Shao Yan had spent more overtime in the office lately. She poured all of her free time to finalize the presentation and all the planning. The end of year celebration was a big event, especially now with OnScience on board. She had never manage something at this scale before, so Shao Yan really involved herself into every single thing.
"Don"t ever get the idea that you had learned everything in the three years you spent here. It"s only three years."
Risa was lecturing Shao Yan as she was being stubborn on using the template she already had perfected from the anniversary celebration; and then both of them got into arguments again.
These past few days, Risa had been pus.h.i.+ng Shao Yan more and more. Shao Yan was so busy that she barely had time for Li Xiqing anymore.
In her dark grey suit, white ribbon blouse and black dress pants, Risa had her arms crossed in front of her, while standing tall and intimidating in front of Shao Yan and glaring down at her.
"A project manager will always learn new things. All the time. There is no such word as "enough". Please remember that in your mind!"
Shao Yan contemplated on the words that registered into her brain. Part of her realized the volume and challenges that she was facing right now had proven to her that Risa was right. But another part of her was being so stubborn, she did not want to admit that.
"You are still as stubborn as ever! Grow up! Think about what I said today, and go through the whole schedules again."
Risa said with a slight harsh tone and then she turned around and started to walk out of their cubicles.
To enable themselves to focus more, Fan jie, Li Na and the rest of her team had set up a meeting room for all of them to huddle. Wenhai and uncle Huo were in charge of transportation in case any member of the team needed to go for a last minute survey to the sites or vendors. They had to make sure not a single detail would be left behind or forgotten again.
Shao Yan mostly stayed inside the office, while coordinating everything through emails and phone calls. After the outburst with each other in front of the meeting room few days ago, Shao Yan had felt more comfortable while talking to Risa.
Her OnScience team had sat two floors below her. Shao Yan had been climbing the stairs up and down more frequently now whenever she had questions; and Risa had been patiently mentoring her all the steps all the way.
Shao Yan had just climbed the stairs down again and looked for her. She wanted to show Risa the revised budget calculations that she had been working overnight. Risa took the laptop from Shao Yan and started to go through each numbers meticulously, not missing every zero and commas.
She softly sighed, and tapped her index fingers softly on the laptop surface, "What did I say about basic?" Risa was sitting while leaning back on her chair and facing Shao Yan who was standing in front of her, "Always and always remember: Go. Back. To. Basic."
"You have to go through the events starting from "Day minus 3 months" which is now. What kind of budget you need to prepare, what kind of activities you will have. All of these will fall under indirect cost."
Risa sighed again, "Come here and look at this. What is this transportation cost for? You have to list them in details. Break them down on a separate tab, so you manage every single details."
Risa lifted her face and looked at Shao Yan, "I am telling you this so you can cover yourself, in case you get audited in the future. The amount of money that was given to you is large enough to trigger any audit. You need to record every single thing, including taxi fare or even outside printing cost."
She enunciated every single word carefully to Shao Yan again, "Keep every receipt, every record of all the things that your team do. Do not trust anyone but yourself. Do you hear me?"
Risa waved her hand in front of Shao Yan, "You can go now, work on that again, and let"s talk tomorrow."
As Shao Yan walked away, Risa sighed and mumbled to herself softly, "What will happen to you when I"m not around. I want you to be able to stand tall and proud with everybody around you respecting you."
Unbeknownst to her, Shao Yan heard everything. Shao Yan felt surprised as she could hear a warm, friendly tone for the first time ever from Risa. She thought she heard wrongly, but she decided not to say anything.
The past few days had been spent with work and more work. Shao Yan felt immense guilt for ignoring Li Xiqing on the side. So she decided to visit him today to go and have lunch together.
Shao Yan had just stepped out of the taxi in front of his office building when she saw Karl walking into the lobby area and saw her as well. He waved at her and gave her a wide smile; and then he walked closer.
Her face slowly lit up, and her lips curved up into a big, warm smile, "When did you arrive? It has been a while!" Karl laughed and gave her a brief hug, "Indeed. The last time I think was the anniversary party? Geez, it has been forever, huh!" Karl walked by her side, and both of them strode to the elevator lobby.
"Did Daniel know that you are here?" Karl asked while pressing the elevator b.u.t.ton.
Shao Yan shook her head, while giving a soft chuckle, "I don"t think so. I told him that I will contact him for any lunch plan, but I did not specifically tell him that I will be coming over instead," she brought her hand to cover her mouth while her eyes slowly arched into a beautiful, dazzling smile.
"How was Frankfurt?" Shao Yan asked when they were inside the elevator.