“So Miss Biaz, this will be your first visit to a department in the company. It is the first step you take as the CEO of Biaz Group, your first action taken. I have recommended visiting the R&D and I’m glad you accepted, but if things go wrong then both you and I are responsible. Me for setting an unachievable target, in other words, misjudging your capability to do this, and you for accepting the proposal you can’t carry out. So let’s do this well”

“Gees, thank you for taking some pressure off me”

“You are welcome”

The elevator’s door opened with a ding and Hina and I walked out. The entire floor was our R&D department, and with quick fingerprint scans, we were in.

Normally, such visits would be prearranged and the Department Head be informed so that they would be ready to receive the VIP and show around. However, since this was our mini (internal) publicity stunt, I have not informed anyone that Hina would show up. I have gone over the routine with her in advance and Hina was to go straight to the Product Life Management team’s area, whom I knew would be actually running some tests with machines in a small lab in their part of the floor. Due to the nature of products we develop and handle, although this is an R&D centre we do not have many things to ogle at because obviously things like firing tests are done in a secluded outside field. So our plan was to visit the PLM lab as some things are actually happening there.

“Hi, what are those graphs?”

Hina asked tapping on the shoulder of a young researcher engrossed in going over various graphs on his monitor screen.

“Huh? Sorry, but who are you?”, he turned around to face Hina and asked.

Gees, if this was a commercial department everyone in there would have recognised in an instant, but these researchers often didn’t really care who’s on the upper management. Of course, they would have recognised Mr. Biaz, but this was Hina on her first day at work.

“My name is Hina. Nice to meet you”

Hina beamed a smile and extended her hand. The researcher looked a bit confused but took the hand of Hina to shake it anyway, blushing a little - come on, don’t blush while holding the hand of a 19 years old girl, that looks just weird man.

“Oh hi, I’m Davo, erm, these are just some graphs from our experiment”

“Thank you, Davo. This is Ms. Hina Biaz. She wanted to have a look around in the R&D centre a bit”

“Oh, I see. I remember seeing you with Mr. Biaz before. Hang on… Ms. Biaz? Ah, sorry, I wasn’t told that we’d have a family guest visiting, but…”

“But…?”

“You know, this is a restricted area. With all due respect, you can’t just walk in here to have a look around”

“Did late Mr. Biaz ever ask for permission to come in here?”, I inquired.

“Er... No, but there is a difference isn’t there”

“I apologise for just barging in Davo. I was just curious what we are working on here and thought I should meet and learn from the people that actually make our company stronger with their day-to-day work”

“Ms. Biaz! I’m sorry I did not see you coming in”

The Head of R&D was rushing to where we were and Davo looked a little more confused.

“I think you might have misunderstood a bit here Davo. This is THE Miss Biaz who has just become the CEO of Biaz Group”

“Oh shit... No, no excuse me. I thought you were a niece of Mr. Biaz or something..”

“No worries Davo”, Hina smiled again and reassuringly put her hand on Davo’s shoulder.

“We are... Happy to welcome you here Ms. Biaz”, the head caught up with us and greeted us through heavy breaths.

“Ms. Biaz, this is Dr. Kiesh, the head of R&D”

“Nice to meet you”, Hina greeted and came close to me to whisper

“(Poos, isn’t Dr. Chide the head of R&D?)”

“(No Ma’am. He is the Chief Technical Officer, a CTO. Let’s just say for now he’s above the head of a department level)”

“(Right)”

“Er… are you still interested in learning about these graphs?”

“Yeah, sure thing!”

Davo looked at Kiesh for a second and proceeded with his explanation upon receiving an approving nod.

“You see, every single chemical reaction or state changes absorb or generate heat. In the simplest sense, a calorimeter we are using here is like a thermostat that works at a really micro level. Let’s say we put material A and material B together. They could be touching each other, but we can’t see with our eyes how they are interacting with each other. Especially when both of them are solid. But they are always interacting with each other at the molecular level. So if you keep them maintaining contact for long enough time, there comes a point where the speed of reaction changes, sort of like a ‘tipping point’, after which one of these two, or both, materials become unusable for the intended purpose. The calorimeter will pick up on the absorption or generation of heat at this point and we can check from these graphs to see for how long these materials can work together without them degenerating into useless, or sometimes dangerous state”

Dr. Kiesh decided to take over from here.

“Ms. Biaz. In practical terms, it’s like this. A missile or an artillery munition is not made out of a single material. There are different explosives and pyrotechnics mixed in, not to mention the obvious fact that the shells are made out of metallic materials. So you cannot store these munitions forever. Eventually, the explosives inside will be so affected that it becomes dangerous or cannot perform to the standard we need them to”

I actually explained the principles behind this to Hina earlier in the day, just to ensure that she will understand what’s being talked about in this situation. Now all she has to do is ask some intelligent question to show that she grasped the principle and has a further interest.

“That is very interesting Davo. So you can put any two materials in this machine and test, let’s say when they will go ‘bad’?”

“That’s the basics of it, yes”

Then Hina put her hand into her pocket as if to look for something, and fetched out a small cube of vacuum wrapped Parmesan cheese and a mini Toblerone

“So you could put these two into the machine together and test what happens? If I understood correctly, this can help us determine how long we can keep a Cheese & Chocolate Sandwich before they start to taste yuck”

“Ms. Biaz... Let’s not do -”

“Sure thing Ms. Biaz!”, Davo replied enthusiastically and took the cheese and chocolate off her hand as I was trying to stop her. I could see Kiesh rolling his eyes - quite obviously without making any effort to hide. Welp, he’s already thinking we got an airhead for a CEO now.

But Hina again just smiled and pat Davo on the shoulder, which made him look embarrassed and happy at the same time.

“Please test this for me and let me know. I’m like really - I mean genuinely - interested in this research’s outcome. Thank you and please keep up the good work!”

Right. So this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but seems we made one lowly researcher employee to take a liking to Hina while creating a bad impression on one person at the management level. Not ideal but not a total loss.