I turned. Mr Hallaron walked over. He'd put his hat on and was pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. He offered me one which I gratefully accepted. I had been off them for three weeks, but with the interview only 15 minutes away, the nerves and stress got the better of me. It helped, calming me a bit. Mr. Halloran asked how I thought I would go, it would be a big promotion if I got the job. All of a sudden, I had the feeling that the interview had already begun, informally at least.
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I moved straight into interview mode, choosing my words and answers very carefully. I told him it was a terrific opportunity, and that I felt ready for the step up and extra responsibility. He could probably sense my shift to interview mode and backed off a bit, next asking how I felt about relocating to Singapore for a year if I was successful. Again, choosing my words carefully, I told him that I loved Singapore last visit, the office there was hugely successful and I would love to be a part of it. Seemingly satisfied with my answers, he finished his cigarette and moved on, leaving me to my final preparations.
The doors slid open soundlessly, revealing the complete and utter chaos that I had been sent to fix. Three days after the interview and I couldn't believe how much had changed at the office. The corruption watchdog had been through the office, and half of my colleges had been done for insider trading. I was investigated also, but cleared quickly as I hadn't made it in to the inner circle yet. Well now I was the inner circle, all of a sudden the head of a department in ruins - tasked by the board to clean up the mess and restore some respect and rebuild the business. The raid had taken place while I was in the interview - I could not believe what was happening.
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I called a meeting, to brainstorm with the remaining members of what was now my department how we would fix this mess. The first task was obviously to clean the actual mess up - the office was trashed by the raid and investigations. Files strewn everywhere, trash bins emptied and computers unplugged with hard drives removed as evidence. Getting operations back up and running was obviously the highest priority task. I called IT to come in and replace what we needed to get the trading desk back up and running. Client orders were still rolling in, and we had to get up and running urgently.
The phone began to ring, it was the Managing Director. He told me he had faith that I would be able to fix this mess quickly so that the company would start to repair the damage to its reputation. He said that the existence of the entire company was at stake, we could rebound from this, or it would bring us down completely. No pressure!! I said I would do my best, and quickly got to work. While IT got to work, I hit the phones to contact clients and reassure them that we were running business as usual. We would let them know who there new account manager would be, their funds were safe.
I knew the task would be enormous, but set about it with steely resolve and determination. Much like the company, the next few weeks would be make or break for my career - either I would be the hero that saved the bank and brought it through a massive scandal relatively unscathed, or I would be the captain of a sinking ship, bringing my reputation into question as much as those that caused this mess. The task was huge, time was short, but I new what I had to do.
This is a short story written for
weekend freewrite challenge. Check her feed out to get involved, you may find you have more creativity than you realise - I did.
