Average

An Average Decision

"Good morning, may I please speak to Ms. Alison?"

"This is she."

"Oh, hello, Miss! I'm pleased to tell you that you've been accepted into our short attachment programme. Please report to our office tomorrow morning, preferably before 8am. I'll send you the rest of the details via e-mail."

---

Screening around the training room, Alison felt her determination fading. The little pep talk she gave herself that morning seemed like a distant memory. Blood rushed to her cheeks at the thought of socialising, her mind filled with anxious whispers of self-hatred. 

"Why the hell did I decide to apply for this programme?" played on her mind like a broken record. 

Alison wasn't planning on returning to her home country during her semester break, but she desperately needed to flavour her bland resume to ease her internship applications. She was ready to give up on her plan to intern in the UK, where her mother insisted she go to, when an e-mail inviting to apply for an attachment programme in an investment agency was sent to her. She didn't think she'd be accepted, given her record of rejection letters, but she should've known better that life enjoyed playing jokes on her.

"Hi, is this seat taken?" she voiced meekly, making her curse her meek persona, her meek decisions, her meek life and the word 'meek' itself. Soon after, she was cursing everything she could think of - her appearance, her personality, her predicaments - and suddenly, every wall felt too close to her to be able to properly breathe.

A lazy, "No," snapped her out of the shroud of inferiority. Muttering yet another meek "Thanks," Alison settled herself beside the girl, whose name-tag spelled 'Gemma'. 

"So what uni do you go to?" Gemma asked. 

It took awhile for Alison to respond. Two weeks of isolation had rendered her communication skills useless. She willed for this Gemma girl to end her question there, but the name of her university unfortunately piqued Gemma's interest.

"Islamic Science University, huh? So like, what? You're making new scientific discoveries through the Quran?"

Pushing away the thought of her university's inadequate attempt to integrate both fields of studies together, she let out a bitter laugh and shook her head. She felt the poor girl's life wasn't ready to be invaded by her vomits of disdain against the society's education system. 

The entrance of a group of individuals in business suits saved Alison from having to choose between a polite response explaining the modules of her course, and a distraction of which involved the tragic story of her kittens' recent deaths. 

"Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our annual short-term attachment programme, STAP. Throughout the entire two weeks, we've assigned two of our analysts to be the principals of STAP," a woman, which Alison assumed to be a part of the Human Resources Department by the way she was hustling everyone around into the room, announced. 

"What kind of agency accepts 30 people to work as interns? Won't too many chefs ruin the food?" an ominous thought crossed Alison's mind, after scanning the room filled with brooding participants. 

"For your information, unlike every other attachments in other offices and agencies in this country, Beverly Investment Agency offers a programme that will expose participants to all the divisions here. You won't really be seeing our working areas, but every rep from each asset classes will come in and give you presentations on what we do here in BIA," one of the principals, who introduced himself as Michael, began. 

What?

"We've pasted the two-week's schedule for all of you to know which departments are gonna present first. They'll be giving you lectures on the principles of investing in different asset classes. Just the basics, as some of you are equipped with neither finance nor economic backgrounds," Sally, the other principal continued. 

Lectures?

"Get yourselves familiar with this training room. Since our workplace is confidential, you're gonna have to spend the entire two weeks here."

We're in a classroom setting, not getting any work environment exposure?

"It's also advisable for all of you to get to know each other better, as the presenters will be giving group tasks at the end of their sessions."

Socialising and group assignments?

"Also, we expect constant engagements from all of you, which is why the tasks that we'll give will be heavily concentrated on presentations and case studies."

What, in actual hell, did my anxious, reticent ass sign up for?