She applied her uniquely talented handwriting skills to a card for him, and took it to his desk the next day:

                                    Dear Pierre,

                                    Have a wonderful Christmas

                                    & a fantastic New Year.

                                    Love always,

                                    Margaret

Pierre noticed that her capital letters, as well as even her lower case ‘f’ always included a wide flourishing exaggerated curvature, which was in itself a form of art. What he had once again failed to notice, was that she had always done the kind considerate thing, in spite of all the frequent frustration points he’d earned with her as a childish colleague. It was as lost on him as her attempts to bolster his confidence had been at Allen Timms’ band concert.

In early January, Ron Shirkin got hold of some discount movie tickets for a mid week screening, and sold one to Margaret, two to other staff, and one to Pierre.

“Just don’t sit too close to Margaret,” he told Pierre, “Her boyfriend would kill you.”

Unaware of this particular example of social guidance counselling, Margaret walked down the city street with Pierre and the others after the movie, and they found themselves in a games arcade. Margaret stopped beside a glass cabinet with a remote controlled mechanical scoop suspended inside it above a pile of stuffed toy animals.

Pierre seemed to scoff at the very concept of such a place as a waste of money.

“It’s okay to play games!” said Margaret, wondering if her colleague would ever mellow out.

He soon went to the station and caught the train home.

A week later, she went to use the computer in her department and found Pierre already there. His own department’s computer was down and he was racing through his typing tasks as fast as he could. She asked him to vacate it, as she needed it to perform tasks for her own department, but he wouldn’t budge. A mature gentleman would have vacated his own department’s compute for her sake, but twelve months after leaving school, Pierre was still trying to function like an independent schoolboy in a classroom.

Margaret stormed back to her desk exasperated.

A few minutes later she sought the assistance of her supervisor, who relieved Pierre of the computer, thus facilitating Margaret’s ability to get on with her work.

Two weeks later, Pierre surprised everyone in the office by handing in his resignation. There was no conflict leading up to it. In fact, in the two months leading up to Christmas, he had at least improved his game in the typing pool and passed his extended probation period with flying colours. Although still a pain in the neck to Margaret, he was now getting on well with his own department’s supervisor Alene Sirley and those around him. It turned out that he had always intended to return to university, but after dropping out, had taken a secretarial job for the balance of that year, while awaiting an admission to a different university, to start a different course more suited to his aptitude, namely science. He had kept his hidden agenda under wraps for eight or nine months and just now announced his real intentions. Since passing his probation, he had also been moved into the position that Allen Timms had occupied for the last 8 months of the year, while Allen had gone to another department.