She smiled at Night Skies, her mood taking off at the prospect of having a night shift controller that might actually show up on time. “Nice to meet you, Night Skies,” she greeted, offering a hoof in greeting. “Sorry about the timing, I didn’t realize you were…” She left the rest unsaid.
Skies blushed, and shuffled nervously forwards to shake her hoof. “Oh, it- it’s no problem,” she muttered.
She noticed that the filly quite visibly averted her gaze when she said it. Unless she missed her guess, it was unintentional- the filly was a bad liar, and didn’t realize it.
She wasn’t worried about that, though. Courtesy required her to wave it off, whether it was true or not. “Alright then,” she smiled. “I was looking over your resume last night, and I noticed you double-majored in Engineering and Law at Pony State. It’s a rare pony indeed that can graduate with that kind of workload- but I’m curious how it went over for you?”
“Oh, I, uh,” Skies muttered confusedly, evidently not having expected the question. “Um, I… I would have had to be an idiot to try completing such a program in just four years, so I targeted five. Thestrals don’t need as much sleep as other ponies, so I was able to schedule myself a few naps and get away with thirty credits per semester. Then I… ran out of money, hardly one semester before graduation.”
She nodded. “Happens to the best of us, unfortunately.” She tapped her controls a couple times, trading shamelessly on her authority as a Princess to pull up the filly’s education records… and blinked. “Looks like you finished all of the work for a plain Engineering major- straight A student, too… they’ll probably give you a diploma for that if you merely ask.” She chuckled good-naturedly. A college diploma was one of the things that could help a thestral overcome the rampant racism against them.
Night Skies blinked, jaw hanging open- until she seemed to realize what she was doing, and snapped her jaw shut. “Oh, um… I- I didn’t-!”
Short Flight smiled at her. “Hey, that’s not a problem. Pulling off an ambitious double-major like that is one of the very few ways for thestrals to secure themselves a future in this modern world.” She glanced at the screen. “And most recruiters don’t have access to that… but I’m the princess.” She smiled at the filly’s suddenly worried expression. “Hey, that’s not a problem.” She pulled up the application again. “It says here you applied to become a night controller?”
“Uh- Yeah.” Skies sounded borderline terrified, like this is normally the part where she got turned down.
She looked back at the education readouts. “It’d seem a waste of that raw ability, though. Whaddya say to the overnight Emergency Engineer, with the controller training on the side, whenever I can get the idiots currently on night shift to actually show up?”
“What-!” She seemed alarmed, and confused. “But- But I don’t-!”
“Have an engineering degree?” she finished for her, to a nod. She shrugged. “We both know you have the education and ability, piece of paper or not. The only question left, really, is if you want it.” She glanced at the education readout. “Hay, I’ll even throw in some tuition ‘assistance’ so you can finish that degree if you want to.”
“Ahh… Um…”
“You know, if you don’t want it, you don’t have to.”
“Er…” Skies seemed to be waiting for dismissal. Which she probably got a lot; most ponies would have looked at that incomplete double major and instantly classed her as an overly ambitious moron, even before they found out about her breed.
She sighed, and made a few taps on her control panel. Then she turned to her printer, and removed the documents it just spat out, to lay them in front of Skies, who had been backing away slowly. “How about that?”
Night Skies dropped her jaw, staring at the documents- all three of which were job offers. One for the controller position she’d applied to, one for the engineering one she was offering, and one for just the engineering one, with no additional controller training and duties.
Then, she passed out, and collapsed on the floor.
Short Flight sighed, and punched the button to summon the receptionist. It took her about fifteen seconds to show. “Hi,” she greeted. “Could you take Night Skies back to the lobby, please? And when she wakes up, these are for her.” She pushed the offers forwards a little bit with a hoof.
She then waited for the receptionist to comply, and for the door to land closed, before she let out a sigh, cleared Skies’ info from her displays, and sent Shooting Star a request to come see her when he was next available. Skies was one of those ponies, who had enormous difficulty in finding a job. However, her difficulties arose from her race, rather than her ability.
She leaned back in her seat, idly calling up Star’s employee record with one hoof while the other called for one of her parents’ maids to bring her fresh Hands from the castle.
Then, as his record reflected a logoff event, she leaned forwards suddenly, examining the details- and called up Skies’ information once again, looking between the two.
By the time the knock sounded on her door, she was leaning back in her seat again, a grin decorating her features. “Come in,” she called jovially, sitting up straight again- and glancing at the messaging sidebar; her receptionist just sent her a message. She scanned it real quick while Star slowly opened the door and slid inside; it would seem Skies awoke in a panic and, after being presented the offers by the receptionist, had signed the one for both positions, the one she’d been offering… and had asked to be allowed to deliver them in person. She tapped the ‘in a minute’ quick-reply key, and smiled back up at Star. This was definitely a good note to end on.
Star paused nervously at a respectful distance from her desk.
“Good afternoon, Shooting Star,” she greeted, bowing her head briefly.
He bowed outright. “Princess,” he began. “G-Good afternoon.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please don’t feel like you need to bow to me. I’m not my dad.”
“Uh…” He rose uncertainly, eyes darting to and fro.
“In any case, I called you in here for a reason, and you can probably guess what it is?” She smiled at him.
“Uh…” If there was one thing she didn’t like about him, it was how uncertain- and nervous- he was around people he didn’t know like the back of his hoof, like her. He seemed to be able to work with spacers pretty well- even amongst the unprofessional spacers, communication tended to stick to the same patterns. Add that he’d been able to work with the more professional ones an order of magnitude or more faster than the unprofessionals from the start, and had been getting faster and steadier as he built experience, and she was starting to wonder if it was uncertainty about how she might react that slowed him down so much… and, probably, made him so nervous.
She waited patiently for him to finish thinking; that seemed to work best, with him.
Eventually, he managed to find his voice. “Is… Am I underperforming?”
She promptly bit back a snort of laughter- that wouldn’t be helpful. “No, no, not that. Actually, it’s quite the opposite- you’re doing really well.”
He blinked a couple times. “What-? But- But I’m- I’m the slowest engineer, and-!”
She stopped him with a raised hoof. “And you’ve been working for me for three months, Star. All the others would have quit by now, but instead, you studied up on the traffic controllers- then came in early to cover for nightshift idiots that elected not to show up for some reason or another no less than thirteen times.” She smiled at him. “I’m sure the paycheck looks nice from all that, but nopony else has cared enough to put in more than a few hours of overtime a month!
“Really. I mean yeah, you’re the third-slowest engineer, and second-slowest controller. But neither of those matter, because unlike them, you’re here when I need you!” She shrugged. “And besides, you’ve been getting faster- and the quality of your work is through the roof.”
Finally, she paused, smiling patiently while he worked on recovering from the shock. His jaw was hanging.
It took him nearly a full minute before he closed his jaw and spoke up again. “S-So… Y-You like what…?”
She nodded. “Absolutely! Keep up the good work!” She grinned. “Oh, and there’s one thing I wanted to offer you.” She tried steepling the fingers on her Hands, but sparks flew from the one on her right hoof and its fingers snapped back into their retracted positions. She shrugged, stripped it off, and dropped it on the corner of her desk; Star simply flinched at the sudden failure. She then steepled her hooves to rest her chin on while she watched him expectantly.
It took him several seconds to mull it over. “To offer…?”
She smiled, and nodded. “Yep! I happen to be hiring a new night engineer today- first of those I’ve been able to find in months- that is also interested in being a controller, like you. How would you like to help train her?”
She waited for another long pause. “S-She’d be on a different shift,” he eventually muttered, looking confused.
She nodded. “Yeah. To manage that, you’d just come in a couple hours early a few times a week, until she’s fully trained up.”
Her panel beeped suddenly as soon as she finished talking; she gave him a smile, before glancing down at the receptionist’s message while he thought. Ahh, the maid with her Hands had arrived. She smiled gently, and typed in a quick response. Send Skies in with her.
Almost as soon as she finished, Star spoke up. “I-I’ll do it,” he stated. He still sounded nervous, but the hint of steely determination that had been what convinced her to hire him in the first place was back in his voice. That determination quickly left again, but she’d learned he was a stallion of his word- especially when he said it like that. “How will I recognize her?”
She smiled. “Oh, I don’t think you’ll have any particular difficulty there.” Right on time, a knock sounded on the door. “Come in.”
The maid opened the door, entering first and using the side of the room to approach the side of her desk. Night Skies entered after her, looking a lot happier than earlier, but no less nervous.
Skies glanced worriedly at Star, and made her way carefully up to the desk to deposit her signed document on it. “D-Does this mean…?”
She accepted her new Hands from the maid, before taking the document to glance down it, making sure it was what she thought it was. It was. She smiled up at the filly. “That you have a job? Yes, yes it does.” She took a stamp from the side of her desk, stamped the document, and switched to a pen to sign under the stamp, before looking up at her again. “And now it’s official.” She looked at Star, who had been watching the proceedings contemplatively, and filled her lungs to speak.
Skies beat her to it, leaning right overtop the desk to hug her. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou!”
She pat the mare with one hoof, before gently peeling her off of her. “You’re very welcome.” She gestured towards Star. “I’d like you to meet Shooting Star; he’ll be helping out with your controller training. Star, meet Night Skies.”
Skies, excitement clearly boiling over, greeted Star cheerfully and offered him a hoof to shake.