The Family Business (IC)

[Thevshi]

Headquarters of Draco Enterprises
Hanover, Freedom City, New Jersey
March 7, 2016, 8:05 AM 

Jason Draco sat in the reception area located outside the office of the CEO of Draco Enterprises.  Located on the top floor of the central building in the company's corporate headquarters in Hanover, there were large windows looking out toward the skyline of downtown Freedom City to the south.   

Today was the official start of Jason's tenure as the head of the Future Endeavors division of the company, a stepping stone and learning experience for the young man suggested by the current CEO of the company, Silver Stone, who had been running the company for the last seven years.  Jason's appearance in the building had already caused a bit of a stir, with many people stopping what they were doing to watch as he went past.  The return of Jacob Draco's son apparently spreading quickly through the building. 

In the few minutes Jason had been waiting for Stone to arrive, he had already noticed the young woman that was Stone's personal assistant glance his way a couple of times before quickly going back to her work.

[geniusostrich]

Jason was fairly excited to run Future Endeavors. Stone was being fairly gracious in giving him the opportunity and Jason was going to make sure he wouldn't regret doing it. Jason waited patiently for Stone to arrive so he could get the necessary introductions to this division of the company. He didn't really mind the people looking at him. He kind of expected for people to be surprised that the son of the Draco's came back from the dead. Jason looked over to Stone's secretary. She was cute. Randolph had said to try to fraternize with the opposite gender since, you know, he had just come back after 8 years of only male interaction. But that would be unprofessional in this situation. "Hi, name's Jason," Jason said as he walked up to talk to her. "You work for Mr. Stone, right? I was just wondering what Mr. Stone was doing at the moment."

Edited March 15, 2016 by geniusostrich

[Thevshi]

The young woman looked up as Jason came over, suddenly seeming a bit nervous, but she covered that quickly and nodded at his question.  "Yes Mr. Draco.  I am Gail.  I have worked for Mr. Stone a little over a year now."  Gail appeared to be rather close to Jason's age, maybe a year or so younger.  She had medium length brown hair and light brown eyes. 

"Mr. Stone should be arriving shortly.  He usually is in the office by now, but traffic can sometimes be unpredictable."  She then added, giving Jason a small smile.

[geniusostrich]

Jason felt a little antsy still but was reassured by the statement that Stone would be in the building quickly.  He nodded and went to sit down. But before he left the desk, he turned and gave Gail a wink. As Jason sat down, he wondered where that came from. He hadn't been like that back in high school. Oh well. Jason sat and waited for Mr.Stone to arrive.

[Thevshi]

Jason did not have too much longer to wait, as Stone arrived about five minutes after he had sat back down.  Silver Stone was in his early 60's, a bit on the shorter side, with a full head of grey hair.  He was dressed in finely tailored charcoal grey suit, a striped red tie adding a bit of color.   

As he exited the nearby elevator, Stone moved toward his office at a quick pace, but slowed slightly as he spotted Jason sitting in the waiting area and moved towards the younger man instead.  "Well this is a good sign."  He commented as he drew near.  "I am pleased to see you are eager to get to work."

[geniusostrich]

"Hello, Mr. Stone" Jason smiles as he says this. He may feel as if Stone doesn't like him very much but that doesn't mean he shouldn't be polite. And Stone is helping him become the leader of his company, there's no reason to not be civil. "I've been feeling a little stagnate sitting and waiting. Why wouldn't I be excited?" Jason was legitimately excited. He enjoyed work in general and had ever since he was little. "So what will we be doing first?"

[Thevshi]

"Well, let us hope that excitement is not easily extinguished."  Stone replied with a small grin as he waived for Jason to follow him and headed for his office.  "Gail, I will be meeting with Jason for bit, then taking him over to Future Endeavors for the next hour or so."  He stated to his secretary as he led Jason into his office. 

Stone's office was a large room, with a wide desk set near the windows that looked out over the same view of the Freedom City skyline as the waiting area outside.  Off to one side in the room was a small area with several leather chairs gathered around a coffee table.  It was to one of those chairs that Stone gestured Jason, while he walked over to set his briefcase down on his desk.

Making his way back over, he took a seat across from Jason as he gave the younger man a smile.  "Well, today is going to be a busy day, although I cannot say you will actually get much in the way of work done just yet.  We will start things off with introductions to your direct reports, which will include Dr. Walter Parsons, who was head of Future Endeavors, and will be your senior VP while you are running the division.  I have had them all working on summaries of current projects and deals, so you will likely have some homework tonight." 

"After that, we will make a quick tour of the rest of the division, allow you to meet some of the other people that will be working for you and get familiar with the building.  Then I am afraid the rest of your day will be take up with meetings with IT, HR, PR and legal to get you up to speed and ready to really get to work." 

[geniusostrich]

"Sounds good," Jason said as Stone finished speaking. He didn't like to admit it but Jason was something of a workaholic. If he wasn't doing something, he got really agitated. Hell, he was renovating the old dining room in Draco Manor before he left this morning. "That reminds me," Jason thought, "pick up nails before you get home". He realized he had been sitting there for a couple of seconds after Stone had finished. Jason began to speak so an awkward silence didn't happen. "So any issues I'll need to worry about during my time in FE?". Jason wanted to be prepared for any issues. Didn't want his first job assignment to blow up in his face.

[Thevshi]

"Issues?"  Stone replied to Jason's question.  "No major issues that I can think of."  He replied before pausing for a moment.  "Although, I will say that while Dr. Parsons is a genius, and has been a competent head of the division for the past four years, he did not take the fact you would be replacing him, even if temporarily, all that well."

The older man gave Jason a small smile.  "He has not resigned, so hopefully he has realized that it is something he can live with for the short term.  But, you might want to be ready for some push back from him for awhile.  I would recommend listening to what he has to say and take it into consideration in making decisions, but don't feel like you have to always follow what he says." 

"So, ready to head on over?"

[geniusostrich]

"Let's go," Jason said with a smile. He felt quite giddy, honestly. This was his chance to get out and do something. The Dr. Parsons situation might end up ugly but Jason believed he could prevent that with enough hard work. Jason got up and shook Stone's hand quickly. He then waited for Stone to lead the way.

[Thevshi]

Stone gave Jason a small smile at the younger man's exuberance.  He then led the way out of the office and out past Gail's desk toward the elevators.  A short elevator ride down and they were making their way out through the main lobby, Stone greeting a number of employees making their way in as they passed. 

Future Endeavors was housed in a smaller building separate from the central building.  It was located along the northern edge of the small corporate park that made up Draco Enterprises headquarters, just past a small green space around which most of the buildings were situated.   

The building was a long four story building, the front of which was made of glass walls, the back half having far less windows and looking more like manufacturing and laboratory areas. The front entrance was a large atrium which went all the way up to the fourth floor, bright sunlight streaming in with a fountain and plants off to the right side of the space.  Set back from the entrance the upper floors looked out over the atrium and hallways were visible along either side of the building on each level. 

Jason and Stone quickly passed through security and soon were on their way up to the fourth floor.  Once there they made their way into the side of the floor that overlooked the atrium.  In a large conference room that overlooked the atrium, there were half a dozen men and women seated around the table waiting. 

"Good morning everyone, please allow me to introduce Jason Draco."  Stone stated as he moved into the room and toward the two empty chairs near the far end of the table.

[geniusostrich]

Jason took care to walk around the table briskly and gave a quick handshake and introduction to each person at the table. He knew it was a little unprofessional and might hold the meeting up a little but Jason wanted to try to show that he was at least a decent guy. He knew some people might be irked by this little upstart just showing up and taking over and he at least wanted to be an endearing little upstart. Jason proceeded to sit down at the chair that Stone had left empty and give a smile. 

[Thevshi]

Each of the men and women gathered in the room introduced themselves as Jason took to the time to greet them and shake their hands.  Most were in the mid to late-thirties and clearly rather bright and talented.  Dr. Parsons was the last one to be introduced, and was in his early fifties with greying black hair.  Although he was a bit stiffer in his greeting than the others, he shook Jason’s hand before they returned to their seats. 

"Alright, now that introductions are taken care of, why don't each of you just give Jason a quick summary of your departments."  Stone stated as Jason took an empty seat next to him.  "I am sure he will be arranging time to get to know each of you and your teams better in the coming weeks after he has had a chance to review the more detailed summaries you have prepared, but he has a lot on his plate for the rest of the day." 

Over the next half an hour each of the directors gathered provided Jason with information on their various departments, which included research and development, quality control and testing, human resources and public relations.  When that was over, they all made their way back to their respective offices, while Stone and Dr. Parsons began Jason's tour of the building.

[geniusostrich]

Jason was quite impressed with the current state of affairs in Future Endeavors. He could see several photon-refraction weapons hung on the walls and being tested as he walked through. Those things were only supposed to be fairy tales at the moment. Or at least so he had been told. He knew that there was always alien tech to "borrow" that could have been used. This seemed to be confirmed by the amazing variety of tech in R and D. Quality control was surprisingly empty at the moment. Future Endeavors seemed to have a lot of products that were only in the testing phase. HR was a nice place, Mrs. Crotchett was a lovely old lady as always. Mrs. Crotchett had been the one to watch him when he was much littler and his Dad and Mom were working(She loved kids). Public relations was insane though. There were people running all over, fielding phone calls and talking to reporters. "Guess my arrival meant more than I thought, "Jason mused as he hid his face from the reporters.

[Thevshi]

"Well, it is not everyday that the once believed dead son of one of the founders of a company like Draco Enterprises makes his return to his family's company."  Stone replied with a small smile as they left the public relations area.  "They are busy setting up a press conference for you later this week, which I am sure they will go over with you when you sit down with them." 

Stone then looked at his watch as they returned to Jason's new office.  "Well, it is probably time I take my leave.  You have a busy schedule ahead of you," he indicated the person from IT that was currently waiting for Jason, "so I will leave you to it.  I will talk with you later this afternoon."

With that, Stone left, as Jason and the individual from IT went into his office so he could get set up with his system access and familiar with the company's systems. 

[geniusostrich]

Jason let the IT guy set up his access without too much fuss. He wanted to be up and running as soon as possible but he didn't need to needle the guy trying to help him our. Once IT finished, Jason gave him a handshake and says "Thanks for helping me out. I probably wouldn't have gotten done that quickly if it wasn't for you. I'll remember this when I'm at the top". Jason then decided to wait for the PR people to finish with the press by reading through old company files to see what he had missed while gone. 

[Thevshi]

The IT representative, Greg Walker, smiled as Jason promised to remember him in the future, telling Jason to give him a call if he had any issues.  But despite his plans to try to catch up on things once Greg had left, Jason quickly found he had little free time this first day.   

While the PR department was still busy with things, there was still meetings with people from HR and legal, who went over the various benefits and other records keep matters that were needed with any new hire, even the one that was the majority shareholder of the company.  Legal in particular discussed some of the potential issues that could come up given his majority stake in the company.  Just meeting with them took him well into mid-afternoon.   

When they were done, in addition to the pile of paperwork related to him, legal left him with a large stack of documents representing many of the key contracts the Future Endeavors division had in place that Jason needed to familiarize himself with, a task that could take some time.

[geniusostrich]

Jason sighed at the stack of paperwork. No matter how much he enjoyed working, he really couldn't get into it before starting. Once he started, he was off. But right now he just thought about how insurmountable the amount of papers was. Jason began to quickly look over each paper, signing off wherever he needed to and paying attention to current contracts that he really needed to remember. Some of the contracts were with people he had met when he was a kid, so that was a little more interesting to see where people he knew ended up.  Jason hadn't completely finished up before the building was beginning to shut down, so he decided to just take the stack home. He brought a bag up with him for a reason. He wasn't sure if he could fit all of them anyways. Maybe Jason'd grab a burger on the way home. Jason started to leave after sorting the papers out he needed to bring with him.