Pre-presentation and issues

The atmosphere was dense and suffocating. It felt like an invisible grey cloud hovered in the office.

Bentlee sat beside Maxwell, across the room from Stefani and her panel.

Stefani started, "I commend your compliance to my request of arriving before working hours, even though some people showed up in the nick of time", she looked at Bentlee, making her roll her eyes internally.

"We'll start the evaluation now. Whoever's ready" she continued and sat.

Maxwell stood immediately with a medium-sized pile of documents and stepped forward.

Bentlee sighed in relief as she didn't want to be the one to start.

"The analysis of the...." He began and all attention was on him.

He spoke brilliantly, giving illustrations and examples at every corner, and soon after he was done. The people present applauded his presentation, but that wasn't all. It was time for questions...

Mr. Earl, Stefani's right hand man, began the questioning.

Just a question in and Maxwell's brain went blank. He couldn't formulate an answer or remember anything in the research materials that could possibly be related to the answer.

"Uhhh......" He kept silent then said, "I don't know the answer to that, but I will get back to you after a little more research".

"Hmm" there were more chatters before Stefani gave her remark, "your presentation was easy to understand and well thought out, but your question answering skill is lacking. You couldn't answer the first question, leading us to not be able to ask more".

"Next" another woman said in a bored tone.

Bentlee stood and walked to the space where she was to present, holding her smart phone. The people were not impressed and saw it as incompetence and laziness. They had no idea.

Bentlee began by greeting them and tapping on her phone screen.

"The analysis of the topic in my own point of view starts with the ..." She began.

She spoke without referring to her phone despite it being in her hands. The information was dictated to the phone, so she knew it by heart. The examples she gave were more common and more likely to be seen on a daily basis. She explained everything down to the smallest detail and didn't miss a single point. She was done after some minutes after which she was applauded.

And once again, it was time for questioning. Mr. Earl didn't ask her the same questions he asked Maxwell. He asked a semi-difficult one first.

Bentlee realised from Maxwell's questioning that the presentation wasn't what mattered, but your ability to think of a solution to a problem under pressure, within a given amount of time, easy to comprehend and in your own words.

She answered the question, checking all the boxes for the plausible requirements to answering the question effectively.

The "judges" nodded their heads and asked another. One by one, Bentlee answered their questions off the top of her head.

Bentlee then took her seat and Stefani began, "your words aren't refined enough. We want you to explain properly, but not like you would to a five year old".

That was all? No other fault at all? Oh wow, today must be a good day for me, Bentlee thought.

After twenty to twenty-five minutes of corrections, the Pre-presentation was finally over. Bentlee and Maxwell walked out together, discussing further on the presentation when she bumped into someone.

"Oh, I'm so sorry" she said looking up to see an unexpected face.

"It's fine", Kevin Sanders said and picked up his pen that fell from his pocket.

Bentlee missed dinners with Kevin and his wife, but she was straight up told that they didn't want her around, so she kept her distance. She smiled with a nod and kept walking with Maxwell, as he observed for some seconds before speaking as they walked.

"Were you two close?" He asked.

"Why?" She replied.

"I don't know, there was a little tension back there", he said and shrugged.

"Mmmm.....we were" was all she said telling him that she wasn't going to say more.

"Alright then", the silence was awkward.

The walked for a while before he asked, "can we eat lunch together?"

"Yeah sure, don't bring up the presentation though. I need a break" she said exaggeratingly fanning herself and behaving tired, making him laugh out loud.

"No problem. Bye" he said as they reached the lobby where they would go into their different office spaces.

"Byeeee" she waved and walked away first.

He stared for a while with a smile and walked away shaking his head.

Bentlee's POV

I walked into our office area after saying "bye" to Maxwell just to be welcomed with the loudest scolding. It was Mr Richard, obviously.

"Bentlee, where have you been? Is this when you come to work now? Did you sneak somewhere? Don't think that because you're part of that presentation then you can come to work whenever you like!" He roared.

I just stared at him, not saying anything at all. "Are you now dumb?!" He yelled.

"No sir, I am not. I was having a meeting with Stefani about the presentation from 7am sir", he shut his mouth, breathed like an angry animal and walked back to his office .

*Sigh* this man was running mad day by day.

I sat on my seat and started taking out some documents from my desk drawer.

Milan usually greeted me at this moment everyday, but today was different. She was silent, not even glancing in my direction. Weird.

"Good morning", I greeted first but got no response.

Maybe she didn't hear me, I thought.

"Good morning", I said more audibly this time, and still got no response.

Wow. This was crazy.

She was getting herself busy with each passing second, so I didn't bother to try talking to her again.

Maybe something happened? I'll ask later, I told myself.

Work went on as usual, the smell of freshly printed documents dominating the entire space.

I inwardly waited patiently for 12pm, so I could stretch my legs and eat.

If my nostrils were invaded for another second with the smell of ink on paper, I would lose consciousness.

..............