There are jobs! Military jobs, farming jobs, laboring jobs, factory jobs, construction jobs, office jobs.

The newspaper is quite informative, but it seems to focus most on the military jobs -- and the military versions of civilian jobs. They get the largest print and the most space to describe their ideal applicants. They also pay the best.

(It's almost as if Amestris is a militocracy or something.)

Sometimes she finds a job that doesn't look like it's associated with the military. If she does digging she'll see that the factory or field is owned by Lieutenant-Colonel something-or-other.

Anne has no objection to a military job, unless the military job is going to want awkward things like background checks. She puts together a list of all the ones she seems best-suited to - things that pay comparatively well and rely on skills that she actually has or at least could pick up easily - and then starts applying.

There's a waitress job, a bartending job -- another cashier job is extremely close-by but doesn't seem to pay very well. There's also a clerking job available for a local automail mechanic.

Best paid are three listings: one for a computer, one for a courier, and one for a librarian. But those all require security clearance.

Well, she can try applying for the computing job and see what they make of her. More realistically, she hopes for the clerking job, but she'll settle for any of the rest.

The clerking job and the bartending job both seem to think she's a qualified candidate!

Clerking it is, then. It's more within her skillset.

The automail mechanic is a small, excitable, wiry man whose grin seems to large for his face. He summons her to his house the following day. "Hello! Hello!" He shakes her hand furiously. 

"Hello! Nice to meet you!"

"Likewise, Anne -- oh, remind me what you put for your last name, I can't remember --" he invites her into his house and they navigate from the foyer, which has been redesigned into a waiting room, and into a study, which seems to act like an office. There are papers strewn haphazardly everywhere in no semblance of order, but there's also no dust on anything. 

"Isaacs." It was the closest local name she found.

"Yes, right, Anne Isaacs."

He pauses awkwardly, staring into space as if his brain has momentarily shut off.

"Right, you were the one to get a perfect score on the financials quiz I sent out. How much do you know about automail?"

"Not very much," she admits. "I'm good at math but I'm no engineer."

"Good at math is what I'm hiring for! And a certain ... organizational sense. Work ethic -- you'll be running around, following up on orders -- I need certain kinds of metals, some of them are hard to come by."

"That all sounds like something I can do!"

"Great! If you don't know anything about automail I'll give you these to get started --" he gives her a stack of eight or so books. They all look fairly dense, like it'll take her months to really work through them.

"I bet you'll be able to get through these after two weeks."

"I'll do my best!" she says cheerfully.

"Good! Let me show you around the place."

He does that. He also lists off the addresses and phone numbers that place the most reliable orders. He seems to be expecting that she's familiar enough with the area to understand shorthand for street names, station names, place names. "Sheep town's got my biggest competition around here -- there's a master automail engineer and surgeon living miles and miles from East City, but people still travel to meet her. That's usually how it is with automail, people find favorites and never switch, even when they're suddenly based halfway across the country."

"Sounds inconvenient for the people who have to go halfway across the country."

"The train system is good enough that that's not usually a problem. Most mechanics are based in Rush Valley; enough people make regular trips there that train tickets are discounted for Rush Valley visitors. Particularly during low-traffic times of the year? I'm not sure exactly how that works." He waves his hand dismissively. 

"Huh! I didn't know that!"

"You don't get outside of East City much, do you?" He cocks an eyebrow.

She smiles and shakes her head.

"Well, familiarize yourself with the train system, you'll be using it. I'll give you a week to start reading up before I want you to start helping me with orders since you'll need a basic understanding of automail parts and pricing to bookeep properly. When you're ready I'll have you processing clients too." He tilts his head in the direction of the mess of an office.

"Okay!"

Cheerful! He likes that. "Get to it!"