Arrogant

Alice's face immediately turned red, and so did Noah. The man immediately grabbed his neck, feeling uncomfortable. Alice hurriedly turned off the television. "I'll just get to the point, I need your help!" Alice was tired of pretending.

"No wonder something is different, it turns out there are shrimp behind a rock."

"I need your help in analyzing the reason why my company went bankrupt as well as asking for good advice on what to do in the future."

"It's a bit heavy to ask, I'm already tied to the company I work for."

"So you can't help?" Alice's expression turned desperate, "You really can't, can you?"

"Can not," Noah said firmly. "Except this is not a request from the company, but a personal request from you asking for advice from a husband for his wife, not as a co-worker."

Alice's smile returned. "Okay, please? I ask for help from my kind-hearted husband to help his wife's fate who is on the brink of this."

"Just take your turn, just want to mention husband and wife, where did you go yesterday?" Noah smiled amusedly.

"Please?" Alice put her hands in front of her chest, her eyes looked hopeful, just like the look of a kitten asking to be fed by its master. Noah couldn't bear to refuse.

"Okay, but I have a condition."

"Why are there conditions?"

"Yeah, a win-win solution, right?"

"Yes, what are the conditions? But don't be weird."

"It's not weird, it's just..."

"Just what?"

"I want to ask you to make soup like that for breakfast tomorrow morning."

Alice immediately regretted her decision to ask Rachel to cook for Noah this afternoon. "Nothing else?"

"Nothing, just want that, easy right?"

The girl cursed in disgust while muttering in her heart. "Easy, your head easy!"

****

Noah was only able to close his eyes at two in the morning because he recalculated the difference in the financial data at Alice's company. He had only woken up at seven in the morning to get ready for work and a miracle happened again because he had put Alice to war in the kitchen. Sounds of panic fell, plates and spoons clashed, as if the Trojan war was going on there. "Hey, good morning." Usually, Noah said hello, this time it was the other way around.

A bowl of Soto was served nicely on the table.

"My husband is awake, how was he sleeping? Isn't it good?"

"A lot of what you want, Al, to me. So that it's delicious, right, in the morning the wife cooks it, "said Noah while buttoning his shirt sleeve.

"This is special, I purposely got up early in the morning just to cook for you." Once again Alice lied, not Alice making it up, but Rachel. Early in the morning, Alice has been bombarding Rachel with telephones and hundreds of WhatsApp messages asking for her Soto to be sent via an online motorcycle taxi because Noah is addicted. Alice owed Rachel a lot. "Please give it a try, please."

Noah pulled up a chair, took a sip of the warm and delicious Soto sauce that ran down his throat. "So, how is it? You've seen the financial records, right?"

"It's only half, but there have been many misses. Your financial records are a mess, Al. Lots of unexpected subtle leaks."

Alice's brows furrowed. "Subtle leak, what do you mean?"

"There are many misses between real data and reported data, as well as a lot of unexpected costs that can make expenses swell. In my opinion, you have too many shoe repair shops. There are four at once, right? It should be enough to focus on one place."

"But Noah, my company is already big, one workshop can't possibly handle production."

"Yes, that was before but over time the market demand decreased, right?"

Alice fell silent.

"It's just the marketing team that is not good enough."

"You don't always have to look for scapegoats, Alice, this company wasn't built just by someone's hard work. You have to learn to work in a team. You should know much more about this than I do. But issuing shoe products is not just a matter of production, you must be able to capture the needs of consumers. You can't just focus on developing one product."

"No matter how great a company is, if it can't innovate, it will be left far behind and lose in competition with competitors. Take Nokia for example, from the '90s to the early 2000s, it became the cellphone of a million people. But he lost to Apple. What's the cause? Don't want to innovate plus the arrogance of the managers, it's a combo package to bring down a company."

"Why are you playing with Nokia? Yes, no apple to apple, please. The product is different from my company." Alice with her arrogance made Noah take a deep breath.

"One of the reasons Nokia went bankrupt was also due to poor management. The officials are arrogant and don't want to hear the opinions of their employees. Now is the age of collaboration, Alice, leaders must be willing to hear from their employees, buyers, and partners. So the leader is not only at the top of the pyramid, he must be willing to go down as well and adapt to the situation."

"Noah, you don't understand my situation. Sometimes the suggestions from employees don't even make sense."

Soto in the bowl is finished. So is Noah's patience.

"Alice, we can't just pour water into a glass that's already full, can we? Empty your glass first, then try talking to me!" The man raised his voice because he was already very annoyed.

"Why are you even mad at me? Yes, if you are not sincere, help me! I could ask someone else for help, your suggestions don't even make sense."

"Up to you." Noah didn't listen to Alice's next grumble because all he did was rush out of the house, leaving Alice with a bright red face.

****