Convenient Arrangement

Chapter 1

I closed my laptop and took a deep breath.

My phone rang and I read a message notification from Jasmin, asking me if I am free tonight for a meet up. I have to go see a client tomorrow, so I just texted her quickly back saying we'll have to meet another day.

But you don't know who I am, so why would you care? Let me introduce myself.

My name is Jack Smith. I know, sounds like a fake name, doesn't it? That's because it was a name they gave me in an orphanage when someone left me there. I guess they weren't even trying to be creative.

Even though I grew up in an orphanage, I did well for myself. Very quickly they have figured out I was exceptionally clever and I become a protégée. I specialise in Law. I was lucky enough to be adopted by a fairly wealthy British family who put me through my studies with an expectation of working for them in the future and aiding to the reputation of their family name. I guess I fulfilled that for a couple of years, before I moved out on my own.

I still kept my name though. They were cold people, focused on results. There was nothing parental about Kate and John, my adopted parents. They both worked in Law and were almost never there when I was younger.

After studying Law in Cambridge and graduating, I started working for one of the best Law firms in London. Recently however, the firm lost a very big client and my line manager somehow pinned the fault on me.

Everybody knew I didn't do mistakes. I was a protégée after all... But my manager was also one of the owners of the firm, so no one argued with him. Within one day, I become jobless.

Luckily for me, even after being fired, with my background my mit's not that hard to get a new job. All other law firms knew exactly what happened, so I decided to change the direction of my career and get a job as a consultant in a data protection firm instead. They advise clients about best data protection practices and that was a piece of cake for me in comparison to my previous job, where I was a criminal lawyer.

It's only my first month at the new job, and everybody here is super nice, unlike in the law firm. I was enjoying the change of the scenery a lot. Maybe I will even manage to make some more friends!

After covid, I was already used to working from home with my cat, Zeus. Tomorrow however, will be the first time in a couple of years I will be visiting a client.

The company is huge. It's a second biggest pharmaceutical company in the world, GSM, and they are bringing us on board to help them review their record of processing activities (ROPA for short). I know. It sounds technical, but I promise it's not as complicated as it sounds.

I have never been to a big external company like that before. Argue with your coworkers lawyers, go represent a client in court? Sure. But dealing with multiple departments of a company with hundreds of thousands of employees... it's a step up even for me.

Just thinking about it is giving me a headache.

I went to the kitchen and started making myself some chicken fried rice, as I texted Jasmin asking her to come over after all. Jasmin is a girl I met several months ago on Tinder. We were a good couple, but we weren't really in love per se. At least I wasn'... It was a good arrangement to satisfy needs, or, in this instance, de-stress.

******
This day was going much better than I expected!

I met with another colleague of mine, Karen. I know I know, Karen's have a bad reputation... But I promise she is really nice! We went inside and met with heads of the relevant departments, and so far it was all going well. During lunch time they have ordered us some food and I have excused myself to go to the bathroom.