"New Guy's having a panic attack!"

I worked with assistant manager Chuck for the first time last night. Well, it wasn't the first time that I worked with him. Technically, that was about three years ago, when he was training at Mall of Georgia.

"Hi, I'm Chuck," he said when he met me then. He's cute, possibly gay and well-dressed.

"Yes, I know," I said, pointing to his nametag. "I can read."

I thought I was being funny then. Or just being a smartass. I was in a mood that day. And he's cute. So I got weird.

He reported me to my managers at my store for "attitude," which surprised me because I didn't think it merited that and didn't know he was offended by it. They made me apologize.

He was just starting a new job, and I made him feel unwelcome.

That was three years ago. When I've seen him since, I've said hello. He's cold to me.

When he heard about my transfer after it happened, he immediately called my bookstore for the lowdown on it. Maybe because he didn't like being out of the loop. Maybe because he's charged with entering new employees in the system. Maybe because he thinks I'm weird and doesn't want to work with me and would be perfectly content if I dropped off the face of the earth.

I didn't know.

So I wasn't sure how exactly working with him would go.

For the first half-hour or so last night, it wasn't pretty. In fact, next to that time I watched the American version of "Coupling," it was one of the most uncomfortable half-hours I've ever spent.

I walked in. I tried to clock in.

I still didn't have my store codes, so I had to ask Chuck about them. (People who I'd told about this 'situation' a couple weeks ago told me to stay out of Chuck's way, but he's my manager ... and, the way the store works, getting out of his way isn't really viable.)

When he spoke to me the first time, he called me "sir" and didn't make eye contact with me. He didn't say hello, didn't smile and seemed annoyed. Really annoyed. He said, "Oh, OK, I'll take care of that," and headed to the back office.

A few minutes afterward, the job applicants came in and asked me if they could talk to a manager. So I called the back office and asked Chuck, nervously, if he would come up and talk to people.

He sounded annoyed. But he told me that he'd be right up.

Another employee said hello to the applicants and told them that Chuck was great and really, really nice, so they had no reason to be nervous.

This is the Chuck that people tell me about. I'd never seen him.

Greeting the applicants, Chuck came up, spoke to them, told them hello, smiled at them and wished them luck with their applications. He shook their hands. Then, not talking at all to me, he turned and started to walk away.

I was walking near Chuck, and I didn't know whether they discouraged paging over the intercom the way we did at Mall of Georgia, where the managers all carry cell phones. Since I'd just called him, I asked him for future reference what the proper means of contact was.

When he saw me walking next to him, I swear to God, he turned and started to walk the other way. But then, I said his name to ask him the question. And he stopped, called me "sir," and answered the question ... WITHOUT ONCE LOOKING ME IN THE EYE.

With that, I proceeded to very silently freak out. Carrying books back to the children's department, I began to feel lost. And I began to doubt whether the transfer was a good idea. And I'd started to wonder what I should do, if I should do anything. Maybe he was just busy. Maybe he wasn't intentionally trying to be rude. Maybe he was. Maybe he's trying to psyche me out. Maybe I didn't really need to talk to him. Oh, wait, I did. Maybe I'm just a paranoid.

Sweat gathered on my brow. I began breathing deeply. I felt a panic attack beginning, but, at the same time, didn't want any of the other employees to think, "Oh look, New Guy's having a panic attack!," or, worse, give them another reason to call Chuck.

I was just starting a new job, and he made me feel unwelcome.

But then, that changed. I don't know why. But it did.

When I walked to the back room to check the schedule and to see if Chuck had entered my codes into the computer, enabling me to do my work, he told me that he'd just finished it.

Thanking him, I added, "I'm kinda nervous."

Chuck didn't really say anything. So I let it go.

I asked him instead if I needed to get a register, and he told me, shuffling through papers because he was busy, that he thought I was scheduled for customer service. I was.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that I was paying WAY too much attention to what Chuck thought of me. And that's not why I was there.

So I got back to doing my work. I shelved books, helped customers, asked questions.

Chuck, eventually, approached me and started to tell me a better way to arrange the books to shelve. He answered my questions about the new register functions. He helped me find a section in the magazines and, when I apologized for asking something that I thought I should already know, he told me that "all the stores are different and that it takes some getting used to."

He watched me work. He even sorta smiled at me when he saw that I was keeping busy. He saw how I spoke to other employees.

He was nice after the first half-hour. Not too nice, but nice enough.

When a guy I knew from college and CNN approached me in the store and spoke to me, I chatted with him for a moment, though I told him that I needed to work.

That guy asked me what I'd been doing lately, and I told him about my jobs and where I was living.

I was telling him that I'd just started at the new store when Chuck, who wasn't wearing a nametag - something I DID NOT point out to him for irony's sake, by the way - happened to walk by.

"Oh well, get back to work," the guy said to me. "I don't wanna get you in trouble."

Chuck heard that. And laughed.

So I went back to work again. And I did the shelving and asked more questions and was still nervous enough to sweat about it.

But people softened to me and will continue to do so as time passes and I prove myself.

So things are good. Or good enough, anyway.