Chapter 56

56 Complete Disaster

Jeremy had his hand in the air and a small smile on his lips. I don’t know why but I felt slightly relieved that it was Jeremy who had his hand up. He seemed kind and still young so perhaps I thought that he would go easy on me.

“Yes?” I said to welcome his question.

“I think your presentation overall isn’t bad but it’s not very useful especially for me on the creative side. I understand the various public opinions as you’ve factually presented it but there seems to be no information on the implications of those opinions or the degree of how strong each belief is which just makes it hard for us to figure out which opinion, we should be catering to in our advertisement...” Jeremy stated with a slight frown between his brows.

I...

Frankly, I was shocked by his words. He just told me that my presentation wasn’t really useful to him, and it made me wonder if the other people thought the same. Did I just waste my time on this and also waste everyone’s time?

“I understand. Let me do more research and add that part in,” I quickly said.

“Thanks. That would be very helpful,” Jeremy said before returning his attention to his laptop screen.

At least, I had to appreciate the fact that he was being honest with his opinion of my work. I should take it as an opportunity for me to learn and improve myself even further.

“There’s not enough math and statistics in there which is also probably what Jeremy was getting at as well. Not that I expected someone from design to shove in some numbers into their presentation. We’ll deal with that on our side to get a better view of the problem quantitatively. Is that fine with you, Mr. Hill?” Richard spoke up emotionlessly.

.....

Did he just say ‘someone from design’?

Sure, at the design department we rarely deal with large data sets, and we don’t delve into complicated modelling of numbers to form scenarios but that doesn’t mean that we don’t look at numbers at all. When we try to understand the market or the problem to assist with our design decisions, we do research and look at statistics too.

I plastered a professional smile on my face as I tried to tell myself that it was my fault for not adding in the elements that Richard mentioned and that he probably didn’t mean it as a disrespectful personal attack against me or the design department.

“Agreed. Anyone else have any questions?” Ace asked curtly.

His hazel eyes felt cold and extremely frightening as he looked around the room before his eyes rested on me. I recalled how he smiled and looked at me when he turned up in front of my apartment building on the weekend with a large box of doughnuts that he had ‘mistakenly’ bought and I just couldn’t believe that that man was the same one as the one staring at me right now.

“I have a question. From the various public opinions that you’ve presented about, which one do you think we should consider using for our project?” Ace asked as his eyes seemed to pierce me.

That...is a very good question and one that I didn’t have an answer to. What am I supposed to say to that? The opinions were very different and very split on this very controversial topic. Personally, I didn’t know what I believed, and I wasn’t sure which angle would be more interesting or appealing for the advertisement.

“I-I’m not...so sure...” I replied softly.

I could feel everyone’s eyes on me as they looked at me with a mix of surprise and then disappointment. Ace on the other hand showed no emotions at all as he continued to stare at me. His attitude felt so cold.

“You haven’t thought about it, or do you normally don’t think when you work?” Ace asked monotonously.

My mouth dropped open in shock at his words as my body froze in place. I bit on my lower lip hard as my frustration and embarrassment started taking over. What did he just say? Did he just accuse me of not using my brain?

“I’m sorry, Sir. I will think about it,” I managed to say after recovering from my shock.

“Next...” Ace said with a dismissal wave of his hand.

Richard got up from his seat to present his part of the project. With a cold glare from Richard, I returned to my seat at the table. The rest of the meeting felt like a blur to me as I sat there while feeling completely out of place.

...

“Sir, you have a meeting with the head of the planning and the head of the accounting department now,” I informed Ace softly after the meeting had ended.

The meeting for project Alpha turned out to be a disaster for me. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t feel defeated and very lost inside as I plastered on a professional smile to inform Ace of his next meeting for the day. On top of trying to play a role in project Alpha, I also needed to work at Ace’s personal secretary.

Ace stopped in the hallway before he turned to face me. He stilled looked as stern and serious as he did during the meeting, and it made me feel uneasy to be alone with him.

“You don’t have to follow me around today. Please concentrate on improving the quality of your work based on the feedback that you received from the meeting. Come to my office at the end of the day and I’ll help to review your progress,” Ace said flatly before he turned and walked away.

“Yes, Sir...” I whispered after him although he probably didn’t hear me.

I headed to my work desk in the CEO’s office where the other team members were already hard at work. No one paid me any attention and I thought that that was for the best. Everyone paid attention to their work and was undoubtedly producing some amazing results. I sat down in my chair at my desk before pulling up my presentation deck on my laptop screen.

–To be continued...