CHAPTER 11-IMPOSSIBLE BOSS

Anna's POV 

I knocked once.

“Come in.”

I pushed the door open and stepped inside. Andreas Mo Ting sat behind the wide desk, the city framed behind him in glass. He did not look up immediately. A set of printed drawings lay open in front of him, my preliminary notes on the Eco-City heat and water issues, the ones I had uploaded to the shared drive that morning.

He turned a page with two fingers, then another.

“Sit.”

I sat, my notebook rested on my knees. I kept both hands flat on top of it so they would not move.

He finally raised his eyes. The same controlled gaze from the interview. No greeting, no welcome.

“Your initial approach to the heat island problem relies on reflective coatings and elevated corridors,” he said. “Explain the structural load increase.”

I answered. 

My voice stayed even. I cited the weight calculations I had run the night before and the material specifications that kept the added load within acceptable limits.

He listened without interruption. When I finished he closed the folder with a soft, final sound.

“Inadequate.”

This single word landed cleanly.

He opened the folder again and began pointing out every weakness without raising his voice. The coatings I proposed degraded faster under the projected pollution levels of the district. The elevated corridors created new wind tunnels at pedestrian height that the current wind study had not fully modeled. The water features I suggested for evaporative cooling required maintenance cycles the operational budget could not sustain beyond year three. The green corridors I had placed along the western edge conflicted with the existing underground utility easements. Each point was precise. Each one cut deeper than the last.

My fingers curled against the cover of the notebook until the edges pressed hard into my skin. I forced them flat again, one joint at a time.

“You solved for the ideal condition,” he continued. “Not the real one. Ideal conditions do not exist on this site. Ideal conditions do not exist in this company.”

I swallowed once. The muscles in my throat tightened. I kept my chin level and my eyes on his.

“I can revise…”

“You will revise. That is not the question.” He leaned back in the chair. “The question is whether you understand the difference between a clever sketch and a solution that survives contact with cost, time, and failure. So far you do not.”

Heat climbed the back of my neck and settled along my jaw. I held his gaze and did not look away. My pulse beat hard at the base of my throat, but I kept my breathing measured and quiet.

He studied me for a moment longer, as if waiting for an argument or an apology. I gave him neither. The silence stretched until it became another form of pressure.

“Most new hires sit in that chair and try to defend the indefensible,” he said. “They become emotional. They take professional criticism as personal attack. They waste time explaining why their first idea should have worked. I expect better.”

The implication sat between us without decoration. I was already placed in the same category…another employee who would fold under direct evaluation.

I closed the notebook slowly. The soft sound of the cover meeting the pages was the only noise in the room. My hands remained steady only because I ordered them to.

“I will submit a revised approach by end of day,” I said.

Something faint moved across his expression, surprise, or perhaps irritation that I had not reacted the way he predicted. It disappeared as quickly as it came. He reached for another file on the side of his desk and slid it across the polished surface toward me.

“While you revise the Eco-City notes, take this as well.”

I looked at the label. West Ridge Mixed-Use Redevelopment. The project name was familiar. I had seen it mentioned twice in the company handbook footnotes, both times as a cautionary example of prolonged failure.

“Three teams have already failed to deliver a viable scheme,” he said. “Budget overruns, structural conflicts with the existing heritage constraints, community resistance that the previous designs never addressed. The last team requested a six-month extension. I denied it. You have four weeks.”

I kept my face still even as my stomach dropped. Four weeks on a project that had already broken three teams. The file looked thicker than it should have.

He watched me closely. Waiting, perhaps, for protest or a request for more time.

I picked up the file. The weight of it settled fully in my hands. I did not adjust my grip.

“Understood.”

“That is all.”

My legs felt heavy as I stood up. I turned and walked to the door without looking back. Behind me I heard the soft shift of his chair, nothing more.

In the corridor I stopped long enough to draw one slow breath through my nose. My fingers were still clenched around the edge of the file hard enough to leave white marks against the cardboard. I loosened them one by one, then continued toward my desk.

Around me, the open floor continued its quiet work. No one asked how the meeting had gone. No one needed to. The speed of my return and the thickness of the file in my hands said enough. A few glances slid toward me and then away just as quickly.

I sat down, opened my laptop, and created a new folder labeled West Ridge. I placed the physical file beside the keyboard and opened the first page of the failed project documentation.

Their rivalry officially begins.

I began to read.