In a professional themed office, a young man above his thirties was speaking with his assistant. He does not look happy one bit. "Please tell me you have good news, I have a lot on my table right now."
The male assistant manager hesitated for a moment, before clearing his throat. "Uhh, I'm sorry, but I do-don't have good news, sir. The game company had cancelled our contract. They had withdrawn from us."
The young manager sighed deeply with a sullen face. "That bunch of a**holes!" He gritted angrily before reverting to his poker face. "Did they say anything before leaving?" The assistant seemed to be deep in thought, before replying, "Oh yes,
They said they were sorry, but they cannot associate with our company anymore. They claimed we are falling short of generating more revenue, and the people volunteering to write and maintain the security of the video conferencing program had reduced to just measly fifty, out of the three hundred volunteers in the earlier years."
"That's all?" the manager asked, and the assistant nodded. "Damn. They didn't even complete the game I asked them to do. Alright, you can leave. Send our company's info to any available game companies that we are open for contracts. Please go do that immediately."
The young assistant made his way to the exit but stopped. He turned back to say something but hesitated. The manager, on seeing his assistant's holding back something, could not hold his frustration anymore. "What is it Michael, spit out whatever you want to say, or get out of my office!" he hollered angrily.
Michael held his breath in fear, before slowly walking to his boss. "Uhh, sir, I—I have a pro-proposition. You see, there is this guy I met on this freelancing website that does maintain backend securities of both website and software alike. I don't know, ma-maybe you should go check him."
The manager stared at Michael, who was shivering like a scared cat and shook his head slowly. "I thought I told you not to look for anyone on any freelancing site. Maybe you have forgotten what that genius plan of inviting a desperate fool from that site and invite him to work here, without my consent. If not that I was nicer to you, I would have made sure that you use your salary to pay all the money he scammed from us!"
There was silence in the office. Michael could not say anything. He regretted inviting that hacker. Now that his boss had reminded him of that, he hesitated a little. His boss might be right. People you cannot meet from face to face cannot be trusted, and he learnt in a hard way.
Now that he thought of it, he was not so sure of telling his boss what he had in his mind. 'This person says he can create website front-end, back-end, and create and manage programs. Maybe this person is not as legit as I thought he was. But I checked his info, and he was certified in this field', Michael thought.
"Uh sir, I'm sorry for bringing this to you, but you know that we are falling, badly, and so if you don't find more people to balance the tipping foundation of this company, there might not be this tomorrow", he said gesturing with his hands.
"Thank you very much, Michael, but I'm better off handling this matter myself than place this in the hands of strangers. Please leave this office", the manager said dismissively. Michael turned to leave, but as he left, he suddenly voiced out "His name is Simon Pierce".
The manager then rested his hands on the table and pondered deeply. "Oh my, oh my, why is this happening?" The manager stood up from his seat and paced around his office, stopped and seemed to realize something, but his face fell immediately and he paced again.
Just then his desktop computer beeped, indicating a message, and he sped to his desk to check who it was. He sent a message to a private company earlier about a request to build a new web video-conferencing application before Michael came in. He painfully hoped this company accepted his proposal.
When he opened the message, he read the contents. His face turned from confusion to surprise, to rage. "Arrrgh!" He screamed as he scattered the documents on his desk. He was rejected, again. Why would these people not realize that it was not always about the money that mattered here?
"Please God, help me, please. My life is crashing down, please." The manager, whose name was Jerry, came from a family of church rats. They were so poor that he only ate once a day, and twice on rare bases. Although his father worked at odd jobs, the money he brought home was not enough to feed the six members of the family and to make the matters worse, the government's insurance did not cover them, because he did not have a bank account. His father decided that his family cannot go on like this.
At this time, Jerry was fourteen years old. He had always loved to operate computers a lot. Most of the time, he spent very little money he managed to beg from passersby to go to cyber cafés to either browse the internet or teach himself how to use a computer.
It was then he began to learn how to design websites. Although Jerry spent little time learning the basics of HTML and CSS, less than ten minutes each day, he persisted in undertaking it, until he completed it eventually completed his course when he turned seventeen.
His father, on seeing Jerry's passion for computers, decided to work a bit harder to make enough money to move Jerry to New York City.
When Jerry first arrived in New York, his father immediately enrolled him on the school for "where Jerry spent his ten years in completing until he was certified.
But getting certified was one thing. He could not even get a job at all. Jerry sent all his time to submit his application to all available companies over the country, but none of them replied.
The insurance Jerry had set up thanks to a friend was no longer able to cover all his expenses anymore, and his rent was overdue. It was then that Jerry decided to set up his own company. He knew the risks of proceeding this path, but he was not deterred. He then borrowed a massive amount of loan to start the company.
At first, business was not moving at all, which greatly depressed Jerry. He spent all his time and resources in advertising his company. Sometimes, he did not even have the time to sleep or eat, but he didn't think about those luxuries.