Atrophy of Love: Mr. Harris, Stop Fooling Around! novel Chapter 300

White Industries could never compare to Harris Corporation. This could be seen from the architectural design of the headquarters. Although, White Industries was not a small company. At the very least, it stood up considerably from other buildings.

“Morning, Mr. White. Morning, Miss White.”

“Good morning!”

“Morning, Mr. White.”

James was the chairman of White Industries and he was also president, but the employees were used to calling him Mr. White. Many greeted them along the way. There were also others who gave curious or condescending looks at Sophia, trying to figure her out by staring her up and down.

“Don’t think you’re somebody here just because you’re my daughter. Do whatever you need to do on a normal basis. Don’t act haughty or overambitious here and embarrass the White family! Do you understand?” James got into the elevator first and gave her a reminder.

Sophia followed him into the elevator and stood next to him. “If you’re worried about me being an embarrassment, you should have brought me in earlier to learn the ropes and not selfishly bring me up to amount to nothing.”

James was angered as he stared furiously at her. “You…”

“Yes?” Sophia cocked her head to the side and stared at him with a neutral expression.

James put his hand down and grunted heavily. When the elevator reached his floor, James walked out without looking back, ignoring Sophia completely.

She ignored him too as she followed behind him.

They entered the office of the chief financial officer. A thin, middle-aged woman with short hair was seated inside. Opposite her was a young man being lectured by her with his shoulders drooped and head down.

“You can leave first,” the woman instructed the young man when she saw them enter. She stood up and sized Sophia up without attempting to hide her actions.

Sophia allowed her to judge without being bothered and smiled slightly. “How do you do, I’m Sophia.”

The woman frowned and ignored her. She looked toward James instead.

“She has never been in touch with this department before. She’ll have to trouble you in the future, Ms. Leadman,” James said warmly.

Maisie Leadman’s attitude did not change because of his tone of voice. She said coldly, “I hate people who only want to be a dog in the manger. I’ll be upfront. If she’s unable to keep up with me after one and a half months or if she fails to follow my instructions when I give them, she should be prepared to get out of here soon!”

Sophia tried to figure her out without being obvious. She could not tell if Maisie’s attitude was an order from her father or if Maisie was truly this way.

James sighed and said, “I understand, Ms. Leadman. Don’t worry. If Soph doesn’t live up to your expectations, I won’t forcefully keep her here.”

He patted Sophia gently. “Do you hear that, Soph?”

“I’ll do my best, Director Leadman,” Sophia said softly.

Maisie stared at her stoically and reached out her hand, “Maisie Leadman. Remember what you said.”

Their hands let go of each other almost immediately after touching. It was very formal and had no emotions involved.

James continued to give Sophia some serious reminders and chatted a while with Maisie before leaving.

Once he left, Maisie quickly sat back in her seat and said, “I’m meeting with a few financial consultants to discuss tax strategies. A greenhorn like you won’t be able to help. Go find Miss Lark, the cashier, and get her to teach you some basic things.”

“Are you the newbie I’m supposed to take in? I’m especially busy today. Go and inform human resources that I have already two people under me and can’t take on another extra person. Get them to arrange another mentor for you,” Big Lark said quickly and took a phone call.

Sophia wanted to wait for after her phone call to ask a few more questions, but the calls kept coming one after the other. It looked like she really had a lot of work to do. Sophia went on to find a few more cashiers named Lark, planning to ask any of them to mentor her temporarily, but they all rejected her using various excuses.

In the end, she had no choice but to approach human resources as someone suggested and let them make arrangements for her.

There were many people in the human resources department, but most of them were busy with recruitment during this autumn season. Everyone in the department was occupied with their own work as they busied about. It took a long time before someone was finally free. Sophia explained the situation to her.

“Who hired you? Just go to him or her and get them to make the arrangements for you!”

Sophia did not want to blow things out of proportion and did not inform that she was Sophia White. Instead, she said, “Mr. White recruited me to be the assistant to the chief financial officer.”

The lady looked at her in astonishment before smiling. “You… Are Miss White? You should have said that immediately when you came in here. It would have been okay to do my work a little later. Wait here a minute while I get a few forms for you to fill. I’ll arrange to onboard you.”

It was close to noontime when Sophia was finally done with the onboarding process. Sophia thanked the lady from human resources but rejected her invitation to lunch.

Her phone vibrated and rang. It was an unfamiliar number. She picked it up. “Hello?”

Maisie said gravely, “The first sentence you say in the future has to be ‘how do you do?’! I told you to learn basic skills from Miss Lark, the cashier. Where did you go? It’s only the first day and you’re skipping work?!”

Sophia could only explain succinctly, “I’m sorry, the cashiers all looked like they were busy, so I came to conduct my onboarding process at human resources.”

“Do you need a whole morning to process your onboarding? If you had told them you were Sophia White, those cashiers would have taken the time to mentor you no matter how busy they were. You don’t need so much time for onboarding. How could you waste your own resources so blatantly?! Are you trying to prove that you’re above us?!” Maisie criticized her harshly without holding back.