In fact, Adrian had been extremely hostile to William since he had joined the company a few days ago.

The reason was very simple—before William became the general manager of the Solar Corporation's Orange County branch, Adrian was the person in charge of the entire branch office!

The Orange County branch of the Solar Corporation originally belonged to the Brookes, so the former general manager was one of their distant relatives.

But since the sudden fall of the Brookes, all of them had left LA, and their remaining businesses were acquired by Lucas. Adrian and the other long-tenured employees remained in the Solar Corporation's Orange County branch instead of leaving with the Brookes.

In their opinion, the Brookes were just the owners of the company they worked for, so there was no need for them to go down together with the Brookes.

Because Lucas hadn't had the time to manage the company himself, he allowed the existing employees to remain in their current positions and didn't do any shuffling of duties.

Adrian, who had been the deputy general manager of the company for a long time, became the most senior employee and held the highest position in the company. In his opinion, the position of general manager would definitely belong to him once the higher-ups from headquarters issued the next appointment letter!

But Adrian never expected that headquarters would transfer someone over to become the general manager just as he was happily and conceitedly preparing to be appointed as the general manager!

To make matters worse, the newcomer was far inferior to him in terms of seniority, experience, and prestige. How could Adrian stomach this?

So from the very first day William joined the company, he had become an eyesore and a thorn in the side of Adrian, who was often sarcastic and defiant to his orders.

Furthermore, the other senior executives of the company were also unconvinced of William's abilities and were indignant about his takeover as general manager. As a result, everyone disrespected William and even ostracized him unanimously.

Previously, William felt that it would be inappropriate to be harsh with them since he had just joined the company. He had been adopting the mindset of maintaining peace as far as possible as he tried his best to speak to them amicably.

But it now seemed that his tolerance and compromises had made him seem like a weak and vulnerable pushover no one took seriously.

William said coldly with a dark expression, "I repeat. I want all of you to gather in the conference hall on the first floor within five minutes. No one is allowed to be absent from the meeting! Those who do not arrive at the conference hall within five minutes will be regarded as being absent from work without reason, and there will be a company notice of your misconduct!"

William turned to his secretary and gave a stern order.

The secretary immediately seemed extremely conflicted.

Although he was the secretary of the general manager, those who openly ostracized William included the deputy general manager and the directors of the business department, human resources department, and finance department. Meanwhile, he was just the secretary of a powerless general manager whose authority could be overridden at any time. So the secretary was at a loss because he felt that he didn't have the power to carry out William's instructions.

"What? Are you, my secretary, going to disobey me too?" William narrowed his eyes.

Although he hadn't worked in a corporate office for many years, he had at least held a managerial position before. Now that Lucas was beside him too, he sounded extremely domineering and dignified, exuding the assertive aura of a superior figure.

The secretary was flabbergasted and hurriedly nodded. "Yes, Mr. Carter!"

Adrian turned gloomy. He glared at the secretary in a threatening manner. "Louis, you have to think this through carefully. Don't take sides without considering the consequences. It might be too late for regrets when the time comes! If you don't want to continue working for this company, I can grant your wish at any time!"

Adrian was extremely arrogant for blatantly threatening the secretary.

Louis, the secretary, immediately pulled a long face, feeling glum and conflicted as he was caught in between two big bosses at odds against each other. Regardless of who he obeyed, he would end up offending the other person. He was truly vexed.

Lucas had been standing quietly by the side without saying anything, though his face was incredibly grim and obviously displeased.

Seeing Adrian's arrogance, William stared at him composedly before suddenly saying, "Adrian Hill, do you think I'm really afraid of you and that I won't dare to do anything to you?"

Adrian sneered. "Haha, who doesn't know that our general manager, Mr. Carter, was transferred from headquarters and has someone powerful behind him? Even if you try to suppress me with your backer, it won't work! After all, I have been in the industry for so many years, and I have far better business skills, experience, and connections than you do! To put it bluntly, even if the two of us get into a heated dispute and blow things up to the extent that the higher-ups of headquarters have to choose between the two of us, I will be the one to stay! What else do you think you can use to suppress me?"

William sneered too. "I know that many of you are displeased with the fact that I've suddenly become the general manager of this company. Those who want me to step down from the position of the general manager, come forward!"

Everyone fell silent at once.

Many people looked at one another while watching the two most authoritative leaders of the company argue with each other.

For ordinary employees, it actually didn't matter who the higher-ups were. Of course, they weren't in any place to be concerned either because it wasn't the level they could reach anyway.

Thus, the people whose interests were directly concerned were naturally those who held the top managerial roles of each department.

"As long as I'm around, none of you will need to worry. Feel free to voice your opinion," Adrian guaranteed as he looked around at the employees.

After two seconds of silence, Jimmy, the director of the business department, stood out and made his stand clear. "I'm not willing to accept you as the general manager. In my humble opinion, Adrian is the most suitable candidate for being the general manager!"

After Jimmy took the lead, several other people proceeded to stand out too.

"I too am unwilling to submit to you. You shouldn't be the general manager!"

"Same for me! Mr. Hill has better qualifications and experience than you do, and he has served this company for much longer than you have. Why should he be subordinate to you?"

"Exactly! When you were part of the Carters the past few decades, you barely participated in any corporate work for the Carter Corporation. So you don't have any experience or concept of the operations of modern companies. If you continue to be in charge of leading the entire company, the company's prospects will definitely be bleak! So I'm not willing to accept you as the general manager either!"

...

In addition to Adrian, a total of six other senior executives stood out to oppose William.

Looking at the few people standing in front of him, William took a deep breath and asked again, "Is there anyone else who shares the same thoughts as them?"

"..."

After several seconds, no one else moved.

The seven of them had basically already accounted for half of all the top executives of the Solar Corporation branch in Orange County.

But Adrian was still extremely dissatisfied with the result, and he glowered at the other few top executives who didn't stand out against William.

He was expecting everyone to stand on his side and launch a major boycott against William!

But at the end of the day, William was directly appointed by the higher-ups of headquarters to be the general manager, and the way he spoke with gusto and authority had also shocked some of them, deterring them from taking sides without consideration.

William glanced at the seven of them and suddenly said to Louis, "Louis, take down the names of these people and draft seven letters of dismissal. Hand one to each of them! From this moment on, you seven are fired!"