desire | liskook

25

Shanghai

Jennie
After much deliberation with my family, my dad finally agreed to let me get a job.

At first he insisted I worked at his company, Ager automated, one of China's best automation control companies two years in a row, but I refused.

I knew my father so well, he would have just had me sit in a pretty office all day without giving me any real or serious task to handle, and that would be even worse than staying home all day.

Being the only daughter and the last child with three older brothers, my life have literally been a bed of sweet roses and I didn't like that much, I needed to challenge myself.

I was never allowed to do anything meaningful, and was always babied even though I'm already 23.

So, after college I tried running away to a smaller country and live a while there in solitude, but my father found me and there I was again, asking for my freedom.

My brothers didn't help matters as they took the roles of big brothers to a whole different level.

So, even at 23 I still never really had a life or pretty much a love life— in general, my life sucked.

That was until I blackmailed my way into convincing my parents that I'd work for a year before getting married to whomever they've chosen for me, unless I'll just have to tell the whole of China that Ager automated exports faulty products.

Since the Kim family take great pleasure in deciding who their children's life partners would be, mine was already decided at the age of 17.

But, unlike my cousins and aunties before me, I had the privilege of a year of freedom from my hellish family, so I took it.

I went for an interview at Shanghai Group for the position of Creative Executive that just opened up, and I got the job.

But, the day that was my happiest was my family's saddest and I loved it. I needed space from them, and I wasn't turning back now.

I was also thinking of getting an apartment far from home for the next one year, completely and totally dependent on only what I earn as an office lady.

My plan was simple, get a job, move out, make friends I can drink and have hot pots with on weekends, go clubbing and stay out late without anybody sending troops of bodyguards all over the city to search for me, and I had just a year to do all these.

I was beyond excited, not just because I was about to take my first step into womanhood, but also because I was about to meet one of my favorite celebrity in the world— my idol, Jeon Jisoo.

You can only imagine my disappointment when I found out that there was a new CEO at Shanghai Group. And worse of all, he hated everybody and always yells when something wasn't done right.

My first week here, I had already done an all-nighter three days in a row, and as the creative minds of the company, it sucks staying up three nights in a row.

But today, I still got up from bed, took a shower and hurried to work, because I wasn't going to let a horrible boss ruin my perfect one year plan for freedom and independence.

I presented the pitch my team and I had to redo for the third time this week, while he just sat there grumpy and ready to judge.

"And what if the cost of projections declines due to the current phase in distribution, what do we do then?" he asked in a serious tone, immediately I finished my presentation.

"Well, the marketing team will have to push up the distribution channels and make it wider, that way even though the cost of projection declines, it won't hurt us. But we cross our fingers and hope there will be no decline in the projection, Sir." I concluded, setting relief in the hearts of my co-executives present.