of his office and asked, "What are you doing there?"
"I'm settling in to work?" Karen replied.
"That's not your office," Magus said. "You'll be working out of the office at the far right end."
"Oh," Karen said. She grabbed her purse and stood.
"I've got some money to deposit. I'll need you to run over to the bank for me," Magus said. "There are also some case files that you need to file. The file cabinets are in the middle room."
"Okay," Karen said. She looked down at the receptionist desk for a second. "When are you going to get a receptionist?"
"When I find the right person," Magus answered cryptically.
"I could look for someone," Karen said. She wasn't sure how long he had been in business, but imagined that he desperately needed someone to handle his calls.
Shaking his head, Magus said, "She'll come along any time now. They always do."
"Okay," Karen said thinking that he should be worried more about when they came along than if they came along. "You really ought to do some decorating in here."
"I'll do that when I find the right person," Magus replied.
"Is that your answer to everything?" Karen asked.
"No," Magus said. "Sometimes I find the wrong person to be quite useful as well."
"I'll have to take your word on that," Karen said.
Magus said, "Well, I should let you get to work now."
"Alright," Karen said. She went into the office and noticed that there were now two desks in there. One desk had a stack of philosophy papers on it. She quickly figured out that was where her son worked based on his comments of the previous evening. The other desk had a stack of manila folders.
She noticed that the top folder was labeled with the name of the police department. She opened it up and glanced at the contents. The report inside identified her son as the culprit in the bomb scare. It detailed how he identified her son as the person who had made the call and the actions that he had subsequently made to catch him. Stephen hadn't had a chance of getting away with it. She closed the folder.
The next folder in the stack detailed her case. She glanced inside the folder and was shocked at the quantity of information about her that was in it. There was even a footnote detailing when she had been arrested as a teenager for shoplifting. That little episode had been her one and only brush with the law. Sitting in jail while waiting for her parents to get her released had been the most terrifying three hours of her life. After that, she had been immune to peer pressure.
The third folder detailed Wanda's case. She looked at the folder without opening it for a few seconds before deciding that Wanda should have her privacy. She knew what Magus had done for Wanda. It was hard to believe that he had paid her airline ticket to Germany and for a hotel room. She set it aside with the first two folders.
The last folder was labeled with FBI Washington D.C. branch. She thought about looking in it and then decided that she didn't want to know. She figured that a dozen agents would probably come swooping down on her and lock her away for life if she pried into their business.
She carried the four folders to the filing room. There were a dozen file cabinets along the wall. She opened a couple of drawers to determine how the files were organized. Each drawer was packed with folders with each folder neatly labeled with the name of the client and the date. Once she was satisfied that cases were filed alphabetically and by date she went about filing the new case files. It was tough cramming the new files into their proper places.
Stepping back, she muttered, "He's going to have to get some more file cabinets."
"I agree," Magus said from behind her. She nearly jumped two feet in the air. He said, "Order two more."
"Okay," Karen said.
"I imagine that they won't be delivered until after you leave today. You can spend next Friday organizing the files," Magus said.
"That's going to be a lot of work," Karen said.
"I would say so," Magus replied. He looked over how Karen was dressed. She was wearing a dress that would have been appropriate for church or a ladies outing. He added, "I would wear blue jeans next week if I were you. There's no need to ruin nice clothes."
"I wasn't quite sure what to wear," Karen said. This was her first office job.
"Well, there's no need to dress up. You'll spend most of your time here in your office area," Magus said.
"I'll keep that in mind," Karen said.
"Good. Now run off to the bank with the deposits and get back here. We've got a lot more to do today," Magus said leaving the filing room.
Karen returned to her office to search for the deposit. There was a deposit slip made out for the amount of $100,120.00. She looked at the stack of checks that were under the deposit slip. There was a check for a hundred thousand dollars from the FBI. There was a check for a hundred dollars from the police department. There was the ten dollar check that she had written and a ten dollar bill. She wondered why he had bothered with her case when he could earn a hundred thousand dollars from one client.
The entire trip to the bank took close to forty minutes. Most of the time was spent in transit to the neighboring town where the biggest bank in the area was located. The teller had looked at the checks without batting an eye. She said, "We don't get many deposits of that amount this time of year. Usually we only get checks that big when the farmers sell their crops."
Karen said, "It sure is a lot of money."
"That's nothing for your company. Last week there was a deposit of a check for ten million dollars. I couldn't believe it," the teller said.
"Ten million dollars?" For the hundredth time she wondered what Magus did to earn that kind of money.
"Yes. My hands actually shook when I was holding that check," the teller said.
"I can imagine," Karen said. She didn't know if she'd be able to carry a check for that amount of money. The idea of losing it would give her nightmares for a month.
The teller asked, "Will I be seeing you every Friday?"
"I guess so," Karen said. She could see why Magus wouldn't want to leave the business for an hour when a client bringing ten million dollars might walk in the door at any time.
"Well, come to my line. I usually deal with the large businesses in the area," the teller said.
"I will." Thinking that it would be a good idea to exchange names, Karen said, "My name is Karen."
"I'm Melissa, but everyone calls me Mel."
"I'll see you next week," Karen said.
Al Kirk sat in the chair across the desk from Magus with a hopeful expression on his face. He had just handed Magus two five dollar bills. At sixteen years of age, ten dollars was not easy to get. He said, "My problem is that no one treats me like an adult. What can I do about that?"
"Grow up," Magus answered.
"What?" Al asked disgusted by the answer.
"You heard me. I said, grow up."
"I can't believe that I paid ten dollars for that lousy advice," Al said.
Magus opened a folder and looked over the page inside it. He said, "You have consistently made Bs in school when you could have been making As. You skipped classes four times this year although you were only caught once. You disrupt classes and mock people who are serious about getting a quality education. You have two speeding tickets; one of which was issued when you should have been at home in bed. You haven't managed to keep a job for more than three weeks. One of your employers said that you routinely showed up late to work and were disrespectful to the customers."
Al's ears turned bright red. He said, "I can explain all that."
"Don't bullshit me. I deal with facts and not excuses," Magus said curtly. "As far as I can tell, you are a spoiled rotten little brat."
"No!"
"Yes. I will give you the solution to your problem once again. Grow up," Magus said.
Al frowned and asked, "So how do I grow up?"
Magus opened a desk drawer and looked through a number of files. He pulled out an envelope and took a moment to examine the contents. Satisfied, he slid it across the desk. He said, "Do everything that is in this envelope."
Al opened the envelope and examined the papers inside. He looked up at Magus and said, "I'll be a dweeb if I do everything in here."
"What do you think being a grownup is all about?" Magus asked.
"It is about making decisions for yourself," Al answered.
Magus shook his head in disgust. He said, "Being an adult is not about fun and games. It isn't about doing what you want to do because you want to do it.
"Being an adult is about taking responsibility for your actions and meeting your obligations to others. It is about doing things that you don't want to do because they need to be done and there is no one else to do them. It is about respecting those around you and earning their respect. It is about being civil. It is about putting others first.
"One of the hardest things to learn about being an adult is accepting that you have very few choices in life. Sure, in the simple stuff you have choices. Do you want white or wheat bread? In the things that matter, you don't have many options. Even when you do have choices, usually none of them are ones that you want. Should you stay at home when your kid is sick or go to work to earn enough money to pay the doctor bill? Adulthood is about having to make nasty choices that keep you awake all night wondering if you made the right decision.
"If you want to be treated like an adult then you have to act like an adult. It is time for you to put away your toys. It is time for you to wean yourself from your father's money tit. It is time to end being selfish."
Al had listened to the lecture sinking ever deeper into his chair. No one had ever talked like that to him. His father had yelled. His teachers had shaken their heads. His pastor had referenced the Bible and talked about honoring his parents. No one had ever laid it out like that. He said, "I see what you mean."
Magus' voice softened, "I think that you will find that was the best ten dollars you've ever spent in your life or the best that you'll ever spend. Go now and think about what I've said."
"Yes, sir."
Karen entered the room after Al left. She had arrived just in time to hear Magus' speech. She said, "You were kind of rough on him."
"Not at all," Magus replied. "I probably wasn't rough enough."
"I guess that most of us just kind of grow into adulthood so slowly that we don't even think about what it really means," Karen said. There hadn't been a day when she had decided that she was going to be an adult from that day forth. Instead it had crept up on her. She woke up one day realizing that she was a wife and a mother and that her childhood was gone.
Magus said, "There are a lot of people who haven't learned what it means to be an adult despite their age."
"I guess," Karen said.
Magus sighed. Pointing to his drawer, he said, "In this desk drawer I have thirty solutions to the most common problems that people bring to me. Almost all of them involve a short lecture about doing what needs to be done."
"What are the most common problems you get?" Karen asked. She wondered if she would have a chance to look through that drawer.
"I can't pay my bills. I didn't get the promotion that I should have gotten. People are mean to me. My spouse is cheating on me. I'm not happy with my life. People don't treat me like an adult. I can't get pregnant. I am pregnant. I'm addicted to drugs or alcohol. A person significant to me is addicted to drugs or alcohol. I'm in an abusive relationship. I'm ugly. I'm fat," Magus said. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Those are pretty common problems and there are some basic solutions to them."
"I have heard all of those problems before," Karen said.
"Occasionally I get a good problem handed to me. I look forward to those kinds of problems," Magus said.
"Like what?"
"Like the guy who woke up with amnesia one day. He had no idea who or where he was. He didn't have any identification on him. The police couldn't match his fingerprints to any records. That was a novel challenge," Magus answered.
"What are the toughest problems you have?"
"I guess the toughest problems I get are from people who have lost a child," Magus answered. "That is always rough. Parents are supposed to outlive their children."
"Oh that is tough," Karen said. She couldn't imagine what she would do if either of her children died.
"Of course, there's the closely related problem of a child who has gone missing," Magus said. "There are a lot of variations of that problem. You have the common problem of kids running away from home. Then there are the cases where ex-spouses take them. Even worse than that is the situation where a stranger takes a child. Occasionally you get one that is lost in the wilderness."
"Do you find many of those children?"
Magus answered, "There are specialists who do that. I send the parents to the appropriate specialist."
"Oh, I thought you solved their problem," Karen said.
"No. I provide solutions to problems. Getting someone hooked up with the right expert is often times the best solution to someone's problems," Magus replied.
Karen asked, "What is the most unusual problem you've gotten?"
Magus looked at Karen and then said, "Enough idle chatter. You've got work to do and very little time to get it done."
"Okay," Karen said. She was a little surprised to have the conversation cut off like that.
"I need you to order some filing cabinets and to restock the office supplies," Magus said.
"Yes, sir."
Magus started making notes about his last client. It was important to capture the details while they were fresh in his mind. Once he was finished with jotting down the essentials, he put it into a manila folder to be filed later. He touched the side of his desk and the desktop started moving. With a sigh, he said, "It is time for me to get back to work."
Karen returned to her office wondering what Magus was doing running this business in the middle of nowhere. It seemed to her that someone with his skills should be in one of the big cities working for large corporations rather than charging ten dollars to plain folks walking in off the streets.
She sighed. At least with him being here she had been able to talk with her husband the other day. Words could not describe how much that one conversation meant to her. E-mail was nice, but actually getting to see and talk to him had been overwhelming. She couldn't imagine what women went through during World War II when it took weeks for mail to make its way across the ocean.
Going over to the computer, she went to the website of one of the office supply companies that had a local branch in the area. She browsed through the online catalog looking for a filing cabinet that matched the ones in the filing room. It was easy finding one. At least office supplies didn't change from year to year like fashions. She wondered if the kinds of problems experienced by people weren't more like office supplies — there weren't that many varieties and they didn't change from year to year.