Reiner - Two is Better than One

Reiner seemed deep in thought for a brief moment before he sighed loudly.

“That’s what I’ve figured out as well. The harder part is how to solve it,” Reiner muttered as he frowned as if deep in thought.

“Something like making sure that people are put into the right teams with other people that are compatible to them?” I suggested, based on what Charles had told me.

“Not bad. And how should we start doing that?” Reiner asked as he looked pointedly at me.

“Umm…the agent’s profile?” I guessed.

“Correct,” Reiner said as he turned to gesture to the large pile of document with a swipe of his hand.

Great. We’re going to have to go through that?!

“Isn’t there like an electronic form for the agent’s profile. I mean, in this digital day and age…” I asked, hopefully.

It would be faster if we have everything in digital form, then processing the data, finding trends, or arranging everything would just be so much easier.

Reiner shook his head at me with a regretful look on his face. My mouth hung even wider open at the work cut out for us. If rummaging through physical paper was the only way to do this, then I wasn’t surprised why Reiner seemed so busy and why he had been working until late at night at the office.

This work is not a piece of cake at all.

“Are you serious?” I whispered in disbelief.

“Newer data are in the digital database, but profiles of older agents are all on paper,” Reiner replied.

“Umm…I have a suggestion,” I mumbled.

“Out with it,” Reiner said as he leaned back against the back of his large chair.

“Let’s input the data that we need into a computer and then we can process it from there. It’ll take time upfront to input all the data but after that it’ll be easier for us to sift through and analyze it for trends,” I suggested.

“I don’t think it’s a bad idea but…how long will it take to input all of this data in?” Reiner asked.

“Can we go with a sample of people first? Maybe like a couple of teams or groups of people just so we can figure out how to analyze the data. If looking for trends this way is useful, we can input more data into the system,” I recommended.

“Ok…” Reiner readily agreed.

He’s listening to me more and more now. It was a great thing, but I also found it surprising. Regardless, it was a blessing that we could work together. Finally.

“I’ll do it. The first lot of inputs, I’ll do it,” I stated firmly.

“You will?” Reiner asked in surprised.

Honestly, I couldn’t quite understand why he was so surprised at my suggestion.

“Of course, I will. Who else will do it? I’m your secretary…so…” I replied.

Before Reiner could say anything, I took out my phone and sent a short message to Kat telling her that I can’t help her out at the bar today. I prayed that it wouldn’t be a busy night at the bar because I couldn’t go in to help out with the work that I’ve just carved out for myself. If I’m lucky, I’ll probably be done at around 3AM to get a big enough sample size. If I’m unlucky, then I’ll probably be here till morning.

Let’s do this!

“How long will this take?” Reiner inquired as looked sternly at me.

“Umm…3AM if I’m lucky? Morning if I’m not so lucky…?” I replied with my rough estimates.

“That’s the estimate time for one person, right? What about for two people?” Reiner asked.

He’s not thinking…

“No. There’s no need for you to do this. I can do it. It’s not a problem,” I quickly halted his train of thought.

“It’ll be faster if I help you split the work, right?” Reiner said.

“Like I just said, you don’t have to do this,” I replied, a little stubbornly.

Reiner got up from his seat and completely ignored my protests. He headed for the pile of documents before scooping around half of them into his arms and placing them next to his computer. He’s really going to do this…

“How should we do this?” he asked.

I guess I don’t have a choice because he isn’t going to listen to me after all.

“Umm…I’ll set up an excel with all the fields online and then I’ll grant you access and then we can start keying in the data. Honestly, though, I think it’s better if we get some other secretaries to help out,” I said.

“No need. I can do this,” Reiner replied decisively.

“Well…if you say so,” I muttered under my breath, but I was sure that he heard me.

“I have to drive you home anyways or Queen’s going to get mad,” Reiner said before grinning at me.

“I guess you’re right about that…” I replied with a small laugh.

“Let’s get to it,” Reiner said enthusiastically.

It felt like I didn’t have another choice and he wasn’t willing to listen to my protests. In the end, we ended up working together to input the data into our computers. However, since it was two of us working on it instead of me alone, we managed to cover more data points than I had initially planned, and we finished much faster than 3AM.

“My eyes hurt, and my back is sore…I feel like I’ve aged more than ten years…” I complained while stretching after we had wrapped up for the day. Well, more like for the night.

Glancing at the clock on the wall, it was a little past midnight. Much better than the estimated time of 3AM in my lucky scenario.

“Ready to head back home?” Reiner asked.

“Definitely,” I replied before smiling a little proudly at him.

We managed to cover a lot of ground today. With all the data inputted, we can start analyzing it first time tomorrow morning. While we walked together to the car, I felt like for the first time I was enjoying my job here.

--To be continued…