Not Likely

Everything Goes Wrong At Once

"Dhriti, drop what you're doing right now."

I looked up from my breakfast apple to see Manisha. I placed it back on the table. "Done. What's up?"

She was looking like a fresh dewdrop as she flashed me an apologetic smile. "So sorry to interrupt your breakfast but this is an emergency."

"Manisha, I am all ears."

"You remember on my first day, you asked me to tell you when Code Green happens?"

Oh. That slimy little piece of-

I stood up. "Yes. Is it happening?"

"Dhruv has an impromptu breakfast appointment with Varun from AdVentive-"

"Goddamnit! Ok, where are they meeting?" I demanded, picking up my purse, at once enraged.

"At Opal, meeting starts in 20 minutes-"

"That slimy little weasel!" I exclaimed as I turned back to my team. "Start work. I will be back."

"We can't have them back, D", Prashant said firmly. "We just can't."

"Trust me, he's not coming back", I said grimly, reaching for my bag/

"Dhriti, I think you've heard the news as well", Garima said, walking up to us, looking uncharacteristically bothered. "That Varun has reared his ugly head again-"

"I am going to go fix it" I replied savagely.

"You better; I am not having that guy back", Mr. Mathur, Head of Sales said gravely. "He simply must go."

The one thing the marketing and sales department agreed wholeheartedly with, was that stupid Varun and his stupid Marketing Agency cannot be brought back again.

Let me explain.

When I joined 7 months ago, our ad campaigns were handled externally. Now, this was not working out for the Marketing heads because the agency was filled with morons who became lazy due to the security of our retainers.

I worked with them for 10 days and realized that they were simply the worst. The worse one of them all was their sleazy, chauvinistic, cigar-smoking little twerp, Varun Kapadia. He came to convince me that their recent snoozefest of a campaign that gave my department the lowest sales record in 10 years, was actually a 'success' based on their measurements.

On my third week here, I walked up to our then CMO and said we simply must fire the Agency and make our marketing efforts in-house.

He was quite surprised.

Then, I went up to the marketing heads, got them on board by showing them how an agency works, and then we all declared we have enough resources in our teams to work on campaigns by ourselves.

The CMO fired the agency.

Now, Varun Kapadia, the vengeful little poltergeist that he is, has tried having several meetings to reconcile with the company, no doubt to bring back the hefty retainer he gets from Kleitos. After each one of us had told him to stuff it, he has been lying low, waiting for the perfect time to slither back in.

When we were told that Dhruv Razdan was going to take over as CMO, I immediately cornered Manisha and made her promise to warn me when this guy was going to make an appointment.

Bless her perfect soul, she came through.

Opal was thankfully not far from work, so when I walked inside the restaurant, I was able to spot the two in the middle of formal introductions. Varun was smiling ear to ear in apparent glee.