The Dawn, recently celebrated its silver jubilee as a successful news publishing company . At the function which involved many of the celebrities from Politics, Entertainment, Sports, announced its plan to expand concentrating mainly on South zone. As part of this initiative South Zonal office has been setup with James Edward leading the newspaper line. Jay Clement has been moved from Head-Quarters to assist James as the managing editor. Jay took it up the moment it was offered to him, more for the reasons that he wanted to move back close to home in south.
Two years since south zone has been setup and the sales have been going up for the last few quarters. Though the early days were a struggle for both Edward and Clement. Clement was the right-hand man to James, who took over most of the operational work and played a major part in setting up the unit and running it successfully. He did all this just because he was passionate about work will be a lie. Rumors are that he reaped good monetary benefits and stock options. But lately things have not been going well between the two. In-spite of all the hard-work that Clement and his team has put in to run the newspaper successfully in the south zone, James brought in a new Managing Editor. Not as a threat to Jay's job, but as any other Chief would do when the business is expanding. When Jay expressed the same concern with Edward, he was ridiculed. James said, "If I go by your theory, the CEO from the head quarters had to come down to run this South Zone, not me". But for Clement there was a break of trust between James and him. He tried to accept the new managing editor Perry Thomas. He corrected his expectations. But the feeling of losing his position as the most reliable person for James always nagged him. To add to this Edward was directly making changes in his team, few times consulting him and most of the times without consulting him. Edward was also making decisions on what gets published and what does not. Jay felt less energetic each day. He felt he was no more important at office nor his decisions were respected.
It was an usual Monday morning. Diana's first day at "The Dawn". She likes changes. New beginnings. Every ending is a new beginning to her. Not that she isn't nostalgic. But she is a reformer at heart and she knows how to forget the bitter past and move on. At job, in life, in relationships. She knows how to mend a broken heart, solve a tiff at work place or a difficult problem in life. She has seen life. Seen the worse. Seen the best. But all of it does not score against her feminine side. She cries like any other girl, rather more than any other girl. If there was a competition, she would definitely win. Nothing or no one can stop her tears, except her realization that its a waste of time and tears. And that realization often comes after she has spent good enough time wasting it. Of course, this new job is going to make her cry too.
She came in early to realize that only 30% of the staff was in office. She was asked to meet Sofia Keller, Jay's assistant. She was able to find her way to Sofia's desk. After womanly greetings and hugs, Sofia showed her desk, and took her around for a tour of the office. On their way Diana heard someone yelling. It was coming from one of the conference rooms. The door was half open. Diana could see from the corner of her eye...a bald short man standing next to the door, with his head down and peeping through the door to see if there is any audience for his embarrassment. She could not see who was yelling. Sofia said that it was so and so columnist swearing at his journalist regarding an article and that she is not to mind the entire fiasco they put up on a Monday morning.
"Umm. How is Jay? Is he also like that? Does he yell? Does he get angry?" asked worried Diana.
Sofia stopped for a second and turned back to face Diana who was following her to the pantry. "He is the ONE who you need not worry about. He is a darling! I have never seen him getting angry. You are lucky!", she said with a wink.
"Phew! That's a relief. My first worry at any job is my boss", said Diana with a sigh of relief.
"When does he come in? Can I meet him today?", inquired Diana.
Sofia looked at her watch and said, "well, he should be in any minute now. Sure, let me check his calendar. Usually no one has meetings on Mondays, unless you have ruined their weekend with a horrible article that got published", with raised eye brows which meant as a matter of fact.
"But you don't worry. Your boss knows how to ignore mistakes. You will never have worrisome Mondays", said Sofia clearing Diana's doubts. Ignore mistakes? Wow, is that good or bad? She does not like to work in an environment where in everything is grey. To her everything is either black or white. No in-betweens, she would honor choosing sides than playing a diplomat. She would prefer a blunt feedback to flattery. Even though it hurts her ans stings her more than she expected it to.
Sofia introduced Diana to few other staff members in the pantry. And all day long Diana kept listening to people's opinion of Jay. Everyone said that she is lucky to work with Jay Clement.
Diana and Sofia got back to their desks. Diana was setting up her desk when Jay walked in. He was fiddling with his PDA, probably checking the stocks that he invested in she thought. She stood up waiting to greet him. As he approached Diana said "Hi Jay. Good Morning!".
Jay looked up. After 2 seconds he realized who he was talking to. No smile. No expression. A blank face is what Diana got. He said, "Yeah hi. Diana right?". How can he forget her name? The one name which reminds him of the checkmate that he got. Now the name is a person. A face. A constant reminder in his work place. "Let's catch up later in the day", and he disappeared before those words could reach Diana's ears. She felt awkward. For some reason she thought its not the same person she met at the party two weeks back. Its not the same person, whom the rest of the staff has been singing praises. Is this their way of ragging a new joinee? Raising your expectations so high that you end up disappointed and let down to the depths of the earth and humiliation? Is this how new members are welcomed? In the next few months she learns that it is partly true. She was too new in the organization to be trusted and everyone played safe by being a hypocrite, except for Sofia. And of course Sofia was sucking up-to her boss and later Diana learns that she also has a crush on him.
She thought may be am overacting. May be am over-thinking. He might just be busy. Or his stupid stocks did not show him the right numbers. Or may be Monday morning blues. She thought he would be different when they meet later in the day. But that meeting never happened. Not for the next two weeks.
Jay kept ignoring her. He thought by ignoring her he can get back to James. As if not acknowledging Diana, he is in a way not acknowledging Edward's authority, intrusion. He knew that he was not thinking straight. He knew that Diana is the victim for no fault of hers. Yet he just could not get the courage to look past it and welcome Diana into the team. Every chance he got he denied her presence, in group meetings he acted as though she was invisible to him, only him knowing how much he felt her presence. There was no news segment assigned to Diana and she was getting restless day by day. Each day she used to come to office in a hope that Jay would finally find time for her and ask her to work on an assignment. But each day ended with nothing but frustration. One such day she caught James Edward in the elevator on her way to the basement.
"Hey Diana, how are you doing?", James inquired as soon as he saw her in the elevator. That was James strength. Knowing people by their names no matter how small they were when compared to him. Having that personal relationship, adding more meaning to his relationships with his employees. She was very happy to know that at least someone, no, the big head was talking to her with such familiarity.
She gave a wry smile and said, "Doing good Edward. Nice to see you".
"So, how is the dawn treating you? Enjoying like I said you would?"
"To tell you the truth, The Dawn is treating me like I own it. No work assigned till date and yes enjoying my honeymoon period, which seem to last forever", she said sarcastically.
James smiled as if he exactly understood what was going on and said, "Let me know if you would be interested in Weekly Magazine. I can have you work with Perry Thomas."
Diana was hired by James to write on a weekly column on Corruption, which would run half of the Page 5 in The Dawn on Thursdays. It looked promising. She loves challenges and accepted the offer immediately, as she was looking for a firm which would let her publish with freedom with no bureaucracy. But Jay has not even spoken a word since she joined the dawn. On the other hand, an offer to run a weekly series in the magazine? She thought this would lead to her dream of publishing a novel someday. But she knew she wanted to work with Jay. She has been reading The Dawn for the last three months, especially her favorite Editor's Column by Jay Clement. And she had decided that she wants to work with Jay back then.
"Well, Jay seems to have something big planned for me, like you promised. And I read in one of his articles that patience is a nice virtue"
"Sure, my dear. That is why I hired you", James said with a smug, and patting her back, to say mean that he was proud of her.
They said goodbyes as the elevator halted.
On her way back home, Diana was hardly concentrating on the traffic. Surprisingly there was not much traffic and which allowed Diana to slip into her thoughts. She was thinking how Jay and James are different. How she felt so comfortable, respected and trusted with James, even with those fewer minutes she have had with him. How he could meet a person for few minutes and linger on their minds for days. On the other hand, Jay, makes himself so invisible that it is hard to register his presence, no matter how hard you try. How did she find his articles so captivating but not him. She could see that working with Jay was not going to be a smooth ride like the one she was having now on her way back to home. She could see it as a challenge. The biggest challenge. She thought if syncing of thoughts or ideals is so much important to work with a person? How could she not read the person behind those articles she has been reading for the past few months? Jay was totally opposite to what she had imagined of an author of those columns.
That ruined her day. She took a sudden turn and picked her mobile to dial a number. She had no plans to go back to home that day. She was going to meet her x-boy friend, a trustworthy friend of hers and spend the rest of the evening cribbing about her new job. Women. At the end of the day, they are no different! They all need a friendly shoulder to rest their head on, and Diana was no different.
[ To be Continued....?]
I have no idea what crap am writing about. I got 5 more pages written, but only by this third post I know what the title is going to be "The Dawn". It is fiction for sure, but what is the genre going to be? I don't know. What is the theme? I don't know. What is this about? I don't know. Is this how people write? But I do enjoy writing, even if it is crap.
