TUNA LIFE Read Free

himself in fewer words, in more accessible language. Come up with catchy headlines that caught the attention of readers with the attention span of goldfish. Couldn’t they just change the name of the paper to Twitter? Everything he submitted that was more than 140 words was rejected anyway.
    Vesna asked whether anyone had questions. No one had any. She declared her first morning meeting over, dismissed the journalists, and walked directly into her office and shut the door. Then she had a panic attack.
    “They hate me,” she cried on the phone to her brother. “They all hate me.”
    “Pull yourself together,” her brother said. “They don’t hate you. They don’t know you. They are just afraid of what you represent. Change. New blood. Progress. That’s what they are afraid of. They are not idiots, you know. They realise why you’re there. That the world has changed, that they need to change with it, or die.”
    “I don’t think I can work in a place where everybody hates me again. I don’t want to do this,” Vesna cried.
    “You’ve chosen to become a leader, Vesna. That’s not easy. You’ll have to make some tough decisions over the next twelve months. It will become easier. But it will take time. The only thing you need to know is that I support you whatever you decide to do, Vesna. But do me a favour: Don’t give up so easily. Give it a few weeks. Make your mark on the organisation, and do it quickly. If you wait too long, you won’t succeed. Call me again in a few months. If you still feel the same, we can discuss it. But don’t give up. Remember, you are a Connor.” Then he hung up.
    Vesna Connor stared out the window. She missed a good girl friend. Someone she could talk to, someone she could share her worries and insecurities with. It was nice to a have a close relationship with her brother, but there was something missing. She always felt that he was judging her when they spoke together; that even though he never actually expressed it with words, he was disappointed. Vesna’s perfect brother; partner at Morgan Stanley Investment Bank’s Sydney office at the age of twenty-nine. He made more money per week than Vesna did in a year. How could she ever compete with that?
    She opened the Excel spreadsheet. It was an overview of who were deemed to be ‘not essential’ for the organisation. Don’t hesitate, her brother had said. Move quickly. She might as well have presented the list at the morning meeting, her first official day in her new job. But she had decided to hold off for a few weeks. Let it seem like she had put some thoughts into it. That cutting the staff by twenty percent was a decision she didn’t make lightly.
    She decided to focus on something positive. What could create positivity on the Gold Coast without jeopardising the paper’s integrity? What was booming? She reviewed the business articles for the last twelve months. It was mostly headlines about companies in receivership and properties in bank foreclosures. There was really no positive news. She flipped through the various articles so quickly that her eyes struggled to focus. Suddenly she stopped. She moved the scrollbar up two pages. Something had caught her eye.
    ‘App millionaires on the Gold Coast – the new economy.’ The article read.
    The article was authored by Scott Davis. One of the reporters she had included in her Excel spreadsheet for early retirement. Human Resources had, however, advised her to exclude him. He had been on a Performance Management Plan continuously for the last twelve months. There should most likely be ample opportunities to get rid of him without handing him any money.
    Vesna read the article with interest. Even though the Gold Coast in general had broadband speeds comparable to Albania, and investors avoided the coast like a plague, a small technology community seemed to have grown out of the local universities. It had spawned several successful companies, some of them even able to compete