Escaping the CEO- by KC MMUOE

Chapter 1

There is always something calming, cleansing, rejuvenating, and healing about water. The ocean has always been a place of refuge for Cleo. She loved any body of water and it came as no surprise when she made a decision to save up for a holiday, she chose a location by the coast.

The sea was calming because she could always get lost her thoughts and watch the ebb and flow of the ocean and just let go of what was stressing her, the ripples of an ocean or lake always put her at ease and at one with herself and the universe. Nothing also could compare to; a good old fashioned shower, or bubble bath after a long day and relaxing with a glass of red wine, and dinner by the ocean.

There had been times when Cleo wanted to drop everything and just run away... far away to a place that she dreamed of but didn't exists, away from failed dreams and boring routines.

At least when she went far away from home she could take off the different masks and hats she wore to adapt to the kind of lifestyle she didn't dream of having, but ended up going with the flow instead of going against the current. The only outlet she had was a blog she had and, a couple of stories she wrote not escape from reality, but make sense of it.

For Cleo everyday had a routine. Wake up, clean up, and go to gym clock in a couple of kilometers if not fifty then a hundred, take the Gautrain to work and make it to the office before everyone else so that she could get a head start on what needed to be done before the day was done. Breakfast was Branch and by the time the day was done she had done a million and one things some of which made sense and well some were just plain confusing. For a Media and Sports graduate Cleo was doing well... Or so she thought.

Cleo wanted to be sports writer, PR and media practitioner, own her own business and be the most sought after brand strategist and manager. That dream went up in flames and became nonexistent when she fell short on her tuition not once but twice. The first taste of college came as a gift but it had a lot of scandal; the community college she won a bursary at had no recognition although their modules were simple to understand their business dealings were shady. Cleo decided to go work for experience and ended up going back to college to go study media the following year. She fell short on tuition but never returned to the institution, even when there was a clause in the admission contract she signed that had said; a student could continue but their results will be withheld until full tuition is paid. As if that wasn't enough Cleo needed to find another job but no one would hire a "college dropout" which she wasn't, but it appeared that way to the people who wanted to employ her but didn't. She then went on to spend what she thought at that time were the worst years of her life. Three years to be exact. Every time she applied for a job, she was either told she was over qualified, had little to no experience or she wasn't what they were looking for. Fact was she was qualified and had enough experience. The truth was she didn't know the right people. She found that out once she started working for the "right people" which landed her the job she was doing right now in the company she was working at. The job came by chance and she took it with both hands and she never looked back. The company dealt with recruiting and placing people in their dream jobs. So what these people were doing was looking at the skill set their clients had and they would place them on the right path. So if there was training to be done, skills to be added, and recommendations to be made and brand management to be handled MASS was the company to go to. How she got the job as personal assistant of the head of the Brand management Department; was nothing short of a miracle, it came unexpectedly and it was worth the wait, because it would help her put her foot in the door to owning her own company, but she had to flow with the current instead of against it in order to reach her goal.

The idea of being what she always wanted to be was still a plan, and not a dream