Ye Reale Worlde

Hail and well met, good readers. I, Martinian, Scrybe and Chronikler of Historikal Accounts, bid you welcome to this, my first attempt at record-making. In order that we might have a full and detailed record of the events described herein, I spoke with the very subject of this account, and he shared with me the following tale:

"It was Monday, May 15, 2006, just before 9 o'clock in the morning. I stepped out of the car and glanced around me. It looked just as I remembered: a small parking lot, open to the street on the south and bordered on the east by a white brick wall. The L-shaped building housing the Reasons to Believe offices bordered the lot on the west and north. 'This is it,' I thought to myself, 'your first day of work.' With a deep breath and a quick prayer, I walked into the reception area to announce my arrival.

"The receptionist smiled as I entered. I smiled back and told her I was there to meet the executive vice president. She took my name and called the EVP, but he wasn't in his office. The receptionist left to look for him, leaving me to browse the shelves of books that make up RTB's on-site bookstore. After a few minutes, the receptionist returned and announced that she would lead me to his office, where he was now waiting.

"The EVP greeted me and we chatted for a few moments about my final days in college before he gave me a small stack of paperwork to complete. One employment application and one W-4 form later, I was ready to start working. The EVP said he would lead me to my work station.

"We walked outside and up a flight of stairs to the office suite where I worked last summer. 'I wonder if I'll get my old cubicle back,' I thought to myself. I watched, intrigued, as my guide produced a small plastic stub from his pocket and held it to a device on the doorframe. I would learn shortly that this was a new security system; the doors are magnetically locked, and the small plastic stub is the key that opens the lock. After a high-pitched beep, a small LED on the device lit up green, and we entered the building.

"'This is where you'll sit,' my guide said, and my jaw literally went slack. He had led me not to a cubicle, but to an office. 'I get an office? I gasped. 'Yep,' my guide said with a grin. I looked around the office...my new office (to this day, I still have trouble grasping that). The single bookshelf was well stocked: old copies of RTB books for reference, a Merriam-Webster dictionary, and a handful of Bible references and grammar guides.

"My eyes wandered to the desk. There, next to the computer, were my 'welcome-aboard' gifts, a set of tools sure to become my new best friends: a red pen, a mechanical pencil, a brand-new NIV study Bible, and an equally brand-new copy of the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition. I have to admit that I was a bit intimidated by the CMS. I flipped to the back and checked the page numbers. 'There are more than 900 pages in this thing,' I thought. 'That's quite a tome. I've got my work cut out for me.'

"I went from my office to meet my supervisor, who talked to me for a while about the projects they had lined up for me. My position is a new one, so the Editorial staff are still working out exactly how they'd like to use me. We took a break from our discussion at 10 o'clock to join the staff prayer meeting, a time for people to talk about business projects and share prayer concerns, both business and personal. After the meeting, I returned to my office and began looking over some of the material I had been given (the employee handbook and RTB style sheet, in particular).

"At 12:30, I was invited to attend what is known as the 'Scholar's Lunch.' Basically, the RTB scholars (the ones who do the research and writing) and the editorial staff have lunch together and spend an hour or two talking about a range of subjects; our discussion that Monday wandered from Reformation history to the possibility of using podcasts and blogs as media for RTB to use. To top it off, the entire Scholar's Lunch is considered work time, which means I don't have to count it as a lunch break on my timecard. Scholar's Lunches are weekly events, and I've been invited to attend all of the future ones. I expect them to be among the highlights of my time at RTB.

"The remainder of the week was relatively slow. I proofread some chapters from an upcoming book about worldviews; began learning how to handle Today's New Reason to Believe (a daily feature on the website), which will become one of my primary responsibilities; edited a handful of newsletter articles; and began reading the CMS and a few of the grammar guides on my bookshelf. I was assured that my workload will increase considerably in the days ahead, but for now I'm settling into the position and getting accustomed to the idea of being a full-time worker."

As the season of Autumn, wherein the Leaves of the Trees are transformed from the beautiful shades of emerald to the dazzling colors of red and orange and gold, so is the transition from one time of Life to another. As the Subject of the above Account has found joy and purpose in his work, may you all enjoy the peace and blessings of Our Lord.

Aspirat primo Fortuna labori.--Virgil
(Fortune smiles upon our first effort.)