More Than Meets The Eye [Englot]

Chapter 1

Engfa's pov

I've been working here for three years now and I had never thought that I would be struggling this much. I've been working hard for each of my previous employers, mostly as a salesperson and made my way to a manager position when I got the job here at Grand International. I was really happy, when I started, to become part of a well known agency, thinking that working in the modeling and fashion world would be exciting and fun. But I was quickly disillusioned as I discovered why my predecessor had left.

First, I realized a few weeks in that most of our accounting was unbalanced between the sheer amount of money the brand deals were bringing in and how much we spent on every expense, whether it was the employees' salary, the bills or every single thing we had to invest on. Grand International was a prolific business but yet we received so many tiny checks that it was making it nearly impossible to keep track of all of it properly. Most of our expenses were also poorly chosen and the lack of strategy made me think I would be of great help here.

But my boss, Mister Nawat, made me understand that it was how things worked at GI and that I shouldn't worry about it. Which made me even more worried than I already was, of course... I worked with him for a few months, arguing that as head of the financial department, I had to supervise every single baht that was coming and going out of our company until I sort of gained his trust, somehow... It took me a great deal of persistence but three years later, I was still trying to figure out my way around this man and his tantrums...

My second major problem, beside my shady boss, was my team. I discovered in the early days that if Nawat had a reputation of being able to find the most gorgeous models, he was also focusing on hiring beautiful women for all the other jobs around the agency. Which made me anxious about why I got the job too... It got to me slowly that he most certainly didn't think that I was going to be very thorough about my work. Also, I realized that only very very few men were working for him and all of them were gay. It was Nawat's way to make sure that his employees wouldn't fool around with the models, getting them pregnant and stopping their career. Which seemed... so weird... So, my whole team was made of drop dead gorgeous women... that had almost no idea how to do their jobs.

I tried, so many times, to get them to be invested in the work they had to do but failed consistently. Aoom and Meena, our saleswomen, knew very well that they were beautiful and were only relying on their looks to seal deals with our potential partners. By just showing up, they were pretty sure to get the job done, making any men sign contracts in under a few minutes. Yet they were absolutely lazy, never trying to deal more than the minimum nor trying to find the right use around the project that they were making them agree on. And each time they were confronted by someone that wouldn't fall for their charms they were coming back empty handed. Nawat didn't seem to care since they kept on making deals anyway with other brands. thanks to another coworker : Nudee or the crazy one as I liked to call her in my head.

Nudee was the one in charge of market research, finding new brands and partnerships for the agency. Most of the time, she would take things lightly, like nothing else matters despite having a good laugh. She loved to gossip, to the point that she was even sharing stories with me. I would admit that I kinda liked her because she reminded me of my sister and because she was the only one who seemed to be smiling genuinely when I was there. But as her manager I was really disappointed to see her always take the easy road. She was convinced that since the company had a lot of prospects waiting to sign with us she didn't have to think much about the new deals she was addressing to the sales team. She could definitely do better, I could feel she had the potential, instead of accepting whatever was coming to her and spreading our models thin onto many tiny projects, which were tiring them...

The three of them were supposed to have the help of Yoko, an intern who was studying sales and was very much a stressed out kid who wanted to do everything perfectly. She was kind of a sucker for compliments, sometimes acting like a baby even though she was already 22... Yoko was definitely stressed out by Aoom and Meena's nonchalant ways but after a couple of weeks they had made her believe that since she was cute enough she would do well once she started to work for real, which made her inconsistent...

Then there was Heidi. She was the epitome of being a goofball and definitely Nudee's closest coworker. You could hear them laugh from across the building... She was in charge of filing the contracts once the deals were made. She was somehow a good worker, the papers she was supervising were always clear and precise but she was sooo easily distracted... And having Nudee as her wing woman in all things silly and not having that much self esteem, she sadly wasn't the person who could help me instill motivation to the whole team... And then, there was the accounting team...

Tia was on maternity leave, so the work was piling up since we didn't get the approval to replace her. We managed to hire another intern... Snack, an accounting student who was working with Pitchy... Needless to say that she wouldn't learn a single thing during the few months of internship she still had with us... And Pitchy... well... she was every manager's worst nightmare. Pitchy was some rich daddy's girl, so wealthy that she clearly didn't need to work and wasn't willing to. Her dad most probably had forced her to find a job after he paid her way to a master's degree in accounting... From what I had heard from my assistant and from my friend Faye, who was head of the HR department, Pitchy's dad was Nawat's friend... So she was untouchable. Since she wasn't invested in anything work related, and Tia wouldn't be back for another 6 months, I ended up having to cope by doing it myself to keep the workflow going AND she spent her time distracting the team... She was always showing off her purchases from her latest shopping spree, even gifting the girls ridiculous expensive shit that she probably didn't like anymore...

Her attitude was the worst and it made me want to punch walls most times. And I almost did during my first month here... Thankfully, Sun, my trustworthy assistant, who I very much considered as a friend now, found a way to calm me down and warned me about the risk I was taking if I wanted to "fight" her. He knew very well that confronting Pitchy was what got my predecessor to leave her job... and didn't want the same thing to happen to me. I would lie if I didn't admit that there were days when I thought about ending it all, raging on her and quitting... The way she would talk to me in front of the team was so rude... and it made young Snack feel like she could say the most daring stuff too, which made me even angrier...

"Come on Boss, don't stress your pretty little head or you'll get wrinkles!" Snack said as I was trying to explain that we were behind on a few projects and that the unbalanced account of the coming month seemed way too important.

"Snacky is right, Engfa, don't worry about it. Nawat doesn't care, right? So why do you?" Pitchy added while putting on nail polish.

Heidi looked at me with a "I'm sorry they're like this" face but didn't say a thing.

"Pitchy, Snack, why are you not inside your own office? You're supposed to be tracking every single expense to make sure we can provide clear numbers to the committee if they look into our books..." I asked, calmly, trying to remind them about their role at Grand International.

"The light here is better. I don't want to mess up my nails." Pitchy answered still without looking at me.

I pictured myself forcing the nail polish down her throat as I smiled politely. Letting her talk to me this way was so unlike anything I thought about myself. Yet this place made me less tough than I would have wanted... I always tried to think, despite imagining ways to end her, about a good comeback. Just to shut her up. But deep down I feared the consequences... Fuck, this was so unfair and infuriating! I squeezed my hands into fists, trying to anchor myself, when Aoom and Meena bursted into the office.

"Heya girls!" Aoom said.

"Hi Boss Lady." Meena added.

"Hi..." Yoko almost whispered following them discreetly.

"Hey, that's my chair!" Meena said to Pitchy.

"Calm down, woman, I'm almost done. Look inside your drawer, I have a surprise for you..."

"Oh really?" she replied, opening it eagerly.

"Let me see!" Aoom said, grabbing her coworker by the waist.

The girls were screaming at whatever gift Pitchy had given this time. My head was already starting to hurt at this point. Between the stress, the screaming and all the work that I still had to do... so I just... sighed.

"Ladies, please, I was trying to..." I tried.

"Oh come on, Engfa!" Aoom said, cutting me off mid sentence.

"Look at this gorgeous purse!" Meena squealed, raising it above her head, performing a little joyous dance.

I looked but I couldn't care less... and it could be seen on my face.

"You're so uptight... You don't know how to unwind!" Pitchy added harshly.

"I..." I didn't even know what to say anymore.

"She's kinda right, Boss..." Snack added.

"Maybe we can all go to a club as a team and Engfa you'll come with us to let loose?" Heidi offers, hoping to make me feel better and included.

I stayed silent while they all screamed in high pitch voices that going out was "such a good idea". I was kinda happy that Nudee wasn't here today because she was the one who could have hoisted me up on her shoulder to force me to partake. As they started to argue about which club they could go to I turned around and left. When I got home that night I felt terrible. It was one of those days where guilt and anger were battling inside of me, where my energy and my ability to see the bright side were nonexistent... I couldn't keep going on like this...

The next day, I was sharing lunch with Faye. We used to be friends back in high school and we lost touch throughout the years. I didn't even know she was working for Grand International when I got the job. She very well knew how crazy Nawat was since she was dealing with him for almost 8 years now. She had come to terms, through months and months, with the idea that her workplace was toxic but that it was part of the job and that she needed the money. She often used her paycheck to take random vacation days to go unwind and recharge her batteries. Besides Sun she was my second rock here, holding me up when I was spiraling down. She told me many times, when I couldn't stand my team anymore, that I was doing the right thing and that keeping on telling them the same stuff over and over again was the only way. Like parents were doing while raising kids. I had to keep my head up and follow my righteous path.

But this time it was different. Maybe because I felt like I had used all my strength and that I still didn't manage to make things change... But the work was piling up and I couldn't do it all by myself... I feared that nothing would be done in time... That someone, someday, somehow, was going to look at our finances and would drag Nawat down. Which wouldn't be a bad thing... but would also make dozens of people lose their jobs... and that was unbearable for me.

"It's definitely harder this month. I feel tired too but you look EXHAUSTED, girl. You should go tell Nawat about it." Faye said.

"What difference is it going to make?" I sighed, feeling defeated.

"I don't know why but he respects you."

"Hey! That's not nice!"

"That's not what I meant!!" Faye laughed, forcing a smile on my lips.

"Yeah right!"

"I swear! I meant that unlike most of us, he likes you. And I do think that he did some things differently because of you for those past 3 years. Maybe you can't see it because you expect more... but I can tell you, as someone who's been here for a long time..."

"You mean that you're old, right?"

"Don't start." she warned me.

This time I laughed for real. I always loved to tease her about being a year older than me.

"I was saying, as someone who's been here for a long time... I saw tiny things change since you joined us. So keep on trying! What would you need to make things work better?"

"Mmm... honestly I would need another me. Since I can't make them work... I need someone to help me do all the things that they don't..."

"I don't see why he would say no to that."

"He said no to replace Tia when she went on maternity leave..." I sighed.

"I know but you got an intern so it's not like he didn't give you nothing."

I rolled my eyes.

"Come on, Engfa! Try and ask, I'll tell him the same, ok?"

"You think it'll work?"

"You never know, so go ahead and try." she replied, clinking her glass of water against mine.

A few days went by until I could arrange a meeting with my boss. I had prepared everything carefully, trying to think about what he could say and have enough content to feed to him in hope he would accept to hire "another me". So I went for it.

"You know that I struggle with the team, Mister Nawat and I'm not the one to complain but I'll be honest with you..."

"I'm listening." he replied even though he was playing on his phone instead of looking at me.

"I need help. I would suggest that hiring an assistant financial manager would enable us to..."

"Yes, ok."

"I'm sorry, I..."

"I'm ok with it, Engfa. We will find someone to help." he explained without looking away from his phone.

"Oh... Thank you. I mean..."

"I trust you, Engfa. I'm glad we chose you as Chompu's replacement. That woman was chaotic. But you... You understand how we work here and you do have good suggestions."

"Thank you, sir..." I was baffled.

He had said yes AND just complimented me. This wasn't what I had pictured in my head... He answered yes so fast... Should I be happy or worried now?

"Now please, I have to finish this... so..." he said, gesturing towards the door.

I walked back to my office feeling really weird. In a way, Faye was right... all I had to do was to ask for it. I should tell her and also thank her later... And maybe she was also right about Nawat appreciating my work... Yet, I didn't like the fact that he seemed to tolerate me because I sort of "knew my place". And then again, he kinda gave good feedback about me making things different here... which was supposed to be something he didn't like... I was utterly LOST.

"He said no?" Sun asked, seeing my decomposed face as I entered the room.

I shook my head.

"He said yes." I replied, looking nowhere.

"What?? Why do you look so pale then?"

"I... wasn't expecting it."

"But it's a good thing, right?"

"Yes, I... think?"

"You came back pretty fast. That's why I thought he might have said no."

"Well, he said yes pretty fast to be honest" I admitted, finding my senses back as I sat down on my chair.

"Take some candy, you look like you need it." Sun said with a wink, nodding towards my M&M's jar.

"Yeah... no."

"You never eat them."

"I know but they are pretty to look at."

"I know, we had this conversation a hundred times."

"Want one?" I offered, chuckling.

"No thanks... they've been here long enough for me to not risk it, no matter how hungry I could be..."

I came back home that night feeling completely empty. I had expected to fight for it, to argue and prove to him why I really needed help. My mind was still overwhelmed with conflicting thoughts. Having someone to help me in the near future could be such a relief. But he answered yes so fast... What if... Could he hire another braindead girl?! Oh my god! Oh please no! I needed to ask Faye about the hiring process on Monday and how I could be the one in charge to select the right assistant manager...

Heidi had sent me an email telling me that the team was going to a club on Saturday. So I decided to go dancing too. In a club at the opposite end of the city. The truth was... I loved to dance. And I DID know how to unwind and have some fun. But I didn't feel like doing it with them was a good idea. I went out a few times with Sun. He knew a lot of good places. And a few other times with Faye too. Though, I liked it better when I was alone. Just dancing on my own. A nobody in the heart of the crowd. It was that or going for a run... And I didn't really like running that much...

Back at work on Monday I went straight to Faye's office, hoping I could be part of the hiring process for the future assistant manager.

"I'm sorry Engfa, but Faye is off on vacation. God knows where..." her assistant told me.

"I... Jeff, can you tell me when she's supposed to be back?"

"Yes, of course. She said she'll be back on the 15th, so a week from now." he replied.

"I guess there's no point in texting her or calling her..."

"Yeah... to be honest she even left both her phones here..." he said, looking embarrassed.

Both her phones were indeed on her desk. Faye had that weird habit of being totally unreachable when she would be off work for a few days. This was her way to say that it had become too much for her and she didn't want any solicitation from anyone.

"Ok, thanks, Jeff..."

"Can I help you in any way?" he asked when I was leaving.

"No, I'll wait, it's ok. Thank you, have a nice day."

I could wait a week... Most times the whole hiring process took around a full month, even more... Between getting the info out, doing the interviews and selecting the right one... I should stop stressing out. I got back to our team's side of the building, trying to put on a good face but struggled to keep it up when I saw Pitchy dancing on her desk to amuse her coworkers... This was going to be a long week...

Monday 15th started with the regular managers meeting. Faye, the other team managers and myself were trying to survive as Nawat was once again going on about a new project that would end up in the trash in a few weeks or months. I asked Faye through text to meet with me during the day but she didn't reply. She was totally absorbed by her laptop screen, looking kind of stressed out. Maybe she needed more days off... The meeting went on for the two hours it was always set up to be until our boss presented the last bit of his obnoxious PowerPoint slideshow. We were starting to pack our things when he interrupted us.

"Wait, please. There's one more point I'd like to go over today." he said, smiling.

Each and everyone of us reopened our laptops or notebooks. Some looked a bit surprised, trying to fake not being annoyed... but Faye's squinted, looking deliberately away from me. Usually when our boss would do something weird our eyes would meet discreetly, sharing a knowing glance and smile. But not today it seemed...

"I would like to introduce our new addition, Miss Charlotte Austin, as assistant manager of the financial department."

I felt like I had just been struck by lightning.

The most beautiful woman I had ever seen entered the room. She was more gorgeous than all of GI's employees combined. Her eyes were a mix of hazel and green, her smile was absolutely divine and the way she walked towards us produced a sharp pang deep inside me. If my brainless coworkers were trouble then she would most certainly be the end of me. I was doomed.

"Fuck." I whispered under my breath.

___
Hi readers!
Missed me? Cause, you know what, I definitely missed you guys! <3
Many of you asked for another story, since way before I ended the last one... so there it is. I hope you will enjoy the ride as much as you did for my other works.
I saw that "Take A Risk" has reached 100k views and "You Know You Want Me" 60k!!! I can't believe it... You guys are the absolute best (and you might be a little bit crazy too...)!
Anyway, please leave a comment if you feel like it, I always enjoy reading and replying to you!
Until the next chapter, take care!