Chapter 10 - The Onset of Downward Spiral

One fine day, Marcus suddenly shared a picture of black beauty with Daisy. Daisy was working at the office and did not see it until late evening. Daisy was shocked to see the picture of a Black Ducati Bike, parked in the garage. Daisy immediately called Marcus and asked, "Whose bike, is it? What is it doing in our garage?" Marcus replied, "It is mine, father bought it for me, as I will be joining University soon. Isn't it beautiful?" Daisy was shocked, "Are you serious?? Why didn't you say no, when he asked if you wanted a bike or not? How did father manage to buy you a Ducati bike all by himself, when he hasn't been working for the last 2 years and all his savings were exhausted in that quick-rich money scheme? Please give the phone to Georgy" Marcus handed over the phone to George and he said, "Yes Daisy, tell me what happened?"

Daisy asked in utter surprise, "How could you manage to buy Marcus, a Ducati bike - that so-called black beauty? Why didn't you even think of asking me first when I am the only source of income in the family? You should have thought before buying this big busty - fancy bike, I am telling you, I am not going to pay for this bike." George replied to Daisy without even little haste, "Daisy your uncle Paul, paid the down payment and the rest I borrowed from the bank." Daisy replied, "…and how much did the bike cost you??!!!! How much did uncle Paul pay for it? By when are you supposed to return the money? And how much shall you owe to the bank?" George was buried by a heap of unstoppable questions thrown by Daisy. George replied, "The bike cost me RON 98,400, out of which your uncle Paul has made the down payment to the dealer on my behalf for RON 65,000 and remaining I will have to pay RON 2873 to the bank every month, so don't worry Daisy, I have taken care of it…I will pay for all of it without you having the need for any payment and trust me you don't have to do anything. Daisy was still surprised and thought to herself, "even with no financial backup, how could HE even think of buying that bike?"

Daisy was still upset with such kind of irrational thoughts. She was not convinced to entertain any kind of reckless behaviour, but she resisted blabbering anything stupid before she saw that black beauty by herself – as Marcus described it. Marcus was George's favourite, he was raised in such a way, that George would have managed to get a piece of a star from space if he had to! George never let his son bow down in shame before his friends. Marcus was always a shining star in his parents' eyes. Whatever Marcus ever wished, was always served to him on a silver platter. Daisy was jealous of this fact, her parents were always inclined toward Marcus and never treated both siblings equally. Daisy always had a broken corner for her parents because of this reason, but never raised her voice, instead swallowed all once again, whatever she had sacrificed was for the family's wellbeing. She was hurt by her family, her relations, her work – even if she got promoted, she wasn't enjoying what she was looking for. Still, Daisy choose to continue, no matter how the days went by, she always made a point to dress up, show up and never give up.

Later, one early morning, Danielle was reading the daily newspaper, when she found a job advertisement that George could do and probably earn more money than expected. She called George from upstairs and showed him the advertisement that she had looked at. George was initially sceptical about it but decided to do it – it had been more than 2 years and now it was also time for him to pay back the money that he had borrowed from his cousin's brother -Paul for that black beauty bike. George rang up, the concerned contact number received the call and soon he met him in person. They discussed it, and George started working on it. It was about data entry, where George was asked to fill the matrimonial forms, based on the number of forms he was able to fill, which would reward him RON 15 on every form. Initially, George seemed to be inspired by it after quite some time now and this looked refreshing for Danielle to see George work, instead of troubling other people, especially her. This was a beacon of hope in Danielle's life.

She was happy, that George had found an activity which could distract his mind and also indeed focus on earning rather than wasting precious time on nothing. A month went by, and George dedicatedly filled out all the forms as much as he could and went to his Boss. George's efforts were due for his payment and asked for a rewarding salary. Initially, his boss, told him that the salary will be delayed, but he should keep working. George went home and started working on those forms-hoping that this time he will be paid his previous month's salary along with the current month's salary. Again after 15 days, George revisited his boss to ask for his salary that was due in 2 months now. This time, George's boss denied paying his salary and said, "look, George, I appreciate your efforts, but you are not filling the forms rightly as I expected it. Even if, it has a minor error, I will reject that form and you won't be paid for it."If you are still ok with it, you may continue."

George looked disheartened and asked in return, "Is there something I can do to change it?" His boss replied, "either you continue your efforts in vain, or you can contact this person, Martin – he does a similar kind of work, just like me; the only difference is - he will pay you for the digits you type – which is nothing but your core strength -playing with numbers!! correct me if I am wrong..." George took his day off and thought about what his boss had told him. The next day, he woke up and contacted the new businessperson, Martin - whose reference his boss had given him yesterday. Martin, the head of Infotech welcomed George with open doors. Martin was a smart and sweet-spoken person. George felt the need to explain what had happened previously and why his boss told him to meet him. Martin smiled, discussed all the business mater with George, and persuaded him to join infotech as a customer, where he would be earning daily, based on the fixed amount of money he had deposited according to the product plan at Infotech, yes Infotech! George could not believe, what Martin was talking about. Martin demonstrated before him, how some of his previous clients had invested money in his firm and now they were getting daily returns based on the quantum of work they did. George was surprised to see if anything like this was even possible.

As far as George was concerned, he had been in the Finance industry right from the start and now it had been more than 25 years of his experience. He knew each nitty-gritty of the financial sector but never heard of B-plan like this. George was blinded by money. Having lost his job & money, all he could ever think of - was money on now own. George decided that he was ready to try his hands on things that he had never heard of. Daisy was proud to see that, after 2 years he had at least developed the zeal, that he wanted to do something to change his situation for good. This meant, George was about to take a risk, an uncalculated risk – he never thought would later become the greatest critic in his life. Martin and George shook hands, sealed the deal and George returned home. George after returning home had a glass of wine and started thinking over it, about how he could make things possible for him - because he was in a good mood to make huge chunks of money as he desired. George discussed the same with his cousin brother - Paul, what George should do. Paul got his references checked and found that there were no legitimate IT companies that worked as George had mentioned. Paul, George's cousin's brother even warned him to not fall for such kinds of fraudulent traps and be careful with them. George was not convinced about what Paul had told him. Rebecca – Daisy's cousin's sister had just finished her studying IT at a nearby university. George approached him and asked to invest jointly if she was interested in doing such business. Rebecca was not being paid much as promised by the employer even after her internship period was over. Rebecca was not concerned about whether such kind of companies existed or not, but George and Rebecca seemed to be sailing on the same boat- leading to a perfect recipe for disaster in their life.

George tended to look over the very next step instead of imagining the entire big picture. Rebecca said yes to a 50 - 50% partnership and decided to initially understand the business model that Mr Martin was using. They played with an online portal several times, to see what it looked like to users, how to manage them and how would they find their experiences. George and Rebecca continued with Martin's Business model until both were convinced and decided to contribute and purchase the next big ticket to the palace of wealth in both their dreamy worlds…