Chapter 5
On Monday, I officially reported to the International Business Department.
There was no private office.
Gideon said it was too high-profile, so I should sit out in the main office area for now and wait until I pass the three-month probation.
I didn't care. I could still slack off out in the open.
The department was on the thirteenth floor, the top floor of the company.
When the elevator doors opened, the hallway was dead silent.
It was almost eerie.
I pushed open the department door. There were six workstations, but only four people were sitting there.
All four pairs of eyes turned to look at me at once.
Their gaze was strange.
It wasn't curiosity, and it wasn't a welcome.
It was sizing me up.
It was scrutiny.
It was as if I were some meteor that dropped out of the sky, and they were all worried it might land right on their heads.
I smiled. "Hey, everyone. I'm Ethan Kline, the new deputy head. Looking forward to working with you all."
There was a two-second silence.
The guy by the window was the first to speak. "Ethan? Weren't you the one serving drinks last week?"
He looked to be in his early thirties, had a square jaw, and wore a gray shirt buttoned all the way up. The nameplate on his desk said Tom Reed.
"Yeah, that's me," I replied.
Tom nodded, still expressionless. "Go ahead and sit. That's your desk over there."
He gestured toward the empty desk tucked away in the corner.
It was the farthest, darkest spot in the whole place, practically right next to the bathroom.
I shot a look at my new spot.
The desk had a thick layer of dust. The chair looked ancient, one of those that would let out a dramatic squeak the moment people sat down. The monitor looked like it was from the Stone Age, with a bezel wider than my face.
Across from me was Ava, a woman with flawless makeup. Her lips curled into a faint, almost imperceptible smirk, but she didn't say a word.
Chris, sitting nearby, kept his head down, typing away without glancing up.
Ben, though, gave me a smile, but it was the kind of smile one would give when they were waiting to see what kind of mess was about to unfold.
I got the picture.
Kevin was right about this place.
This department's got some real hidden depths.
I didn't care about being stuck in the corner. I walked over and sat down. The chair gave a dramatic squeak, almost as if it were welcoming me.
I turned on the computer.
The specs were so bad. It took fifteen seconds to get a browser up.
The system lagged severely when launching Excel, not to mention playing video games.
I took a deep breath.
Alright, I'd get to work first.
Mike had sent me the client files before he left on Friday. I used my phone's hotspot to transfer them over, and it took me half an hour to get through everything.
It was a train wreck.
Over the past two years, the International Business Department had worked with 23 overseas clients.
And we'd already lost eleven of them.
Out of the remaining twelve, five were basically on life support. The contracts were about to expire, and nobody knew if they'd even bother renewing.
Only seven clients were stable.
And all seven of those belonged to Tom.
I glanced over at Tom.
He was typing away at his computer, looking totally at ease, as if the whole department were background noise to him.
Now that was interesting.
Out of the eleven clients we'd lost, six slipped away while Kevin was still running the show, and the other five vanished during the power vacuum after he left.
The official reasons listed were all textbook stuff: "client business restructuring," "budget cuts," and "mismatched cooperation goals."
But when I dug into the email threads, I started to see a pattern.
In the last few emails from these lost clients, their tone was almost identical. They were polite, but distant, as if they were tired of dealing with us and ready to walk away.
It wasn't about the budget.
It all came down to communication.
More specifically, it was about how fast we responded and the vibe we gave off.
One email from a Krelthosian client was blunt: [We've repeatedly asked for clarification on the deliverables timeline, but haven't gotten a satisfactory response in three weeks.]
For three weeks, nobody bothered to confirm what they needed.
Who did business like that?
I kept scrolling.
And this wasn't a one-off.
Clients would email asking for updates, and either we'd take forever to reply, or when we finally did, the answer was totally off-base.
Things were a mess when Kevin was running the show.
I had seen how he spoke Enorisian. Putting him in charge of international clients was like asking a colorblind guy to be a designer.
But after Kevin left, things didn't really improve because there was nobody steering the ship.
The department was leaderless. Everyone was out for themselves. Tom stuck to his seven clients and didn't bother with anything else, while the rest of us were slacking off and letting things go to hell.
I closed the file and leaned back in my chair.
Then, Ava's voice came from across the way. "Hey, Mr. Kline."
I turned to her. "Call me Ethan."
She didn't acknowledge that. "There's a project update meeting with Sophie Leblanc from Zevan at two this afternoon. Will you be there?"
Her tone was flat, but she really stressed the word "you," as if she were calling me out specifically.
Her subtext was obvious: "You're the new guy. Are you going to bother showing up?"
"Yeah, I'll be there," I said. "Which conference room?"
"Small conference room on the thirteenth floor. Check your inbox. I already sent you the materials," she said.
She turned away, not sparing me another glance.
I opened my inbox.
Sure enough, there was an email from Ava.
[Subject: Sophie Leblanc Project Update—Internal Sync; Attachment: A PowerPoint presentation, 36 slides.]
I clicked it open.
By the time I hit the third slide, my brows were already knitting together.