Logan had arrived in the land down under full of optimism and hope. He was optimistic that a solution could be reached amicably between the two groups, with no one being terminated. Logan had thought that a few people may quit, but he didn't want to fire anyone on this trip. He was hopeful that the situation would be resolved quick enough so that he would be able to see Rory on the weekend. Logan had promised to call Rory whenever possible, but with the time difference and with meetings having no schedule he realistically thought that their contact would be in message form these next couple days.
Upon arriving Logan had went straight to the offices, not bothering to go to his hotel overlooking Sydney Harbor and unpack. He sent his things over with the driver and had already made arrangements with the hotel to bring his things up to his suite. Logan had received a message on his way to the Sydney branch of Huntzberger Media that Jeff and Dave were there and were gathering the key figures in the dispute in the main conference room. Logan sighed upon thinking about what he was going to face. He wondered how someone let this get so out of hand. He did not envy the task that lay before him, but he was determined to succeed in pulling the paper together.
Logan made his way through the lobby and into the elevator ready to begin negotiations. He pressed the button for the fifteenth floor, and watched the numbers grow larger as too did his nerves and anticipation. Immediately after the elevator doors opened Logan was greeted by Jeff, relaying him of the disaster that was unfolding. How no one was listening, how no one was willing to give up anything. Logan thought that Jeff was exaggerating but when he got within earshot of the room he knew that he wasn't. Logan opened the doors to see the eight people, yelling over one another, not willing to yield the floor, not willing to hear another argument. Logan took a deep breath as he stood by the door and Jeff went deeper into the room and took a seat by Dave.
"Excuse me," Logan said in his normal tone but got nothing from it, the yelling continued. He tried raising his voice, "excuse me," nothing again. Finally he saw a cricket bat resting against a wall, took it in his hand and brought it down with great force on the table, making a large noise and disturbing the drinks that were on the table, this got people attention. "Finally. Hello everyone. I'm Logan Huntzberger. I hear there is some difficulty going on here, what should I be aware of?" Logan asked only to be answered by the same eight voices yelling over one another. Logan took a seat at the head of the table and began the slow process of calming everyone down and hearing each argument.
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It took ten hours before Logan had enough of the facts to start planning a strategy. He had managed to deftly take control of the room without scaring the room into submission. His style was much different than his father's. It was approaching ten o'clock at night, and decided to give everyone a five minute break to do whatever they needed to do, but that the meeting would resume promptly after. Logan took this time to phone Rory, it was lunch time in New Haven so Logan had hoped that he could get a hold of her, but he didn't have any luck. He was forced to leave a message: "Hey Ace, still in that first meeting, good news is I think I can start working now, bad news is it's ten o'clock and I think everyone's tired of yelling at one another. I'm going to call it a night here in a couple hours, get some shut eye and try and make some more progress in the morning. Call me when you get this. Love you Rory, later."
Five minutes later the meeting resumed and Logan got a feel where these negotiations were headed. After making some inroads in allowing more pages devoted to editorials to appease those who wanted a more political paper, Logan called it a night and told everyone that tomorrow at eight in the morning was when the negotiations would resume. The employees filed out of the room, until only Dave, Jeff and Logan remained.
"I know you are probably going to think I'm just sucking up, but that was impressive Logan," Dave said, appearing to be genuine.
"Thanks, Dave. I think it went pretty well," Dave and Jeff nodded in agreement, "So I guess that's it for the night, I'll see you two here at seven thirty okay? I want to go over some things."
"Sure, Mr. Hunztberger," Logan looked at Jeff hoping that he would get the message he told him earlier in the day. "Oh, I mean sure Logan. You're going to have to give me some time to get used to that. I heard all these things about your father and how he did things and I just thought," Jeff was cut off by Logan.
"Yeah, I know. Believe me I know, just try to remember I'm not my father, okay?"
"Definitely, in fact Dave and I were just going to our hotel and get a drink at the bar, chat up some of the Australian women, what do you say? Care to join us; I'm sure you could show us a few things about picking up women."
Logan tried his best to smile politely, "I'm sorry guys, I'm focused solely on one woman, and she's back home and I'm just going to my hotel and give her a call. Have fun, but not too much, I need you alert tomorrow. Have a good one," Logan said as he walked out of the room, out of the office and back to his hotel room.
Logan got into his suite as it was nearing two in the morning. He went to grab his phone, but realized it was missing, cursing himself as he realized it was on the conference table back in the office. He made his way to the phone in the suite and dialed Rory's cell number from memory, even thought it was only four in the afternoon he still got her voice mail. "Hey Rory, it's me again. Meetings are over and I think it's going well. Concessions are already being made, it was pretty easy. I guess my charm works on this hemisphere as well. Anyway, I'm sure one of these times I'll reach you, but until then I'll keep calling you when I can and leave you these cute messages. I miss you, Rory. Good night. G'day, whatever," Logan hung up the phone and immediately made his way to the bed, unaware that two hours later his cell phone on the table would ring with the call of the person he most wanted to hear from.
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Logan got to the office at seven thirty and was met by Dave and Jeff who were worried that things were deteriorating. Logan asked how, but they weren't giving details. All Logan was told was that the yelling was more severe and the tempers were more volatile. Logan took this information and realized that calling Rory as soon as he got back his phone was unlikely. Logan strode into the conference room again, sat down at the head of the table and began to work hard getting back to where they were when they left early the same morning.
Fourteen hours later, no breaks for lunch, no rest for the tired, they were back to the partial agreement they reached last night. Logan was frustrated and wondered how things could have gone bad overnight. Answers on that subject were evasive and amounted to little more than the changing of minds. Logan was not pleased with that explanation and cursed them for wasting the whole day. After the first five minute break of the day, things got better. People were more receptive to Logan's ideas. Concessions were made quicker and with fewer reservations. The paper looked like it was on the road to being stable once more and Logan felt a sense of pride in knowing that he was responsible for at least a part of it. It was near three in the morning when the final deal was hammered out. Written agreements were drawn up and signed, the Sydney branch was saved at three twenty six on Friday morning. As handshakes were being exchanged Logan saw Dave make a phone call on one of the conference phones. He pushed a few buttons and went over to Logan, "Logan, you're father is on the speaker line and he wants to discuss the situation."
Logan thought this was weird, Dave hadn't talked on the phone long enough to fill Mitchum on the details,
"Uh, dad? What's this about?" Logan asked into the speaker.
"I just wanted to say congratulations, son. You passed."
Logan was confused, and looked up from the speakerphone and saw the smiles of everyone else in the room grow. "Passed? Passed what?"
"Your first test as a Huntzberger, successful negotiations 101."
"Well thank you, but how did you know that an agreement was reached Dad, I mean we just signed it a few seconds ago."
"Logan, it wasn't real," Logan's face dropped and so did the others in the room realizing Logan's reaction. "The whole thing was set up, to test your resolve, your ability to follow through on things, even when they weren't going well."
Logan was stunned, "Wait. Wait a second. You mean this was all a trick? Some sort of school lesson for me?"
"Yes it was. The first test was to see if you would realize that they wanted a Huntzberger there, which is common in these things. Second, was that you would actually go, on short notice and as you just got back from moving back to America. Third, was the commotion at the beginning and checking to see if you could get their attention. Fourth was staying late until you had all the facts. Fifth was avoiding gallivanting out at night when you were supposed to be working the next morning," Logan looked at Jeff and Dave as he realized they were in on this, Jeff and Dave could hardly look at Logan. "Sixth was to stick with it even when progress was stalled or reversed, and the final test was seeing it through to completion. Dotting the i's crossing the t's that sort of thing. I'm happy to say you passed them all. You are truly talented Logan. Anyway get back to…" Mitchum was interrupted by a very agitated Logan.
"You mean I didn't have to be here halfway around the world from home. You mean I could have spent more time getting comfortable in a REAL working environment. You mean I could have spent more time with and talking to Rory. You mean I didn't have to worry about how my traveling would affect my relationship. I didn't have to worry about any of that. Is that what you are telling me?" Logan practically yelled, making everyone else in the room look away and distance themselves from Logan.
"Now don't get so mad, this had to be done to show me what you could do and you did. But don't think you saying any of those things will make me regret it. This needed to be done, and I'm glad I did it. Get back to New York for Monday, Logan. Goodbye," Mitchum hung up leaving a still angry Logan standing at the head of the table.
With Mitchum off the line, Logan pressed the button to end the dial tone and turned his attention towards Dave and Jeff. "You knew about this? About this whole experiment?" He questioned them, his face red, his voice cold.
Dave and Jeff looked at each other unsure of what to say, "Yes we did," Dave said, "your Father needed a go between to check on your progress, but we aren't working for him per se. I'm glad you passed his test, I'm glad we're your employees," Dave told him forming a smile along with Jeff.
"No you're not. You're both fired. Your things will be sent to your homes when we're back in New York," Logan told them and immediately turned from them, angry, sad and humiliated and started the process of getting back to the United States as quickly as possible
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Author's Note: Sorry it took for so long for an update, FF was giving me some difficulties for a while. Anyway, I had thought that maybe this could be two chapters, but then thought that I'd just make it one and get back to Rory and Logan being on the same continent. See how that goes. As always reviews are appreciated. Happy reading.