Learning curves Read Online Free Page A

entirely sure who she was anymore.
    She’d thought it would be different, somehow, working for Green Futures. When the firm had started up, her mother had been huge, talked about by everyone. Hers was the first consultancy firm to talk about corporate social responsibility, to suggest that businesses couldn’t just go around doing what the hell they wanted just to make bigger and bigger profits. When Jen had been at school and university, everyone thought she had the coolest mum and she’d thought so too. She’d been really proud, which had been quite nice really bearing in mind that her father was a total bastard who advised companies to do the absolute opposite, focusing on profits alone and not giving a shit about anything so inconsequential as people or global warming.
    And the media had loved it, too. Harriet had worked at Bell Consulting before launching out on her own, after all. Her split from George Bell, and subsequent launch of her own rival firm, filled column inches for weeks. Back then Harriet had appeared regularly on the front covers of
Newsweek, The Economist,
and
Time.
She was big news and she loved it.
    But actually, Jen had discovered that Green Futures was just like any other office. Lots of desks and people sitting at them, furiously tapping away at computers and talking about their children/pets/hobbies over the (organic) coffee machine. Maybe it used to be a revolutionary firm once upon a time, but now it all seemed a bit . . . tired. And in truth, they didn’t have anywhere near as many clients now as they used to have. Other firms had gotten in on the environmental act, and her mother didn’t seem to realize that she wasn’t the big name she used to be. In many ways it was a bit of a relief to be out of there.
    Out of the frying pan and into the fire,
Jen thought ruefully as she looked up again at the building in front of her. Bell Towers, built to intimidate and impress all those who crossed its threshold. Somehow she’d never seen herself working for either of her parents, and now it seemed she was going to end up working for both of them.
But not for long,
she told herself.
This is the means to an end only.
    Forcing a smile onto her face, Jen walked through the doors, and before she knew it, she was standing in the reception area, signing in.
    “You in the MBA program?”
    Jen looked up at the earnest-looking guy standing next to her in the lift.
    “You’re going to the seventh floor,” he explained quickly. “I don’t think there are any offices on that floor—just, you know, lecture halls.”
    She studied his face for a moment. Slightly chubby, face a bit rosy, glasses slightly steamed up. Your typical MBA student if ever there was one. He was appraising her too, she noticed, his eyebrows rising as he took in her jeans and Ugg boots. She’d meant to buy some smart clothes, had really and truly intended to dress the part, but she just hadn’t gotten round to it yet. And anyway, it had said in the information packet that dress was “smart casual.” She figured that fulfilling one of those descriptors was sufficient for now.
    “Yes, I am,” she said dismissively, then remembered that she was meant to be a typical MBA student too.
    “Me too!” he said unnecessarily. He was carrying four textbooks and a binder stuffed full of notes and labeled very clearly BELL MBA PROGRAM, ALAN HINCHLIFFE. “My name’s Alan, pleased to meet you. So have you done any of the pre-reading? I started on Strategy in Motion but I’d covered most of it already in my business studies diploma, so I focused more on Strategic Business Management—this one . . .” He pointed to the larger of the four textbooks, and Jen looked at them incredulously, then checked herself.
I am an MBA student,
she repeated in her head.
I must pretend to be interested in this crap.
    “I . . . uh . . . you know, dipped in and out of them,” she said carefully, hoping that Alan wouldn’t ask her about any of them.