Chapter 7
779words
"The next mission will be announced within the next 24 hours. Thank you for your patience!"
The app buzzed again with the notifications, but I couldn't be bothered with them anymore.
I followed Felix back into the office. As soon as I stepped inside, I could feel several hostile glances in my direction.
One came straight from Derrick.
The rest of them came from the other colleagues that Management had informed to assist Derrick with the audit report.
Obviously, Derrick had spun another tale about me, making me out as the bad guy. I just averted my gaze and went back to my seat.
Suddenly, I saw nearly all the other trainees swarm toward Derrick. They discussed quietly among themselves like they were planning something. Derrick also nodded with a smirk as he agreed to whatever it was.
They seemed like they were offering to help him with the audit report. With so many people working on it at the same time, the report that should have taken forever to complete was done and submitted within the next half hour.
…
"How did it go, Ricky?"
"Management is pleased with it," Derrick said, walking out of the manager's office and addressing the trainees who went up and asked him about it.
After hearing his response, everyone cheered and clapped. However, this task was initially supposed to be completed by the Team Lead. I didn't know why everyone cheered like they just won a soccer match.
Derrick then walked up to me with a thick stack of documents after coming out of the manager's office, dumping everything on my desk.
"Prepare a deck on this project by tomorrow. This's an order from Management."
I had wanted to reject it at first, but I silently accepted the work when I heard the rest of his words.
Maybe this was a form of my "reward" for the mission earlier?
The only reason I had shed the trainee title and became a permanent employee the last time was because of the presentation deck I had prepared. It impressed the management so much that they promoted me on the spot.
Come to think of it, the promotion had seemed rather careless and perfunctory. I guessed that this task was a proper opportunity I'd been given to prove myself again.
Surprisingly, everyone else looked thrilled when they saw that I had accepted the work. They looked like they were bursting to discuss something, yet when I looked up at them, they quickly swallowed their words and said nothing.
…
The sun began to set, and soon, working hours were over.
Everyone started packing up diligently, like they'd had some sort of agreement with each other, and rushed off in more of a hurry than usual. From snippets of their conversation, I learned that they were planning some sort of get-together that night.
They didn't even bother to hide that they were ostracizing me.
"Where are we going for dinner tonight, Ricky?"
"It's Winnie's birthday, isn't it? Ricky, you're going to have to treat us all to dinner at a five-star hotel!"
"Thanks in advance! Yay!"
They left in groups of twos or threes, their arms slung over each other's shoulders. They didn't forget to sneer or give me a dirty look whenever they walked past my desk.
The entire office emptied out within three minutes.
That suited me just fine. I felt more at ease if none of them stayed back to work overtime.
While I was still thinking how fortunate I was, I suddenly realized that a computer monitor in the corner was still glowing. I took another look and saw that it was Felix.
At this point, he was the only one in the entire office who didn't hate me.
Ever since he saved me from Derrick in the afternoon, I couldn't help but feel a sense of security when I realized that he hadn't left yet.
I flipped open the documents from Management and started doing the necessary market research for the proposal deck. However, the more I looked into it, the more I realized that this wasn't just any small or medium-sized project that we were used to.
In fact, it was a massive and complicated project. I was going to need a lot of help if I were to finish it up by tomorrow.
If everything were left to me, I probably wouldn't be able to complete it even if I worked sleepless nights for the entire week.
Why had I been given such a difficult project to work on?
