4. Employment, or Lack Thereof
Rose was in a foul mood as she looked over the pages she was reviewing at Sweet Apple Acres. Her job today was simply to check over the status of tools, decide which tools should be replaced, and in what time frame they should be replaced, in order to get the most use out of their current equipment without having it break at a time when they really needed it. Unlike the tasks Rose had undertaken for the farm in the past, this was of minimal importance. At worst, she would find that there is no way to ascertain a replacement schedule, meaning that tools would have to be replaced when they broke and not before. At best, this would increase profits and farm workability by a small fraction of a percent. To put it bluntly, this work was meaningless. However, it was not the pointless task she was currently engaged in that upset her, but what it represented.
At this moment in time, this was the most crucial task that she could do, having long since fixed all the major problems in the farm and optimized the farm’s operation to its full capacity. In a week, there would literally be nothing else she could do for the farm ever again. Work would not even resume once the planting season started, since Rose had optimized the year-round working of the farm, and had taught Applejack how to deal with unforeseen problems in the same way she would. By this time next week, she would need to have a new job.
Rose sighed, taking a break from figuring out a “general rusting rate constant” to use as an average to examine her thoughts.
If she was honest with herself, Rose was not really upset that her employment at Sweet Apple Acres was coming to a close. From the very beginning she had known that this was a temporary deal and she had been very aware that every completed task brought her closer to the end of that temporary period. She loved working at the farm and having the Apples as her bosses, but she was emotionally and cognizably prepared to leave. No – what really bothered her is that she was running out of time without another job lined up.
Rose had started searching for a new job about three weeks back, trying to get something lined-up in advance. However, she had found that work was hard to come by. Or rather, work that she was qualified for. Ponyville was a small town, and as such most businesses were small, little family-run stores; still, Rose had managed to find a few job openings, to which she applied. The problem then was that there was very little demand in Ponyville for a writer or scribe. Instead, most jobs were geared towards earth ponies (since their strength and their sturdy frames made them ideal for construction jobs), or required specialized knowledge (like knowing how to design carts and the such). What had originally been a minor setback turned into a major problem once she reached her last week, still jobless.
She went back to work, using a placeholder percentage for the rust constant. Eventually she figured out a tentative schedule for the replacement of plows. Next she had to figure out if it really was worth the extra three bits to buy an oak-handled rake as opposed to a reinforced plywood one, but that was tomorrow’s problem to tackle. For now she went to inform Applejack that she was done for the day before spending yet another day looking for a new job.
“I know I shouldn’t stress out so much,” Rose thought. “But I don’t really have that many bits saved up. If I don’t have a job by next week, I’ll only have enough money for about a month before I run into extra problems.”
“You doing ok, sugarcube?” Rose was snapped from her thoughts as she heard Applejack call out. She was sitting in front of the barn with Rainbow Dash a few steps to her right. They both eyed her with concern.
“Yeah, just coming to let you know that I’m done for the day,” said Rose.
Both of her friends looked unconvinced.
“You still ain’t found another job, have you?” asked Applejack.
“No I ain’t… um… I mean, no I haven’t.”
Applejack giggled, but Rainbow Dash looked confused.
“Wait? Why is she looking for another job? Is she quitting?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“Oh, I never told you? Her job here was temporary. Physical strength ain’t her thing so she’s been helping fix things around the farm, but after a while you run outta things to fix,” responded Applejack. “That’s where she is now.”
“Yeah,” Rose continued. “So I’ve been looking for a job everywhere but I’m not qualified for the few jobs available in town.”
“Why not get a government-assigned job?” asked Rainbow Dash.
“Well, when I went to check they told me that they didn’t have any open positions. They told me that they would need clerks and the like once Winter Wrap Up ran around to take care of all the paperwork, but that it was pretty slow until then.”
Rainbow Dash looked off in the distance lost in thought. Applejack and Rose simply stared at her. After a few minutes she spoke.
“Applejack, what exactly do you mean by ‘helping fix things around the farm’, and is Rose good at it?”
Applejack was stunned for a second before answering.
“Oh, well, she looks for problems in how we run things and fixes them. Looks at our operation, who we sell to, when we sell, the harvest process, things like that, and she calculates the best way to make things more efficient,” she said. “And she’s really good! She’s made us a killing in profits and the quality has not dropped one ounce. Our cider season was the best one we had in years.”
“Is she good enough that she could use you as a reference and you would give her an awesome review?”
“Yes Rainbow Dash,” Applejack said, sounding a little annoyed. “What are you thinking?”
Rainbow smiled.
“I’m going to get her a job as a weather pony!”
“Um, what?” Rose asked, having been quiet for the entire exchange.
“A weather pony; it’s what I do. We control weather and help during emergencies. It’s technically a government job but we operate separately and independently.”
“But Rainbow, I’m not that strong and I’m not that great of a flyer.”
“That’s the thing, you don’t have to be!”
Neither Applejack nor Rose spoke, so Rainbow continued.
“There are lots of jobs that the weather ponies do. I do one of the more physically demanding ones because I’m an athlete, but there’s more to us than ponies like me,” she said. “Someone needs to direct weather formations, know when to schedule a rainy day or clear skies, and don’t even get me started on dealing with the Everfree.”
“What about dealing with the Everfree?” asked Rose.
“Well, when a freak storm comes in, we have very few minutes to ascertain the situation,” explained Rainbow Dash. “Our commanders have to figure out what the problem is, how to fix it, and then command the rest of the team to deal with the weather. This takes a lot of quick thinking and strategizing. We may be the ones attacking the rouge weather, but if we’re attacking at the wrong place or in the wrong way, it doesn’t matter how good we are or how many there are of us: the storms win.”
Rainbow Dash seemed to have another thought, and turned to look at Applejack.
“Besides, you said she was really good at finding problems with how things are run and finding efficient solutions,” she said. “I can think of a million problems that the weather team has in chain of command and procedures alone! For example, remember that storm on Rose’s first day here?”
Rose and Applejack gave Rainbow an incredulous look before responding.
“Vaguely,” they deadpanned.
“Oh, right,” Rainbow said, realizing her mistake. “Anyway, yeah, that storm came out of nowhere and spread very quickly from the Everfree, covering Ponyville. But we still should’ve seen it coming. Even if the heads up had been a few minutes before it hit, we should’ve seen it. Instead, we found out about it once it was here.”
She turned to look at Rose.
“If you’re as good as Applejack says you are, I’m sure you could figure out a system so that we don’t get blindsided again.”
Rose looked at Rainbow Dash. She understood her logic and everything Rainbow said made sense to her. However, there was one concern Rose had to clarify before she allowed herself to get excited. Applejack beat her to it.
“Rainbow, can you really just hire somepony out of the blue like that?” Applejack asked.
“I can’t,” Rainbow said. “But my boss can. We do it all the time. Since we are independently-run, we can hire anypony to fill any need the weather team has. That’s how we get away with hiring Derpy every time we need some extra muscle. I can vouch that there is a need for somepony to fix problems with efficiency and procedure. If you can vouch that she’s perfectly qualified for the position, I don’t see it being a problem.”
She then turned to face Rose.
“I’ll go talk to my boss and bring an application by your place tomorrow. You still have to fill it out and apply for the job, but that’s just a technicality. As soon as everything is turned in, you can count on yourself having a job as soon as you finish your last day here at the farm.”
Rose was speechless, but it only lasted for a moment.
“Thank you sooo much Rainbow Dash, I’ll fill it out as soon as I get it!”
Four hours had passed since Rainbow Dash had dropped off the application, but as Rose sat at her work desk, the application in front of her remained empty.
She had fully intended to fill it out right away. In fact, that was the reason why she had spent four hours sitting at her work desk. However, she had not expected to find herself stumped. And yet that is exactly what had happened.
Problems started with the first section of the application.
Write your Legal Name:
“Huh,” she had thought to herself. “Hadn’t expected that…”
Having never actually filled out a job application before, she was pretty surprised to find that question. The more she thought about it, the more that surprise turned into panic.
“Well, I can’t tell them my legal name,” Rose thought. She still did not know how her disappearance from Canterlot had been dealt with by her parents. For all she knew, she could have been declared dead, or maybe was said to be at home sick with some incurable ailment. In either case, suddenly appearing on a government job application in Ponyville would probably attract some attention. Even if nopony knew that she had disappeared in Canterlot and the application was never seen by anypony outside of Ponyville, every pegasi in Equestria had probably heard of the Rhyme family, being one of the oldest of the few noble families of pegasi in Equestria. One of them suddenly working a weather job in Ponyville would probably turn into gossip. Putting her legal name on here, even if only as a formality, meant that there was a high chance of getting outed by the pony who files the paperwork, or by the rest of the team once the gossip spread.
“But I can’t just lie, can I?” Rose asked herself.
After a moment of thinking she decided that this question needed to be thought out. She was at a very high risk of getting outed by this, but she did not want to lie. She’d have to come back to it once she answered all the easy sections. “On to the next.”
Gender:
___Male ___Female
“Huh.”
And so she sat, staring at the second section on the job application and pondering about things that never seemed so real until she had to deal with them face-to-face. The first section was easy enough to fix. All she would have to do was change her name legally and she would only have to deal with her connections to Canterlot if they asked for any aliases. Even then, she could probably omit any connection to the Rhyme family. She would be ok.
This, however, presented a whole new set of problems.
“What gender am I?”
She knew what answer they wanted. Biologically she was male. She had been born a colt. If she got a physical she would be treated and checked as a male. If she got arrested she would be placed in a prison for males. It was a pretty simple answer to figure out.
“And yet,” she thought, “I’m not male.”
She felt like a mare. No – she was a mare. She lived her life as a mare. This was who she was. But was this what she was? She let her gaze drop as the insecurities sank in.
“Can I really be female when my body is not?” she asked herself.
She stared at the two options. One she wanted to be more than anything in the world, but would never be able to reach. The other she tried her hardest to avoid, but could never quite escape. She was torn by the disconnect between her mind and body, cursed to exist in between the two boxes, and in between the struggle. Anger rose in her.
She got up.
Walking around the house, she stopped in front of the mirror. Her reflection stared back at her. She was wearing a gray cardigan over a white shirt and some dark pants that flared out at around her back hooves. She was the only pony she knew that wore clothes every day, and she probably would continue to do so even if she did not need to. But that was the thing: she needed to. Without her clothes she would be immediately recognized as a stallion. Worse still, without her clothes, she would not be able to stand to look at herself.
She stood in front of the mirror for a second contemplating a thought. She knew it would be a bad idea, but after a while, she carried it out anyway. She removed her clothing and stared into the mirror.
Staring back was now a stallion that could never be confused for a mare. Despite not being very bulky, the stallion had a broad slightly muscular collarbone. His shoulders were wider than a mare’s. His eyes were full of misery. Rose turned her body to her side, and the reflection did the same. The stallion’s back was fairly straight, lacking that curve that all mares seemed to have. His waist was far from narrow. His shape was most definitely male.
The stallion moved awkwardly in front of the mirror while the mare observed his body from every angle. This was her body: the body she was unable to change, and the body she hated.
Tears rose to her eyes as a cold anger gripped her. She felt ugly; no… that word was too mild. Disgusting; repulsive; hideous; those were better words. Another was powerless.
Regardless of how hard she tried, she could not force herself to see any beauty in the reflection in front of her, just a collection of flaws. Mistakes… she was a mistake.
She began to shake, tears falling freely from her eyes now, but she could not stare away. Her stomach was not right, what fat she had was deposited in the wrong places… This was not a mare.
She thought back to the two boxes; they mocked her. They excluded her. They judged her.
She judged herself.
Anger was now fury. She stomped at the floor, closing her eyes, trying to avoid her reflection.
“I’M JUST A JOKE AREN’T I?” she yelled at the empty house. “A MISTAKE, I WAS BORN A MISTAKE! HOW IS THIS FAIR?”
There was no way to change a stallion into a mare. She had done research, read through books, and tried everything to come up with any other answer. But there was none; it was the truth. This was unchangeable. She could never be a mare.
“WHY? WHY CAN’T I BE NORMAL?!” she cried. “WHY AM I SO MESSED UP?”
She would always be in the middle. She would always be an outcast, a freak. She was beyond thoughts now, just emotions. Hatred, fear, doubts; these were the things her world consisted of. There was nothing more. There was nothing else.
She stared at her reflection, the source of her distress. The stallion looked back with judging eyes.
“DON’T STARE AT ME!”
She raised her hoofs to smash the stallion, but the impact never came. Instead, she caught herself staring at a face with tear-stained cheeks and red eyes. She recognized this face. It was the face of a pony so broken that nothing mattered anymore, and yet not broken enough that she could not feel pain.
It was her face.
Rose collapsed softly in front of the mirror.
“Why can’t I be normal…”
She sobbed the night away.
Rose woke up the next morning, and was surprised to see her reflection in the mirror. She was not surprised at her reflection, more so surprised that the mirror was still intact. Regardless, she got up, showered, and got dressed. Afterwards she made herself breakfast and after eating it, she returned to her work desk, finding the blank application exactly where she left it. She also noticed the a few smudged letters on the application, as if the paper had gotten sprayed with a few drops of water.
Too tired to remember if she had been crying or not when she got up from the desk, she proceeded to fill out the application. This time she had no existential crisis, she did not question her identity, and she was not concerned about being outed. Those things required energy and concern, neither of which she had enough of to be bothered with. Instead, she just filled it out with the information she knew they wanted, even if it was not who she was. After she was done, she looked it over.
“It still doesn’t feel right,” she thought. “Besides, unless the pony that I turn this into is also the pony that walks me through orientation, they will not be expecting me. They’ll be expecting a stallion.”
It was amazing how clearly somepony could think when they were emotionally exhausted. It took only seconds for Rose to come up with an answer.
“Well, since I’m going to be outed anyway, I might as well do this thing properly,” she said bitterly. “I’ll write a letter explaining my situation and attach it to the application. If they’re going to figure out I’m trans, they might as well hear it for me.”
“I really need to watch my emotions more,” Rose chided herself. She was flying through the air wearing a dark green vest with dark grey shorts, and rushing towards her destination.
True to her word, Rose wrote a letter explaining that she was trans and how this affected her responses on the application, among other things, and dropped it off without letting a single worry cross her mind.
Those worries would appear in the days after the application had been submitted. In fact, each day she put between her and her emotional breakdown also increased the amount of worry over the very rash and reckless decision she had taken.
“I can’t believe I came out to my boss before even meeting them,” she said. “I am so stupid.”
A few days after she turned in the application she got a letter saying she had gotten the job, and that she was to show up for her first day two days after her final day at Sweet Apple Acres. One would think that having gotten the job would ease her nerves, but if anything, the opposite happened, with the growth of panic and self-deprecation going from a linear growth, to an exponential one.
“I mean, I’m surprised you didn’t just decide to wear a shirt that said ‘Hi, I’m trans’ for your first day on the job,” she said.
She then looked up, seeing the main building for the weather ponies.
Today was her first day.
Rose finally arrived, landing softly on the cloud. She then walked up to the receptionist desk and signed in. After waiting for a few minutes she was approached by a mare with a lavender-blue coat and a jasmine mane.
“Hello, my name is Cloud Kicker,” she said, “You must be… Evening Rose, correct?”
Rose nodded.
“Great, please come this way.”
Cloud Kicker led Rose down a hallway and into a small room. The room consisted of a large table, a few chairs, and a screen for film projection. The room was completely empty except for Cloud Kicker, Rose, and a stallion standing on the far corner of the room. He was white and slightly smaller than normal stallions, but he carried himself with an air of importance. He was holding a clipboard.
Cloud Kicker glanced at the stallion nervously before addressing Rose.
“Well, here we are. As I said, I’m Cloud Kicker and you have been placed in my team. I talked to Rainbow Dash so I’m aware of your abilities and what your assignments are going to be, but before you can go out and help improve the weather team procedures, you should probably learn how things around here work.” Cloud Kicker glanced at the stallion again, before getting the projector set up and starting the first movie. Rose did not know who this stallion was or why he was there, but she knew enough to figure out that he was someone you wanted to be on your best behavior around.
The majority of the day was spent watching instructional videos about the working of the weather team in various capacities, and an in-depth explanation of how things work. The white stallion was never introduced, but he was in the room for the whole thing, writing on his clipboard from time to time.
Finally it was time to go outside and meet the rest of the team.
The entire weather team was assembled to welcome Rose into their group. Rose could see Rainbow Dash waving from her place in her division. There was a lot of chatting before Cloud Kicker drew in everyone’s attention.
“Ok ok, settle down,” she said. Instantly there was silence. “Now, the reason we called this meeting is simply to introduce you to the newest member of our team, Ms. Evening Rose.”
“Miss?”
It was quiet, barely audible, but Rose heard it. However, instead of looking for the source she kept looking ahead. She noticed the white stallion again, writing on his clipboard.
“She will be working under me in the tactical division, and will be helping make revisions to some of the procedures we have in place, specifically in how we monitor and attack rogue weather. In any case, I want you all to give her a warm welcome.”
“Her?”
Once again, it was barely more than a whisper. It was almost indistinguishable from the various voices welcoming her to the team. But she had heard it.
She could not help herself; she looked for the source.
She was easy to spot. There was a pink pegasus slightly on her right, with a cold glare in her eyes, a scowl on her face, contempt in her stance. She knew… somehow, she knew.
Rose turned to look forward again, focusing on the stallion writing on the clipboard.
“Ok,” Cloud Kicker said. “Now, there’s one more thing we need to talk about involving our performance on the last quarter.”
She then turned to look at Rose. “You can go home if you want; this is stuff you don’t really need to know about.”
“Oh ok,” Rose said, “Thank you.”
Rose then flew home, thinking of the pink mare with disdain in her features.
“She knows about me,” thought Rose. “Somehow she knows.”
However, as she continued to fly home a thought struck her.
“No,” she said. “Cloud Kicker introduced me as a mare. The entire weather team knows me as a mare. Even if that one pegasus has suspicions, there’s no way for her to check.”
She found herself smiling as she went home.
“I have a job as a weather mare,” Rose thought to herself. “I may be forced to live my life in between the boxes, but at least the weather team will see me as the mare I am and nothing less. That’s a start.”
The white stallion with the clipboard moved to stand next to Cloud Kicker. She nervously took a step away from him, giving him center stage. The entirety of the weather team present was quiet and awaited for him to speak. After all, it was not often that the head of the entire weather department showed up to address his workers.
“This institution,” he began, “is built on the idea that anypony can serve their community. In the old days it was a responsibility for pegasi to control weather in the most responsible and beneficial manner for all. Now it could probably be regulated by magic, like it is in Canterlot, Manehattan, and other such cities. However, we don’t do that, because controlling the weather for the benefit of the community is no longer just our responsibility. It is our privilege.”
“That means that nopony is turned away if they are willing and able. That means that despite whatever else may be going on, that pony can serve their community. However, aside from ensuring that every pony that wants to serve is able to do so, we also want them to be able to serve without being discriminated against and without them feeling unsafe.”
He turned to look at the pink pegasus.
“We will not tolerate any discrimination against any of our employees, regardless of reason. And so, that’s what I came to talk to you about, to ensure intolerance won’t be a problem.”
He took a deep breath.
“As you may or may not have noticed, our new employee Evening Rose is a transpony…”