THE STUDENT: A tale of love, lust, sex and the struggle of a poverty stricken student’s life

by A. Archie

  How come these idiots get top jobs? Something is seriously wrong with the senior management recruitment system. Just because you knew so and so and had a number of years of rubbish experience, it does not make you a good leader. It is just common sense, how you conduct yourself and how you set out to do things and achieve them. You might have paper qualifications from top universities. But good decision making, leadership and common sense cannot be bought on paper unless you possess them and willing to develop further.

  Next I went to the Gateway computer dealer, Sherwood’s. I had a friendly interview and the marketing manager offered me a job on three times my previous salary which in fact I had asked for. I thanked and said to him “I will get back to you”. I needed to try few more top companies and keep Sherwood’s as a fall back option for now. Sherwood’s were interested in me. They kept calling me and asking when I was joining them. I felt sorry for them but I wanted to aim high and not rush into a decision.

  The next day, I visited one of my favourite shopping complexes in Colombo, Unity Plaza and saw a computer shop there. I thought I would go and have a chat with them. I walked in and the director was gazing at me admirably. I was in a tie, long sleeved white shirts, black pair of trousers and polished black boots. I asked if he had any marketing jobs going. He asked me to sit down at his desk. After a brief chat about me, he offered me a job with a company car in three months on performance. He said “I liked the confidence with which you walked in”. I did not want to work for a small joint. I love cars but this company was not worthwhile for me to waste any time promoting in the industry. I was testing myself. There was a time I struggle to get a job. Now I could get a job anywhere I go. Confidence and style can take you a long way, take you to paces you had never dreamt of.

  Chapter Ten

  I exactly knew which companies to work for and walked into one of the largest group of companies in Ceylon, Cooks Holdings. My target was their IT company, CBSL. It was a quiet street permanently closed for traffic due to security. I had been down the Vauxhall street before to visit other companies. This time I was going there to sell myself. Smartly dressed, I walked in to the reception. There were two girls. One was very pretty with long hair, very fair in complexion and innocently beautiful. They gazed at me as I walked towards them. I asked if it was possible to talk to a manager regarding any marketing jobs you may have. She said “They are at a meeting. Have you got a CV you could leave with us?”. I handed over a copy of my CV. She had a look and smiled at me and said “I will hand this over”. I thanked her and said “See you”. She was pretty and I wanted to go back.

  I was on my way back home on the bus after visiting CBSL, when my mobile rang. I did not recognize the number. I answered and the caller said he was from CBSL and asked if I could come for an interview. Yes, I so wanted this job. Everyone recognized you when you worked there. Everybody knew this place. It was hard to get into this company and if I did, I would even have a laugh over the guys from my previous company. Most of them had tried and failed even without an interview. The others were not brave enough even to apply.

  In the same week, I went back to CBSL. The same girls were on the reception. A big smile and I was asked to be seated and wait. I did not flirt with them. I needed this job more than anything else now. I waited for about five minutes and a manager met me at the reception. I signed the gust book and we went into a meeting room. There were no funny interviews this time, just straight talk. I asked for three times my salary from the previous job. He agreed and said “This goes to the MD’s approval and you will hear from him”. And added “When can you start?”. I answered “In two weeks”.

  I waited for few days. I did not look for any more jobs. I was so confident and I so wanted it. No telephone calls or posts so far. I phone the company and asked to speak to the MD. He was not in. Then I tried a couple of days later and he answered. I said to him I have had an interview and waiting to hear from him. The MD gave me a date and time to come and meet him. Third time I was there waiting. The MD’s secretary came to the reception and walked me to the MD’s office. Oh no. He was wearing a white long sleeved shirt and black trousers and a tie. We just clicked. No funny interviews again. He asked me a bit about what I had been doing and I said “I have been doing tenders, computer servers and NT network solutions”. He asked me “What is NT”. I replied “New technologies”, Microsoft’s New technologies Server OS and that was what NT stands for. He was obviously testing my knowledge or he simply did not have anything else to ask. The interview was brief. He called the secretary in and gave me a date for my induction.

  I was happy. I imagined how my life would be like in the new blue chip company. I did not know anybody there. I could not have asked for more. That was it. I was in the making. The free time between starting the job, I spent studying for my course, going to bookshops and the British Council library. I needed to start anew and another attempt at success.

  There was another guy for the induction. He was younger than me. The induction was in the form of all about the company, its divisions and us being introduced to people there. The form of IT induction was to be given on the job over the course of time. I was given a desk to myself. Normally, the open plan large office had two desks put alongside together. So each unit had two people sitting opposite to each other. However, ours had another desk put on the side. In total three marketers for our unit. What a contrast. Everyone seemed cultured, professional and occupied in their jobs. No messing about. They treated everyone with respect. What a difference to the previous company I used to work for. It was all to do with how you recruit the staff and the qualities you went for.

  On my first day after the induction, I sat at my desk and sunk in my thought. I was not going to rush into making marketing calls nor did I want to go out or chat with the old staff. Thoughts from my past started pouring into my mind. I was torn apart in the contrast of my poor village life and the new high tech life in the city I had just embarked upon. I bent my head down in thought. Pictures of me as a boy wearing torn shorts, bringing chicken feed home on my father’s rusty bicycle, people laughing at me and the endless memories of the past kept me troubled all day. I only talked to my colleague at the unit a few words. I was supposed to work together with him. Troubled by thoughts, I decided to watch and study the other staff. I did not want to jump the gun, go and talk to everybody and cheapen myself. I would take this slow but sure. I left the office soon after 5.00pm thinking that the others did the same and came back to work at 8.00am the next day.

  I arrived at work just before 8.00am in the morning. The traffic took longer than I had anticipated to get there. The building we were in was very large. Our office was more like a large hall split in to two by the steps and the main entrance cutting it in the middle. A building built during the British colony with colonial features and the British architecture. We sat towards the far end of the office and it gave me the opportunity to talk to everyone on the way. I held my head high, cracked a joked, smiled but never waste my words. I kept the conversations to a minimum and up to the point but social.

  Because of my past experience in tenders and the computer sales from tenders at CBSL were poor, I was entrusted with mainly handling tenders. However, I was allowed to bring in new private businesses provided they were not already handled by other marketers. I kept replying to quotations from government bodies and the like. Few weeks in, I had my first sale for computer accessories followed by computer orders from the City University. I was earning my keep now. However, it was not enough to reach my monthly target given by the sales manager. My target was still low compared to the others as being new. We had a weekly and monthly sales meetings and prospective sales were discussed, targets were amended and you got blasted at for not doing your share.

  Discipline was high and I was often later for work by five to ten minutes due to the traffic. I was not the only one who was late in our team. First thing in the morning, you all had to be present at the sales manager’s desk and e
xplain why you were late. Then he discussed the agenda for the day if he had anything. The pressure was high towards the end of the month as no one wanted to miss their targets and lose the commission. I was hungry for money and answered every quotation received in my sector. I was slowly building up a comfortable zone in some respect. I wanted to generate regular sales from key clients on a monthly basis.

  First few days at CBSL, I spent getting to know everyone and specially the girls who prepared quotations and printed them out for us. They had to do a proof copy first, then we had to go through it with the sales manager before the final copy was printed out for signing both by the sales manager and the marketing executive. It was very important for me to get along with all the girls I had to work with. I treated them with respect and talked to them as if I was talking to my sisters. We laughed, talked about general things and I asked more about them and they enjoyed chatting. I never crossed the line or talked too much with them. I was a man or rather a gentleman as I had no wish to flirt or go out with anyone of them. But it was fun being with them and when you knew that they looked after you vice versa. I loved them as friends.

  We were told that one wing of our building was being refurbished. We would be moving to that side in a few months’ time. We were going to have half height cubicle for each one with a new desk and chair. The staff from the wing being refurbished were also transferred to our wing by limiting the space between our desks although it was not too crammed. The managers and the MD always had a clear view of the rest of the staff. However, we were free to do our day to day business without hindrance or question. If you wanted to, you could stay in the office all day. If you wanted to, you would go out and see customers whenever you wanted to without telling anybody. I loved the freedom with which I had to work.

  It was time for us to move in to the refurbished office. Everyone had their place allocated so you did not have to fight for a desk you liked most. I was very happy with what I had been given. It was all light blue and pleasant. We were on the first floor. Business as usual. I carried on focusing on tenders. Soon after we moved to the new office one of my tasks was to offer a proposal for a 6000 computer tender. The competition was fierce. We had not done any ground work before the tender was announced by a government department. The chances of winning it was very remote. A tender with that scale and hardly knowing the people calling for the tender, you would not stand a change. However, you had to do it since you were in the industry. The MD gave us the go ahead. I was in charge and allocated work among sub teams according to the types of products they did.

  We requested a special bid price from IBM and waited. In the mean time we prepared the documents well in advance. The price arrived and all was set to go. I did not have a say in the final price we quoted as my company was not willing to take a risk and anticipate a drop in price by the time the tender was going to be materialized in about six months’ time. I would always take a risk in business but it was beyond my capacity.

  It was the day before the tender and bad news. We were told that the computer specifications have changed for the computers in the pipeline. We had less that twenty-four hours to redo the whole tender. I allocated the work again and got everyone involved including the managers. I asked everyone to stop any other work and concentrate on the tender. It worked. Not a word to be heard, everyone was serious. We worked till the early morning not finished yet. We all agreed to get back to work earlier than normal and finish the tender.

  I told everyone that the tender submission was closing at 2.00pm and we had to finish before that allowing time to get there. Like busy bees, we all did our bit without complain. I kept going to each team and checking how they were doing. We managed to finish it all just before 2.00pm. While the final tender documents were being signed, I asked a manger to go and get a car ready and wait outside. It was 1.50pm. The manager signing the documents said to me “It is nearly 2.00pm can we make it?”. It was the time for me to tell them the truth “The tender opening is actually at 2.30pm”. My line manager immediately said to me “You said 2.00pm. I can’t believe this!”. I said “Trust me. Here it is [showing the document]”. Everyone looked at me with awe and admiration. I said “Let’s go now”. We ran in to the waiting car and were the first to arrive at the tender reading.

  Chapter Eleven

  That was how I achieved the impossible deadline. They began to respect me more thereafter. It was not long after this that I was walking back to the office. I had been to the loo. The staff came rushing out of the building saying “the building collapsed”. Lucky I escaped near death thanks to a call of nature, I thought. That very moment I wanted to go to the loo and I was coming back in less than five minutes, that was all it took for it to happen. I asked “Is everyone ok?” No one was sure as we were not allowed to go back in. I was worried about my colleges. I really loved the new office. All gone now. It was also rumoured that I was going to get a promotion. That hope would shatter and crumble down with the building now.

  We were all told to wait outside the building. There were no signs of further collapse. We were told to go home and come back the next day. We could not take our bags. I had my wallet and the phone on me, that would take me anywhere. The next day we were temporarily housed in the old office until a relocation was arranged with the head office not far from the current location. Shit. Why did the building have to collapse? It was discovered that while the builders working on the ground floor, a column supporting the first floor had collapsed lowering the first floor. As a result, no one was injured. It was safe to go in and collect the belongings.

  Swiftly a relocation was made to one wing of the ground floor offices in the head office, again a quieter area with only an access road. The office looked more like our old office with air conditioning. There were other group companies, admin and the HR in the same building. Open plan office with no half-length cubicles, we were back to the square one. The cafeteria was also on the ground floor towards the centre of the main building. We had to go outside our office through the main entrance to get to it. The food was not as good as the one from our previous office. It was also a chance to see girls from our subsidiaries. There were pretty girls.

  The toilets were upstairs on the first floor. I went there few time a day sometimes just to do my hair up. I was passing few other offices from the group companies. I noticed this slim girl always looking at me from her chair on my way back as I had a long clear view. She was sexually slim and fair in complexion. I would not say she was very pretty but had a very fuckable face and body. And she often wore short skirts. I always looked at her in return. She must have been watching me, my bum on my way to the toilets as I could not see her and waited for my return. I wished she came out but she never did. I began to enjoy her attention and the flirt. I wanted to fuck her. I needed a chance to meet her. But it was hard. I would have been more brave. I regret it now. If you leave it longer, you lose it. Grab it while you can.

  The receptionist cum telephone operators sat by the entrance to our office now. I always talked to them. They passed me prospective telephone calls and letters from businesses. They talked about their boyfriends briefly. I never flirted with them. They were worth far better and were good girls too.

  I was achieving targets and doing well earning commission and respect from everyone. After a hard week’s work, we went out for a drink after work on a Friday night. I thoroughly enjoyed it, a pint of beer or two with bits like devilled beef or a selection of sea food. The venues we went to were up market and classy. I was discovering places I had never been to. I had no agenda for finding a girlfriend as I was already planning to move to the United Kingdom. Love and sex life had to wait. I saved every penny I earned. My only expenses were the rent, food, clothing, travelling and mobile phone bills.

  Chapter Twelve

  Now that I had completed my business exams, all modules and levels passed. My next move was to do my masters in England. I wanted to go and see the job opportunities the foreign job employm
ent bureau had on offer. It was a government agency and the service was free. One afternoon I went in to the office, as I walked in the receptionist saw me. She started gazing at me with a smile but I had to wait as she was already attending to another customer. Her look gave me the confidence that I was going to get help there. I sat patiently on a chair and observed. There was a map of the world on the wall and the countries they covered. It was apparent that the jobs were mainly for the Middle East, South Asia and Japan. When I was a teenager I considered going to Japan as two of my older friends went there. But I did not know how and did not have the money. I asked them to help me go there but they said they would but they never meant it. No one likes their comfortable zones being broken. You would have to do it by yourself guys. Do not wait for anyone else to help. You would end up wasting your time.