By mid-morning, Risa had learned one crucial thing:

Customer Service was a scam.

Not in a fraud way. More in a false advertising way.

She sat beside Evelyn and Sophia as they pulled up spreadsheets, order portals, shared drives, and folders nested so deeply they might’ve been archaeological sites.

“So,” Evelyn said, clicking through three tabs at once, “we handle twelve distributors each.”

Risa blinked. “There are… twenty-four distributors?”

“Yes,” Sophia said cheerfully, like this wasn’t alarming at all.

“And we process all of their orders,” Evelyn continued. “Every day.”

Risa nodded slowly. “Okay.”

“And that includes checking inventory, confirming pricing, fixing errors when distributors inevitably mess something up—”

“They always mess something up,” Sophia added.

“—and entering everything manually into the system,” Evelyn finished.

Risa frowned slightly. “So… what part of this is customer service?”

Sophia laughed. “Emails.”

“Oh,” Risa said. “Of course.”

It became clear very quickly that Evelyn and Sophia were less customer service reps and more administrative warriors holding the company together with Excel and vibes.

They walked her through the order processing workflow. It felt suspiciously like supply chain management.

“This file,” Evelyn said, pointing at a spreadsheet with more columns than Risa could count, “tracks daily orders.”

“And this one,” Sophia added, “is where we input sales data by distributor.”

“And at the end of every day,” Evelyn said, “we compile everything into the Sales File.”

Sophia nodded. “Then we send it to the CEO. And a few other people.”

Risa stared at the screen. “Every day?”

“Yes,” they said in unison.

They both groaned immediately after.

“We really needed help,” Evelyn said, leaning back in her chair. “Like… really needed help.”

Sophia nodded. “You’re kind of a lifesaver.”

Risa smiled, though something tugged at her curiosity. “Was it always like this?”

Evelyn and Sophia exchanged a look.

“Well,” Evelyn said slowly, “not exactly.”

“There used to be two managers,” Sophia added. “One in Analytics, one in Customer Service.”

“They both left,” Evelyn said. “Like… one to two months ago.”

Risa paused. “At the same time?”

“Pretty much.”

“And now,” Sophia said, gesturing vaguely at Risa, “you’re kind of… replacing them.”

Risa laughed reflexively. “Oh—no, I’m not a manager.”

“No, no,” Evelyn said quickly. “Your title’s Junior Analyst.”

“Junior,” Sophia echoed. “Very junior.”

“But,” Evelyn continued, “you’re covering both roles.”

Risa processed this.

“So,” she said carefully, “I’m doing two jobs.”

“Yes.”

“For less pay.”

“…Yes.”

Risa nodded slowly, the way one does when accepting an unpleasant but inevitable truth.

Okay, she thought. We are learning early.

They continued training. Risa took notes furiously, writing things like ask about distributor codes and never trust autofill and Sales File = sacred.

Just as her brain began to feel like it was overheating, her calendar pinged.

Analytics Training – Now.

Rachel had summoned her.

Evelyn smiled sympathetically. “Good luck.”

Sophia added, “Analytics is… different.”

Risa followed the calendar invite like it was a lifeline.

Rachel appeared on screen, energetic as ever.

“Hey Risa!” she said. “How’s Customer Service treating you?”

Risa hesitated. “It’s… robust.”

Rachel laughed. “Yeah. That tracks.”

They dove straight in.

“Okay, so,” Rachel said, sharing her screen, “I’ll be honest—I’ll probably be moving pretty fast today.”

Risa nodded eagerly. “No problem.”

Rachel smiled. “Also—I should tell you, I’ll most likely be promoted to Analytics Manager soon.”

Risa’s eyes widened. “Oh my God—congratulations!”

“Thank you!” Rachel said, clearly pleased. “So once that happens, I’ll be your manager on the Analytics side.”

“That’s amazing,” Risa said sincerely.

“Brad will still manage you for Customer Service,” Rachel added. “Since… there’s no manager there.”

Risa laughed weakly. “Right. Of course.”

Rachel continued. “Okay—your main responsibility here will be uploading distributor sales data into Power BI.”

Risa nodded. She had heard of Power BI. In theory.

Rachel opened a file.

Columns exploded onto the screen.

“Alright, so this column is distributor ID, this is region, this is SKU, this is net sales, this is gross sales—don’t confuse those—this one’s returns, this one’s promotional adjustments—”

Risa stared intently, nodding along like she understood.

She did not understand.

Rachel clicked through menus at lightning speed. Charts appeared. Numbers transformed.

“And once you refresh the dataset, it auto-updates the dashboards—except when it doesn’t,” Rachel added casually.

“Of course,” Risa said.

Inside her head:

What.

Rachel paused. “Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” Risa said immediately.

Which was only partially a lie. It made sense in the abstract. Like taxes. Or love.

“I know it’s a lot,” Rachel said kindly. “But you’ll get it once you actually start doing it.”

Risa nodded. That part she believed.

She scribbled notes she would later have to decipher like ancient runes.

By the end of the day, her brain was fried. Her fingers hurt. She had learned more acronyms than she thought possible.

As she packed up to leave, Evelyn leaned over. “You survived day one.”

Risa smiled tiredly. “Barely.”

Sophia grinned. “You’re doing great.”

Risa stepped back into Old York, exhausted but oddly proud.

It was a lot.

But she was learning.

And for the first time since graduating, she felt… useful.

Which, honestly, felt kind of incredible.