August 8th

Chapter 23 - Efforts

"Hey, Julie, do you have the analysis of the last project?" I ask her shortly before her shift is done.

"Yes, wait let me mail them to you." she smiles at me.

Being back in this area reminds me of the first months here.

Colt's mean behavior, lunch with the whole team, dreaming of big projects.

"How is everything going?" she asks with a smile, while sending me the mail.

"Pretty good, stressful sometimes but I love every single day here." I smile.

"We've missed you, let's get lunch one day together."

"That would be awesome, I am visiting my family next week, so I'm kind of stressed and I'd really like to enjoy our time. Just call me whenever you guys go." I want to show her that I don't think that I was better than them and was still humble.

"Thank you, I wish you a nice evening!" I thank her and walk back to my office to check the data and maybe work on those before leaving.

"Elia, do you need any help? I am done with my work." Colt enters my office.

"Would be great!" I hand over a folder.

Colt sits down at the other side of the desk and we start working.

"You know that you can take as many days off as you want, and at any time you want, right?" Colt asks. probably because of the stress that this short time is causing me. But I wouldn't want to change anything right now.

"No, I've had two weeks off already and now another week, I can't take off more. I need to get back to my regular schedule." I take some notes.

Some more notes.

Another analysis.

More data.

More designing.

9.30 p.m..

That's what I see when I opened my eyes.

"Shit! I fell asleep. Why didn't you wake me?" I panic.

"You just slept half an hour, don't worry. And you need to rest, Elia. You're doing too many different things at once. Just leave some work to the quality managers and just focus on this project." he suggests.

"Did you ever do this?" I ask.

"Do what?"

"Leave work for the others when it was getting difficult for you?" I ask.

Colt looks down at the documents in front of him.

"That's why you are successful, Colt. Because you handled everything by yourself, only trusted yourself with your work. Only spend time off of work when you were really done. So don't expect me to leave everything behind and just relax.

The only reason why I have to travel this far to see my family is because of my dreams and I am not going to let every sacrifice go to waste because of laziness." I clear up.

I understand that he wants the best for me, but every time he suggests me to do less work than I have to do, or to take advantage of my position in the company by taking more days off, I feel like he doesn't see my true potential and my ambition and passion.

"I know you mean it good, but I feel like you don't see my true potential." I explain, so that he doesn't think I'm ungrateful for his kindness and thoughtfulness.

"I'm sorry, I know how de-motivating it can be to feel like people don't see your ambition. But I also hate to see you stress yourself this much.

At least make me one promise, okay?" he asks.