Pre-tense ~Drop in the Ocean topic: Pretence

PRETENSE

They could not spell either.

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Lucky Dave was, in fact, lucky, he was also a diligent worker and very good at what he did. If you ask him about his success he will very quickly point out that he was fortunate enough to have his tweet response lead to an executive at Google check him out. Lucky Dave had a few of his hobby projects listed on his personal website, one of which was quite revolutionary and made the Google exec smile a wicked smile.

The rest, as they say, is history.

His story was not that far along when this happened and as a 30-year-old freelancer Lucky Dave got lucky and now has no requirements to work but he does. Perfectly chill he continues to develop new projects and back a few that has potential.

Yes, Lucky Dave has got it made.

Regardless of the fact that his name is Jason, Lucky Dave responds to his given moniker without hesitation. It was a colleague that coined it on the evening of celebrating the Google sale. The same colleague dubbed herself "Cool Jessie" although her name is Veronica.

Cool Jessie had an on and off relationship with Zit Face Nick but no one called him that instead they just used his real name which is just Nick. The whole office guessed he had a big dick, only confirmed in hushes as Cool Jessie will happily confirm this rumour. The more astute will note that she has to agree.

Nick was one of the few that was interviewed by Lucky Dave himself, with the majority of hiring being handles by Cool Jessie. Lucky Dave hired her back then at the party, he never said for what and had enough money to pay her to bring coffee and speak to people. He all of a sudden, we all know "all of a sudden"; All of a sudden had a lot of friends who wished to speak about their projects, mostly at bars where Lucky Dave has come to the conclusion very little gets said about projects.

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That became Cool Jessie's job, she would do the meets and use a checklist to first interview any prospective developers then send only the ones who check all boxes to Lucky Dave and eventually the head of the project directly.

This worked well, they got to acquire a few projects, find new people to put on those projects and life went on.

Lucky Dave was ever present, proud of his according to the surveys he liked to fill in, "50-100 employee" business. He knew all their names and liked at least 10 of them, tolerated about 20 and nodded at the rest.

Things felt quite stagnant for Lucky Dave. He decided to look over the company files, he was proud of the software he made to record all transactions, hires and activity within the company. As with anything new he looked at it every day when it was fresh. He loved seeing all the activity and growth. He even felt like he was helping a lot of people to learn as he implemented a healthy internship program for willing people.

Lucky Dave looked over at the open floor with everyone seemingly hustling and bustling and smiled. Yes, he was going to enjoy seeing how far they have come. Lucky Dave briefly lost his smile as he realises he has been pre-occupied of late. The past year to be precise.

Lucky dave snapped out of it and remembered that he does check the financials and they are up with one or two project losses but that is just how these things go.

No, he was going to enjoy this. He looked over to where Cool Jessie was in the office and smiled in her general direction, remembering that she was running all of this while he has been focused on the future.

---

Everyone was surprised at the impromptu "Employees Only" event which will be held in the big presentation hall. When they got there it looked like a wedding was about to happen, the more pessimistic would note this is what their uncles funeral hall looked like.

After everyone has settled in with many confused faces all around. Lucky dave took the mic and got up on stage to welcome them. He noted that there are many who are not there, this was confirmed with a nod from the few who were there.

Their nods served to explain that their confusion was founded in the fact that there were 20 tables with seats for close to 100 people yet all of them only occupied the two tables in the centre surrounded by empty ones. This is called designated seating.

Lucky Dave paused, he was never one to give way to direct conflict. His interactions were always measured to avoid this at all costs. A lot of pretence goes into that. None more than having dealt with major government agreements the past year.

Right now though, he did not care as the people present have been taking money not only from him but opportunities away from others. Lucky Dave looked over at Cool Jessie and said:

"Veronica, I want you to know that I know. "

Then he killed them all.