Chapter 39: Chapter 38: Sticks and Sweet Dates l
Translator: 549690339
“Manager, are you just going to let him go like that?”
It had been nearly five minutes since Harrison Clark went downstairs, and the people upstairs saw that Linden Brown hadn’t made any move, so one of them asked.
Linden Brown turned and retorted, “If not, what? I just asked you guys to help me beat him up, and none of you took action. Now, what are you instigating here?”
The anger in Linden’s heart was simply indescribable.
However, after such an altercation, though his face was still burning with pain, he felt a sense of fulfillment in his heart.
Finally, he could rightfully drive Harrison away.
As a middle manager, being publicly beaten by a lower-level employee, if he wanted to fire someone, the big bosses at headquarters shouldn’t have anything else to say, right?
“What are you looking at? Get back to work!”
After making up his mind, Linden glared around angrily.
However, the red mark on half of his face greatly undermined his authority, making him look rather comical.
Previously the most outspoken against him was Sophia Camp, who was already packing up and leaving.
Linden stopped her, “Sophia, where are you going?”
Sophia looked back blankly, “I’m off work.”
Linden:”…”
“Go! Just go!”
Unlike Harrison Clark, who was not well-liked in the company, Sophia Camp usually sided with Harrison, but she herself was very popular among the employees.
Linden couldn’t easily fire her, much to his regret.
Returning to his office, Linden immediately called his direct superior at headquarters, stating that he wanted to forcefully terminate a lower-level employee.
At first, he didn’t want to explain everything, but his superiors were not pushovers. They insisted on clarifying the whole situation, even asking about every single sentence he said.
“If the company doesn’t provide compensation according to regulations and forcibly terminates Harrison, how can you guarantee that he won’t post everything you said today on the internet after he leaves?”
The superior asked this question.
Linden was dumbfounded, “Uh.”
“We are an internet-oriented company, and the market competition is so fierce. Public opinion and reputation are crucial to the company. As a member of the management team, you should watch your words and deeds. Do you know how heated up celebrities’ fans are nowadays? Can you afford to offend people? Have the female celebrities offended you in any way?”
Linden was scolded thoroughly and had to apologize repeatedly.
“This time, we’ll deduct 3,000 from your bonus and hope you won’t repeat your mistake.”
Linden almost wanted to vomit blood after failing to file a complaint and getting a 3,000 deduction.
“However, the impact of Harrison hitting someone in public is indeed very negative. We’ll persuade him to resign. But we should pay him his full salary for three months as compensation. Also, regarding the employee welfare apartment he’s currently living in, if he still wants to live there, he can renew the lease at a special discounted rate. Understood?”
Such leadership skill was demonstrated by giving a stick followed by a sweet date.
Withholding Linden’s bonus, then directly firing Harrison, but at the same time giving Harrison adequate compensation.
This way, both Linden’s authority as a middle-level manager is preserved, and Harrison is not overly offended.
From upstairs, faint singing could be heard from time to time, presumably because Carrie Thomas was practicing her song, “A Dull Life.”
Unlike last time, although the two had already signed a contract, Carrie didn’t rush to work on the accompaniment for “A Dull Life.”
She was still waiting for the funds of “Boring” to come back.
Carrie didn’t tell Harrison one thing.
In fact, she had always been dissatisfied with the quality of “Boring” and even deeply blamed herself for it.
At first, she thought the final product of the song “Boring” was flawless.
It wasn’t because she was narcissistic, but she couldn’t really find any faults in it.
However, over time, as she repeatedly listened to this song, she slowly began to notice a subtle sense of dissonance.
Carrie gradually figured out the reason.
It was the accompaniment that was the issue.
The purely electronic arrangement of the accompaniment, though stable, lost its spirituality.
Art is a highly subjective and difficult-to-quantify thing, with the focus on perceptual understanding.
So this time, when she produced “A Dull Life,” Carrie decided not to rush her work. Instead, she strove to perfect every detail of the instrumental accompaniment.
To pursue perfection, she would definitely need to spend a lot of money.
Since Carrie hadn’t signed with an agency yet, the production of “A Dull Life” was still a personal contract between the two. So, the production cost of “A Dull Life” had to be covered by them.
Together, they received a pre-tax signing fee of 50,000, but this was far from enough.
Carrie estimated that the total investment for “A Dull Life” would be no less than 300,000 if she were to produce it according to her desired effect.
She hadn’t discussed this matter with her partner, Harrison, yet.
After all, before this, she couldn’t be sure how successful “Boring” would become.If she didn’t make much money, she would continue with electronic arrangements, and only when it became profitable would she really consider a large-scale production.
At this time, Harrison Clark was also not thinking clearly. After returning home, he busied himself with searching online for projects, considering what he should do after quitting his job – should he continue working or start his own business now?
What should he do if he starts a business? Fully commit to writing songs?
Should he start a cultural company then?
Or just focus on being a self-employed songwriter?
But if he became a self-employed songwriter, should he find a dedicated singer to sing demos for him?
Harrison couldn’t always rely on Carrie Thomas to sing demos for him.
Now that Carrie was becoming famous, her status would change, and her time would become busier. It would be inappropriate to trouble her to sing song demos for him.
Additionally, Harrison was researching how to protect his rights legally and reasonably after being laid off.
He didn’t want to give Chesterton Apartment any leverage to send him to jail.
As he was pondering, someone knocked on the door. It was Carrie Thomas.
“What’s up?”
Harrison asked as he opened the door.
Carrie took out a guitar from behind her, “I’ve made some minor changes to your song, making it a full guitar accompaniment for now. Do you want to hear me sing it and see how it feels?”
Harrison looked at his watch, “It’s past nine o’clock. Will the neighbors have any objections?”
Carrie thought for a moment, then pointed to the small bathroom with a glass partition, which was a characteristic feature of the apartment.
“Let’s go in there.”
“Huh?”
“What are you waiting for? Come on!”
And so, the two squeezed into the tiny bathroom, which was less than three square meters.
One of them was holding a guitar, making the space even more cramped.
Carrie closed the door behind her, and Harrison felt a little nervous. He had just taken a shower, so the air in the bathroom was still damp and stuffy.
However, Carrie was completely oblivious to the so-called romantic atmosphere and her fingertips glide over the guitar strings.
The crisp and rhythmic guitar sound suddenly echoed in the cramped bathroom, accompanied by her unique voice that was magnetic when low and like a melodious oriole singing in the mountains when high, creating a powerful impact.
The confined space of the bathroom further added an amazing resonance to her seemingly simple singing, giving it an astonishing sound effect.
Harrison quickly immersed himself in the classic song that he had “created”.
Listening to a live performance and a CD are always different experiences.
Many people think that singers perform most perfectly on CDs, and even the best live performances can’t compare to the recorded effects in the studio.
But that’s not true.
If these people had friends who sang so well it was criminal, they would immediately understand everything just by listening to them casually sing at a karaoke session with a microphone.
About ten minutes later, Harrison came back to his senses after continuously praising her.
Seeing his reaction, Carrie became confident in the results of her practice.
“Alright, it’s settled then! I’ll head back upstairs first.”
Having said that, she left.
Harrison scratched his head in confusion.
What was settled?
Why can’t he remember at all?
Wait a minute!
Damn it!
It seemed that he just agreed to invest all the revenue from “Boring” in the first two months into the production of “A Dull Life”!
Also, it seemed she said that she planned to start her own company and not join any talent agency.
She believed that only in this way could she maintain her freedom.
It also seemed like he agreed to invest in her talent agency?
Damn it! How many times did he just say yes? How many requests did he agree to?
Harrison suddenly felt overwhelmed.
This really went beyond his expectations.
Although it seemed like he could hold onto Carrie’s coattails tightly, he had no experience in artist management and didn’t think he could do a good job.
More importantly, he was not interested in it at all.
Being a talent agent was such a headache. He just wanted to quietly copy and write songs.
As for Carrie, shouldn’t he just let her grow on her own? Wouldn’t that kind of peaceful life be nice?