`the Q n' A of career decisions.. [open]

[Maria White]

I want a reason
for the way things have to be
[extra]

Subconsciously, the pen tapped against the notebook in a beat all its own. Marie could not pin what made this place a tourist spot. Every year there were a handful of new travelers heading north to Glendale. What was here that kept them coming back. The beach? The beautiful sand that rainbow coloured shells were picked from like apple trees. Or the country club? Were they fresh drivers with a point to make driving miles north to party. Or was it here? A historical 1950s movie theatre transformed into a blockbuster trademark, Cinnemark, for the new and potentially dull storyline CG-ed action films.

Maria frowned. She just couldn’t figure out what it was on her own. And that meant going to the tourists with them wonderful surveys. Zoomarang online marketing surveys, here we come. She purposely snapped her notebook shut. You know what this place needed? A blast from the past, something that reverted back to its culture of old films that boomed the industry. Give these kids a little history lesson in out things used to be. These kids were texting and surfing the web like it was the only way to keep in contact with the world.

She pulled her touch screen smart phone from her purse and pulled up the website for her survey. Touch screen phones were the best things ever invented for market research. No need for hundreds of photocopied sheets and golf pencils that broke every second person. No more emails spamming people to partake in a survey to help develop or business. Simple face-to-face relations with real people spending 5 minutes to fill out something that goes straight to a computer to do all the results! Maria was in love with these phones.

The questions were easy enough: Age group?, where are you located?, what are your past times here in Glendale?, What are your hobbies?, what season you usually come?, who do you usually come with – friends, family, organization – if organization which?, What would you like to see built in Glendale in the future?.

Well time to get the hands dirty and make some conversation. This was what Maria was good at – focusing on a relation with a customer and understanding how to communicate with them to open them up. Mustering up a smile and an air of welcoming warm and persistent confidence she hoped would not scare her surveyees away, Maria turned from facing the theatre to the on-coming movie-goers.

“Hi there. Could I spare a moment of your time to answer a few question about our lovely town, Glendale?”

Oh this would be a long night.

[Tala Stone]

It had been quite a while since Tala had visited the nearby town Glendale. She spent most of her time just hanging around over in the Olbert Mansion with her pack, or over in Hampton to buy some of the necessities, but mostly just the Mansion and it’s surrounding area. But a week ago she had heard about a certain movie coming out and she was planning to meet up with one of her pack members later to see the movie. It had taken her a while to convince her friend to join her, but she finally got through.

Tala was early for the movie viewing time and just hanging around in front of the theatre with her ear-buds stuffed into her ears, checking her iPod every few minutes for the time and to change the song. Time passed slowly and she kept looking up and down the street, but her friend hadn’t arrived. The movie was supposed to start soon. Better not have ditched me.

It probably wouldn’t anger Tala much more later. If her friend did end up ditching her for something or someone else, she would get over it easily. But at the time, she couldn’t help but feel a little bit mad about it.

She hadn’t been paying much attention to the people around her and jumped a little bit when a nicely dressed woman had turned to her and started to say something. Tala grabbed at the ear-bud cords and yanked on them until the little buds were flying from her ears and into her hand. “Wha-?” Tala started, but caught the rest of the sentence and understood what the woman had asked her. She nodded and answered with a little hesitation. “Uh, sure…” She glanced back up the street again with still no sight of her friend and gave out a small inaudible sigh. It’s not like she was in a hurry right now. “Sure, go ahead.”

Tala managed to hide her disappointment and smiled kindly at the woman, urging her to ask away. She could always see the movie another day.

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tags; maria! & open
wordcount; 348
notes; ---

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