So, this morning, everyone in the company received an email from the boss, telling us to meet in the conference room at five for an important announcement.
Hmmm, says I to myself, says I.
It might be good news. Maybe we’ve landed that contract with (very big retail chain), or the staff stock participation scheme has been sorted out, or the design department is being sold off for medical experiments. Any of those would put a smile on my face.
But, the tone of the message, and the forced cheerfulness of upper management all morning, lead me to suspect otherwise. Most of the betting seems to be on a repeat of last year’s “We can’t afford to pay you right now, sorry about that” fiasco.
Whatever it is, the suspense is killing me. Well, causing twinges in my big toe, anyway.
It’s eight minutes past two. And my big toe is twinging like all get-out. Any and all good vibes and happy thoughts sent my way are thoroughly appreciated…
On the plus side, I’m finally getting somewhere with a hitherto intractable software debugging problem. Hmmm. Was it Dr. Johnson who said that “nothing concentrates a man’s mind so wonderfully as the knowledge that he is to be hanged the next morning”???
Most of the upper management types are still looking forcedly cheerful, but my direct supervisor (the crazed Australian one) is not notably good at dissembling… and he’s looking very glum.
L_C, it’s still the hinterland, I’m afraid. I think it would actually be quicker to do it by boat… if Halfords didn’t let me moor by their car park, I’d just tie up next to the vets’, and walk the rest of the way. :: Sigh :: I wish I had a boat.
We had a meeting called like this once and I thought it was going to be something huge.
It turns out that payroll had a glitch and did not take the correct deductions from our paychecks which were about to be issued. It was an accounting nightmare for them, but not really very interesting meeting-wise.
Well, that was fun. Unfortunately, we’ve all been Sternly Warned not to discuss this with outsiders. That probably means the rumours won’t start flying until, oooh, six o’clock.
Let’s just say that the thing I’m not supposed to discuss comes in “voluntary” and “compulsory” flavours, and anybody out there need a good web developer, works cheap, in nasty surroundings?
Hope things aren’t so bad for you, jjimm. If it’s any consolation, although I haven’t seen my willy in years, I know it’s still there…
Really sorry to hear that, Steve. That sounds pretty shitty, though at least ‘voluntary’ is involved.
Mine wasn’t all negative, and I’m not allowed to discuss it either. There’s a chance I’ll be in your position too in a couple of months, but there’s a chance I won’t, too.