Chapter 185: Not Everyone Can Be a Leader

"Pretty good. Having a computer really makes a difference. What used to take a whole day now takes at most three hours. I've spent the afternoons organizing credit card knowledge training for them. Once the training is done, I plan to send the extra staff out to talk to merchants, and then we'll add a credit card processing service here at the bank. The tellers can actively promote our credit cards to customers coming in for transactions."

Goodman's report interrupted Carter's thoughts. Hearing Goodman's plan for the bank's next phase, Carter nodded.

"Yeah, girls doing sales work naturally have an advantage over us men. This arrangement is pretty good. And what about the interest rates on deposits? Have you been keeping an eye on that?"

"Yes! It's been less than a month since the new law came into effect, and the banks are still holding steady. There's no movement on deposit interest rates yet. I've already arranged for people to monitor it. Those part-time investigators you set up before aren't just sitting idle. You have no idea—I've heard some of them have gotten lazy, not going out at all, just filling out a few lines on the form in the evening to hand in and collect their pay."

"This kind of thing is always hard to avoid. After all, gas prices aren't cheap these days. By not going out, they can save at least thirty dollars a month, almost a tenth of their pay."

Carter had also heard complaints about the part-time investigators slacking off, but he continued.

"Let's stabilize things on the HT side first, and then we can deal with these issues. Also, if there are any diligent ones among them, keep an eye out. We might be able to use them in the future. Especially in an environment without supervision, those who can still do their job well are excellent employees and quite rare."

"Alright, I'll keep an eye on it!"

"Okay, let's leave it at that for today. You go ahead and get busy. I need to catch up on the lessons I missed on the tenth."

As Carter sent Goodman off and turned his attention back to his studies, in the bank lobby, Jon couldn't help his curiosity at the frantic keyboard tapping next to him. He turned his head to look.

"Gabe! What are you doing?! You..."

Jon had intended to say, "Are you looking to get yourself killed?" But he reconsidered. They had been working here for a week now. Mr. Black certainly didn't seem like the mafia boss they had imagined, and their work was nothing more than routine computer maintenance, occasionally helping a teller who had pressed the wrong key and didn't know how to fix it.

The job wasn't just normal; it was unbelievably easy. Unlike their previous employment at a computer company.

Feeling his hair thinning, Jon was very satisfied with his current life.

The pay was good, the work was minimal, and it was close to home (or the dorm). They could even chat and joke with the teller ladies during breaks. Who knows, he might even solve his lifetime partner issue here!

In this situation, seeing Gabe typing what seemed like mischievous code, Jon had to step in to protect his peaceful life.

"Don't think I can't tell what you're doing. This string of code is just performing useless calculations, wasting CPU power without doing anything meaningful!"

"Shh!"

Realizing Jon had figured out his little scheme, Gabe quickly looked around. Seeing no one paying attention, he frantically gestured for Jon to keep quiet.

"You know what I'm doing, so you know it's not harmful. It won't take up any memory, just squeezes the CPU a bit. We can easily delete it later. I just want to play a prank on Mr. Black, you know?"

"A prank? You sure it's not just to show off? To be the hero when the computers crash and no one else can fix them but you?"

Jon gave Gabe a knowing look. Since the tenth, Gabe had seemed unusually stimulated.

Originally the kind of chubby kid who only cared about eating, he had suddenly become obsessed with coding, sometimes even skipping meals to do it.

When asked why, he wouldn't say. Jon had only learned from a brief encounter with Druss, who was moving to Pearson, about what had happened that day.

A cheering crowd of tens of thousands—Jon couldn't even imagine the scene, let alone the confrontation with the Pearson Restaurant Association.

Standing alone, scolding an entire city's industry association, and ending up with the cheers of the locals—this was beyond Jon's comprehension.

Just hearing about it was shocking enough. For this restless chubby kid, it had been something else entirely.

"Gabe, I get it. Mr. Black is about your age, so you compare yourself to him. You don't want to admit he's better, but sometimes, we have to acknowledge the gap. Look at me—I'm older than Mr. Black, yet I'm working for him."

"And when you work for someone, you have to earn your pay. What if your prank disrupts the bank's operations? Even if it only takes ten minutes to fix, or five, who will cover the losses during that time?"

"Mr. Black has been good to us. He advanced us $400 when we had no money. And from what I've heard chatting with Greta and the others, many people in this city have food on their table because of him."

"What you're doing is ungrateful. If Greta and the others found out you were sabotaging Mr. Black, could you still stay here?"

"I wasn't planning on staying long anyway! And I... I'm not..."

Gabe's lips moved for a while before he sighed.

"Okay, I'll admit, I do want to compare myself to Carter. And you're right, he's younger than me by a month—almost two months! Like you said, many people in Douglas live well because of him, and Pearson is similar now. You weren't with us that day. Forget it, let's not talk about that. I know I'm not as good as him now, but what about in the future?"

"I'm not someone who easily admires others. Carter is the first person besides my brother who I truly admire. In fact, he's even more impressive than my brother!"

"You understand that, yet... Anyway, if you want to compare, do it fairly. Sabotaging things behind the scenes is unethical."

Jon nodded in agreement. Despite that less-than-ideal first impression, Jon had to admit he admired Carter too. Not just for his own success, but for bringing up everyone around him.

But unlike Gabe, Jon had never felt the need to compete with him. To Jon, Carter seemed like a natural leader, someone who could bring people together to work towards a common goal, ensuring everyone involved benefited. It sounded simple but was incredibly difficult to execute.

Not everyone can be a leader.