Chapter 15
The next morning slowly rolls around, and they check the morning newspaper. There is neither photograph nor mention of the hack.
“Well, we didn’t give them much notice,” rationalizes Carl.
They check the newspaper again the following day. Still nothing. They become rather discouraged, and doubt they will ever get any notice from the press. They decide to look again in the paper on the third following day. If there is still no mention, they feel that it is rather obvious that the newspaper is not going to run a story or even a photograph.
In the mean time, Jen rushes to work. She is a pharmacist or, as she often calls it, a professional drug dealer. She often wishes that she had chosen a different profession. Dishing out pills and filling prescriptions gets rather boring rather quickly. Of course she can always try to get a research position at a major pharmaceutical company; however, she will likely need even more training, and even more references which she does not have. So she has condemned herself to a life of dealing prescription drugs until retirement, or until she is laid off, whichever comes first. Still, she makes good money at her job, which means that she potentially will not have to work for as long if she plans things properly. However, she does not plan far ahead, and usually lives from paycheck to paycheck, squandering vast amounts of money on cars and clothes and gourmet food, and other things that are nice for a while, but quickly lose value with age and rot away.
Jen also likes to be in control of things, and is not above manipulation to get her way. She is very good in the subtle arts of persuasion, as are many females. She has developed a ‘voice of command,’ which many people feel obligated to comply with her demands when the voice was used upon them.
After several long years of dedicated service to her pharmacy, she had been promoted to shift manager. She holds authority over her subordinates, and she extremely enjoys this ego trip. Whenever someone below her in the department messes up, they always catch hell from her. Always. As a result, there are very few mistakes made in her department at the store.
Jen usually works the morning shift. Unfortunately for her, she is very much a night person. This leads to an interesting sleep schedule for her. Since it is rather difficult for her to wake up in the morning, she just stays up all night, goes to work, and then sleeps, waking up sometime late in the evening and starting the cycle over again. Sometimes she deviates from this pattern, such as when she, Sid, and Carl do random hacks together, such as the scarecrow convention. The consumption of copious amounts of coffee always helps tremendously while she is trying to stay awake at work.