Office Polit-licks (gxg)

Chapter 1

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A/N - I hate having to do this, but since NovelHD has already started to pirate some of my books, here we go. These works are mine. My poor little brain came up with the plots and characters, and I'd really prefer you to not steal them. If you're reading this on a site that is NOT Wattpad then it is most certainly stolen.

Thanks!

Loiosh

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               "Your coffee ma'am!" the barista called while handing over a latte. He must be a new worker, as I didn't recognize him. His nametag said Drew though, and I'd remember that for the next time. I liked being able to remember the people I see a lot, since it made these interactions a little less tedious.

I'd need the caffeine to get me woken up and into a better frame of mind if I was going to make it through the day. With a sigh, I took a big sip, and then nodded gratefully at the young man who'd made the drink. It was good, and just what I needed. Within ten minutes, I was boarding a MUNI light rail train to work. It was the easiest way for me to get around San Francisco and didn't require me to drive in the brutal downtown traffic. I liked that! Six years of living in the states after leaving London, and I still had an issue about which side of the road to drive on! Combining that with heavy traffic was a bad mix.

It was a gorgeous June day, and I didn't care. My mood dropped with every second that I got closer and closer to the office building that housed my work. My makeshift office. My desk. My chair. My computer monitors. My damned bosses. Yep, it was another Monday.

I didn't always hate Mondays. When I was growing up, I liked my private school, so it was never a bother. Even at Uni, I enjoyed my Mondays. When I joined the workforce at Nimbleworth Advertising back home, I enjoyed my job and the people that I worked with. I was motivated and doing well, but there was no chance of getting a promotion. It was a big company, but the more senior people were all young too, or at least too young to be retiring.

So, when the CEO said that they were starting a new division of the agency in America, I was a natural person to send over there. I had dual citizenship because while my father was Dutch, my mother was American, and there would be no visa issues. I'd also had several successful ad campaigns under my belt, and there was the prospect of a new city and a new job with upward mobility was a great opportunity for me.

I said yes as soon as I was asked.

It took six months for everything to sink in, but I've regretted every day for the last six years.

When Nimbleworth Advertising was expanding, they could have hired new people, and sent over some experienced people from the home office in London to help train them. But they were worried that a bunch of people with foreign accents would come off as pretentious to the Americans they were trying to pitch their company to, so instead they bought and invested in a small existing company in San Francisco. One of the other reasons that I was picked was that while I was raised in England, my home life gave me an odd mix of accents that was hard to place.

When I arrived in San Francisco, the company was just Zach Adkins, who was in charge of everything, his son Bryan, and Bryan's best friend Jaxon Thornton. The four of us worked together to land several campaigns. It was billed as a competition to see who should lead the company into the future, but I soon learned better. As soon as the campaign was landed, I did all the work to get them across the finish line. The others couldn't seem to accomplish much of anything other than schedule a few meetings. In my opinion, I'd done more than enough to warrant a promotion. However, doing all the work wasn't enough for Zach, and he instead promoted his son and his friend to the Creative Director and Account Manager positions, while they both reported to Zach in the Account Director role.