our department's admin arrived at work this morning, thinking it was just another Friday here at happy TVGuide Land, is called to meet with the department's manager, and while she's being told 'your-position's-been-eliminated-and-we-didn't-give-you-any-warning ha-ha-but-we'll-give-you-a-good-reference-so-it's-not-all-bad', the manager's supervisor (a VP.) is out loading the admin's possessions into a box (talk about first class Employment Termination services, "Let Our Executives Show You The Way Out.").
the same thing happened to one of the supervisors too. at least the thirty IT people who were axed eight weeks ago got a half day's1 notice before being told "So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night."
immediately after all that happened, a flurry of email is being sent across the network: "omg, did you hear?" "can you believe?" "should we be worried?"
so the (remaining) supervisors hold short meetings with their respective staffs (staves?): "we want you to hear this from us" (too late for that, of course)."Admin and Supervisor4 have been released." released? like they were pardoned after being imprisoned here. cubicles are rather similar to cells though.
"we also want you to know that there's nothing to worry about, that everyone else's position is secure." hey! didn't they say that eight weeks ago too? are they just trying to get us to lower our guard a little before the next axe falls? is that why they're buying us ice cream today, to comfort us, and make us feel secure, loved? shhh, little employees. it's ok. the big bad "Release" Monster is gone.
1 after all the buzz lately about the use, misuse, and abuse of apostrophes, i doubt myself everytime i use one (i should doubt myself, since i write like a chimp with a Speak-n-Spell). i am beginning to fear the letter s, because it has a close association with apostrophes, and i get nervous around contractions and the possessive forms of words (only the genitive case of pronouns ease my mind, the little darlings).
