In the wee hours of monday--the seventh day of a new year, Albert laid in his bed turning from left to right like an empty polythene bag tossed to and fro by the wind, hoping that solution-based answers to his conundrum at the shoe factory would pop up in his troubled mind.

Hasta La Vista Ltd., popularly known as HLV, was a force to reckon with in Cuadrego city. Her giant-like office complex located in the heart of the town, distinguished it and made other buildings adjacent to her seem like ants. Its far-reaching patronage by residents and those from neighbouring towns added to her annual profit that ran into billions. HLV's reputation for qualitative, cost-effective shoe products and robust monthly remuneration package preceded her. This made it every Cuadrego youth's dream place to work, thereby turning up her biennial recruitment process to a hundred degrees centigrade.

In his modest office of a rotating seat, wide writing desk and two chairs, Albert strolled from one end of the office to the other with hands in his pocket. "What will I do? How do I explain this to the management?" He queried himself, as sweat dropped freely from his contorted face. Reaching for his mobile phone plugged to the wall socket beside his restroom's door, he quickly called Mr. Antonio (the general sales supervisor), acquainting him with the tragedy that struck his last sales transaction. "Mr. Ortega's cheque bounced after five hundred Prada pairs of shoe delivery valued at 2,500 euros each. I requested for a cheque when our POS got dysfunctional. He seemed like a gentleman," Albert narrated.

Shortly, he called for a unit meeting, with all ten persons under him in attendance. Spilling the beans, Albert urged them to be calm as apprehension and fear of getting sacked gripped them. Amidst this tensed ambience, Julius Odelio (renowned for his quick-fix aptitude) confidently stood up. Seconding Albert's call, "Challenges like this spring up not to break us rather to make us. We have to end this emotional display now and put on our thinking cap. Let's alert the police to carry out a covert investigation on this case. Mr. Ortega is not invisible. We will find him and rectify this error before the mid-year routine auditing commences. We are in this together," he inspirited them.

[b][/b]Kaycee Naze
(Rational Pen)

cc: obinnau

cc: lalasticlala, mynd44.

cc:lalasticlala

cc:Divepen

cc:lalasticlala

lalasticlala

CC:Lalasticlala, front-page-worthy content.

cc:lalasticlala