Chapter 2

Thomas Parker. Let me tell you something about the man I just crashed into. Back when I had just entered the company, Thomas had been working for the magazine for over 5 years and he was my editor. It would be an understatement to say that he was a perfectionist with a very demanding attitude. But he was really good at his job like really good, that's why I really admired him at first but this was before he almost fired me just because I committed some classic newbie mistakes at work. After that I despised working under him.

Soon after he left the magazine, don't know the reason but it was rumoured that he got scouted by another big magazine with a high pay.

Stella really liked him and she did everything she could do to make him stay but to no avail.

"Hey you okay?" He asks me again, I snap back into reality

"Y-yeah I am fine." I manage to throw the words out.

He furrows his eyebrows together and look at me searchingly

"Do you work here? I don't think I have seen you here."

"Ah no I am supposed to start working from today. I was transferred from Neopolis." I explain.

"Another one from Neopolis huh?" He sneers "Looks like this is the best Stella can do." He turns to go

What th- this guy hasn't changed at all, what is this supposed to mean? And more importantly, Why the f— is he here? Don't tell me he is the new editor, if he is i think I'll just carry back my things back to my old office

"Excuse me?" I call him back " do you work here?"

He turns back and faces me again, "Yeah I am the new editor and your new boss. Could you just pick up your things from the floor? I don't want my employees tripping over and breaking their bones or anything else. And yeah you can pick your own place since we have plenty of empty space." He says coolly and finally leaves.

What the hell just happened? Thomas Parker is the new editor, my worst nightmare has come back in its most terrifying physical manifestation. If being transferred to a struggling magazine wasn't bad enough, I have deal with Thomas all over again. I wanted to scream out loud but I was already doing that internally.

After the end of my internal chaotic scream that lasted for about two minutes in real life, I find myself an empty desk in an inconspicuous corner. The more I stay away from Thomas vision the better, especially when the other employees haven't arrived yet. The office floor plan here is different from my previous office, it's an open floor plan here and there's no partition between me and the other chairs, whereas in my old office I had my own cubicle albeit it was small, but there I had privacy but looks like here I'll have to take frequent bathroom breaks to take a breather.

There's still half an hour till everyone else arrives. I can finally calmly think about my situation. So, Stella knew Thomas is the new editor and she didn't tell me, I am so mad at her, she probably didn't tell me because she knew I would aggressively refuse the transfer and wouldn't even dare to step in here. Even though Thomas was Stella's favourite, she knew that Thomas wasn't exactly a crowd favourite. But still she didn't have to do me dirty like this.

Also I am just glad he didn't recognise me, well I wasn't really hoping he would, I only worked under him for only 2 months or so before he left and it's not exactly easy to remember one of the many subordinates you boss around. I just released a sigh of relief.

There's nothing I can do about this except to just swallow up my anger, frustration and anxiety and just waddle through the next few months until the magazine hire new employees.

After a few minutes, I see few people trickling in through the entrance, all of them are guys and they give a curious look over my side, o don't say anything and they take their places talking amongst themselves.

Ah I really hate this new kid on the block feeling, I am really awkward with new people and I find it especially hard to talk to guys, guys who are like dudes and talk in dude language. These guys look like that type.

Trying to avoid awkward conversation I log in to my computer and open my favourite beauty vlogger channel, I haven't caught up with her for a while. Since Neopolis and FX are under the same company, I wasn't assigned a new login profile.

"Anna Cole right? So they transferred you too huh?" a man's voice I don't quite recognise ask.

I look away from the computer to find a big nose right in front my face. I jump in my seat.

The big nosed guy laughs loudly and removes his fake nose.

It was Joshua, he worked with me in Neopolis, he is my junior and he only got hired 6 months ago.

"Yeah, I see you are here too, ha ha" I laugh awkwardly

"Yeah I started a week back, and I am telling you this place is 100 times better than Neo. And the editor is really cool too" He goes on excitedly.

Editor? Cool? Is he on drugs? How can he deceive Thomas as cool, that guy is walking talking work-Godzilla.

"You'll love this place, we don't have many people here and even less number of women working here but there's lot of freedom here."

He goes on.

I guess he finally took a notice of my fake interest look I had on my face and dropped his voice,

"My bad, you liked working in Neo didn't you? Don't mind me rambling about this place, I just didn't connect with Neo as much as I did in one week here. But it's different for you, you worked there for almost 5 years, so getting transferred here must be hard."

I smile at him, "It's okay, don't feel bad on my account, atleast one of us is happy with this."

"Y-yeah"

"Alright guys, come up here." Thomas comes out of his office and announces it to everyone to come near the steps of his office.

Everyone shuffles out of their places and come up to him.

"If you guys are over your Weekend hangover you'd have noticed that there's a new addition here to our team. Please give your welcome to Miss..." he gestures towards me

Everyone turns their faces towards me, "Anna Cole. I was transferred from Neopolis. Nice to meet you all and I hope we can work together." I introduce myself.

Everyone greets me in irregular unison, I sample at them.

"Alright now that the pleasantries are over with, I have another announcement to make, we are going to scrap our next month feature work and we have to think of another one. So get all your ideas to the meeting room in an hour."

As soon as Thomas disappears into his office. Everyone groans loudly and in unison this time.

I smirk to myself at this situation. This is so much like Thomas. Unpredictable, demanding and annoying as hell.

Looks like I should have fought harder against my transfer.