Allea

sixty

"Miss Allea, I was looking forward to meeting you at Mr. Salvadge's party but, at the last moment, I was unable to attend."

I stared at the man, smiling softly as he with a warm smile gushing about how happy he's to see me here. My conversance with a man standing in front of me, who is probably in his forties now, begun while I was working as an employee in the Allgaier Corps. —that's when I met him for the first time. The first project I prepared was for his company, Ming Technologies, as I was directly supervising it, consequently, the longer I worked with someone till now. For those several months, that we spent time in meetings and turned into good acquaintances. About three years ago, he moved his company to his home country, China.

My tone was a little bit softer, as I responded genially, "Yes, Mr. Ming, it has been quite long, and seeing you here is quite a pleasant surprise."

He grinned hearing my words, and raised his glass a little, "Ah, wǒ yě yīyàng!"

Hearing his response in his mother language, my smile widened a little, "I see, so, you have achieved your goal, impressive."

With his constant smile, he nodded at my words, "Not fully, but yes, I'm still trying pretty hard to fully command my language," with proud lacing his voice, he added.

I nodded along, appending a word of praise, to which he advanced further telling me about how his Ming Technologies is doing in China. There's a considerable age difference between us, but Mr. Ming is one of the few people who from the beginning has never approached me like a younger generation, always greeted and treated me like a fellow of his age and caliber. And because we have known each other for such a long time, the formalities have lessened between us to quite some degree.

Soon our discussion was interrupted, as the announcer's voice reached our ears from the main stage --the person stated about commencing the event.

With that, excusing myself from Mr. Ming, I walked toward my designated table. As I paced, I could feel the words and eyes following me. There are a lot of people here, much more than what I expected, although this event is of larger scale still I thought that maybe I wouldn't have to see the people of business, but I was proved wrong thoroughly. Because the moment I stepped inside the hall I noticed a lot of familiar faces including those with whom Allgaier's have done contracts, projects, and such.

These events are such, where no matter what I can't avoid the social factor —that's what you are here for, to convey your point, and if you don't meet people how do you expect them to hear you. And I know how to separate my business from the work of the organization, I have never mixed them both, and the outlook to see both of these is also different for me. I know where to put my arrogance and stubbornness, and where not. So, for a while now, I initiatively spent all the time greeting people still for some I got no time.

Although for the past three years my organization heads are attending such awareness events, but, as a founder, I felt the need to attend this time. With so many changes going on in the organization, with all the matter of legal cases solving and their transfer while passing through countless authorities, it would be better if we could raise it to a much larger scale, for it to aid with the ongoing process.

As I reached toward the table, Miss Gorata (the head executive of the organization) and Mr. Dineo (executive assistant) were already there, nodding toward them I took my seat beside the former. After formally greeting the other representatives of the organizations (who were at the same table as them) seeing that we had time before everyone settles and things could progress further, Miss Gorata proceeded to inform me of pointers regarding what she's going to talk about on behalf of our organization.