Looking for a job for a character

[pro_patria_mortuus]

So, I've been wanting to find a job for Enjolras in-bar. I'm posting OOCly because, uh, the fact that he doesn't have one yet is more a problem of his mun having been busy and not playing him as much as she ought than it is a problem of him ICly not being on the lookout. He would really very much like to be able to support himself, even aside from questions of keeping busy; he's totally fine with charity for people who need it, but it rubs him wrong to be not working when he's perfectly capable of it. I'd love to arrange something OOC! I'd be up for any combination of threading out the hiring conversation, handwaving it, retconning that he's already doing this, whatever.

The problem is, of course, that he's from 1832 and as such is not really terribly familiar with a lot of technology that many would consider basic.

I suspect something manual or maybe clerical is going to be the easiest combination of skillset and needs, but maybe I'm wrong! Among Enjolras's skills:

• He's strong, able-bodied, and a fast learner; he doesn't have a lot of specific artisan skills, but he's willing to work hard and to learn whatever can fairly easily be taught. Any kind of fairly straightforward manual labor he'd be willing to turn his hand to. (Any kind of non-straightforward labor he'd also be willing to do, probably, but he'd warn you that he doesn't really know what he's doing and that accordingly you might not want him for the job.)
  
• He knows how to ride and care for horses.
  
• He's not all that familiar with farm livestock, but he's a city boy of the 19th century rather than the 21st; depending on the job and how much animal knowledge it requires, this could fall under "can be easily taught."
  
• He can handwrite tidily and fast, and is a voracious reader and capable of organizing things well. He could do any kind of clerical work of a pre-typewriter sort.
  
• He's fluent in Latin, and has reasonable Greek. He can only translate into French, though; that's his only modern-to-him language. He also has all the other skills of a well-to-do and well-educated young man of his era. So, uh, I guess he could do a bang-up job of tutoring somebody in rhetoric? A lot of his other knowledge (such as the legal system of France of his era) is so specific as to likely be useless to most people, but if you think your character might find it useful, we can totally talk.
  
• He's a native speaker of French. He wouldn't be much good at tutoring a beginner, but he could work with a fairly advanced student.
  
• He's good at the martial arts of his era, such as savate and canne de combat (singlestick). (He's also very very good at the tactics of urban warfare of the black powder era, but... before he advises anyone on that, he's gonna have to know a lot about what you plan to use it for and against whom.)

If you have a character who might be interested in employing someone to do anything like this, let's talk. :)

Comments

[ceitfianna]

Hm, I feel like William or Sameth might be helpful here though I don't know of specifics other than William's glad for tutoring and Sameth might find him useful. Moist would love a chance to use his fine integrity and handsome face but I can't see how to even start to set that up. I'll keep thinking but I know something can be figured out.

[genarti]

Ahahahaha I just BET Moist would. Well, I'm certainly up for talking it out!

Enjolras would gladly tutor William in anything he was competent to tutor him in, although he'd be reluctant to take much money from him if he knew or guessed the Evans' financial situation (and that's the kind of thing Enjolras is very sensitive to cues on.) I bet we could work something out, though, whether or not it involved much of any pay.

With Sameth, there's the royalty thing to throw a potential monkey wrench into the works, although we can talk out various factors. And with Moist... well, Enjolras has vast amounts of faith in people but he's also got a pretty good eye for whether someone's actually worthy of trust (and also reacts pretty strongly to being hit on or to someone focusing in on his looks), so we could thread them and see how it goes, but I'm not sure that Enjolras would be amenable to whatever Moist's plans are.

[ceitfianna]

*nods* All of that makes sense and due to his work in Milliways, William would probably pay Enjolras from those funds and he doesn't tend to talk a lot about his family's money if he can help.

Sameth rarely mentions the royalty part in Milliways if he can help it and he would have a moment of, oh yes, you're dead, right then. But he also gets the being stuck in bar and needing things to do.

Heh, Moist is something I wouldn't expect to pan out but it would be fun to see how it went.

I feel like one of my others might have an option but haven't been able to think of anything yet, will keep pondering.

[dejah_thoris]

Dejah might hire him occasionally to act as a field assistant, once the weather gets nice. She will be spending time doing a biological survey of the lake and surrounding micro climates. Someone who isn't afraid to get dirty, can keep good notes and could keep up with her would be nice. He might also be able to reach her to ride? Both scenarios would require a thread now and again.

[genarti]

Oooooh. That could be really interesting!

He could certainly do all of that, and in some ways it would be kind of nice -- he's not a scientist and never will be, because that's very much not where his interests lie, but his best friend was one. Enjolras isn't much interested in the details, but he is enthusiastic about scientific progress in the abstract as well as having vicarious affection for his friend's enthusiasm, and he's absolutely capable of taking detailed notes while letting part of his mind wander to his own thoughts.

However, I should give you a few disclaimers also: Enjolras is, uh, not used to interacting much with women, and he's a stick in the mud about it, in some ways even more than the usual man of his era and place. (Teaching him better on this score is one of my RP goals, but it's gonna be a gradual process.) He won't refuse to work for a woman, but he will probably say some accidentally offensive things that he doesn't see the problem with, and he will treat her with scrupulous correctness in a way that sort of entails ignoring she's a woman at all, but sort of doesn't, because if she were a man he'd relax into more casualness in a way he never will with a woman. And if she's scantily clad by his standards, which I assume she is, he won't chide her or try to be the modesty police or anything, but he'll scrupulously ignore her entire physical existence below the neck.

Also, uh. If he learns that she's royalty and has not abdicated in favor of a democratic republic, odds are extremely high that he will immediately tender his resignation. Just so's you know.

But if you're okay with all that -- or if you potentially are, but want to try threading them and seeing if Dejah's willing to put up with it -- then I am absolutely interested in this! I think it'd definitely be interesting, and would probably be good for Enjolras on a couple of levels. :)

[dejah_thoris]

I can't help but think of the letters that Catherine the Great exchanged with Voltaire for fifteen years. Dejah would happily argue the politics of her world versus his, while they were knee deep in lake mud. (There has to be frog catching at some point.)

All of these details only make the possibility all the more appealing. An interaction utterly free of conflict would be boring. And maybe she might take him to visit Barsoom at some point. It might blow his mind to see a monarch so involved in the welfare of her people. (Also, it makes me question the actual type of monarchy in Helium as I believe the position of Jeddak isn't necessarily hereditary but earned by demonstration of strength and wisdom.) But I agree a test thread would be appropriate.

[genarti]

Arguing politics is definitely a plus for him also. (Although a monarchy involved in the welfare of its people wouldn't throw him too much -- he would approve of that without it changing his opinion of the underlying system. If it were a system that wasn't really a hereditary monarchy despite calling itself that... well, it'd depend on a lot of the details what he'd think of it.)

I think this might very well work out well! :) I will look for her next EP to throw him at, and you can feel totally free to throw her at him if I happen to do an EP first, and we'll see how it goes.

[scarred_grin]

Pyrrha!loki could use carpentry help, with her furniture-building sideline (she can do it on her own, but it goes faster with help). She can also use help in her new tattoo studio with the duties that are not body modification (helping clean, greeting people, keeping records, maintaining the portfolio). She can provide training, she pays in cash and home-cooking, and the supernatural benefits are negotiable.

[genarti]

ahahahhaahah OH GOD I am trying to picture Enjolras as the receptionist at a tattoo studio. I am FAILING UTTERLY. Customer service is not his strongest point, I fear, and he's from an era when male doctors didn't touch female patients even through their clothes, so... that job is probably not the best match. He wouldn't object to the record-keeping part, but I don't know that she would want someone for just that, especially someone who has no idea how to type or use a computer.

Furniture-building, however, might be a better match! I'd totally be up for threading them and seeing how it goes? Since I suspect that if one of them annoys the heck out of the other the odds of a job offer go way down. (And Enjolras is entirely capable of being annoying while thinking he's being perfectly reasonable, especially to a modern woman. *pats him*)

And even if it doesn't work out ICly, I very much appreciate the offer!

[scarred_grin]

Works for me. Pyrrha likes just about everybody, but there are some exceptions, and it's not always mutual, so threading would probably be the answer. You can just tell me where to be, or I can drop her in, whichever you prefer ^_^

[genarti]

Whichever! I will look for her next EP, and you should feel entirely free to toss her at his next if I do one first. :)

(I know she has a current one, but Enjolras is not going to go anywhere near a scantily clad lady whirling about with or without a spear. If you want I could sent him by to be walking in some other area of the lawn and carefully ignoring her, but alas that's about the closest I can get him. I'll happily do so if you want, though! Upon looking closer, I realize that that's probably Fina and not Pyrrha anyway. Well, still!)

[scarred_grin]

Pyrrha's going to be helping Teja host an equinox party/charity awareness shindig starting Friday, so she'll be around for that if nothing else! Wearing clothing, even ^_^

[genarti]

Hee, excellent! Sounds like a plan. I'll be out of town this weekend and thus with minimal RP time, but I can at least toss him in for slowtime and pick it up Monday.

[scarred_grin]

^_^ I pretty much live in slowtimes and all my posts are open forever, so it's all good.

[vivien]

...I am sure we could find something in the House of Arch for him to do. Surely to heavens!

[genarti]

Ooh, that could work excellently -- although political arguments are not out of the question. >.> Let's talk!

[hey35andholding]

I'm amused by the notion of him trying to bodygard Dixie at some point, I don't know why, but there it is.

[genarti]

Heee!

I'm not sure why he'd go for that, given Enjolras's attitudes towards police, ladies, sexuality, and violence -- but the mental image is definitely an entertaining one!

[hey35andholding]

At the very least, it'd be hilarious, right? :)

The character I'm asking for, Dixie, knows how to take care of herself, and the job would involve strategic advice and convincing drunken stage door johnnies to take their business elsewhere, since she's a happily involved lady.

[genarti]

Alas, while Enjolras would certainly step in if somebody tried to harass a lady he happened to be talking to, he's highly unlikely to sign up for a job interceding with drunken stage door johnnies on a regular basis, and I suspect any strategic advice he could give would be entirely too 1830s-dude-oriented to be useful to Dixie.

[hey35andholding]

Completely understandable! :)