The King - S.R. Jones Page 0,14
anyone to call me on my shit. As time went on, and my world just crumbled more and more each day, I set my own rules. Get to school on time. Do my homework. Get good grades. Even if your mother dies tragically, still complete your work. Yeah, I have lived by these rules, and where have they got me?
“Shit, fucking bastard, fucking shit.” I hit my desk with my fist.
The next thirty minutes drag like crazy. Apparently, the managers, game designers, and IT consultants will go into a meeting at nine thirty, the rest of the staff at ten.
By the time the allotted moment arrives, my insides are shredded.
Alistair Ragan, our CEO, strides into the main office space, face as serious as I’ve ever seen it, and asks for those of us due in the first meeting to please follow him to the conference room. When we get inside, there’s not enough room for everyone to sit, so I find myself propped up against the back wall next to Suzy, standing room only for us. None of the guys offer us a seat, which is par for the course. Tim, who is a manager, but thankfully not my direct boss, is sitting in a chair near the head of the table. I scowl at him, but he studiously ignores me. I feel faint. Great idea not to eat anything.
Crap, this day gets worse by the second.
Alistair waits until we are all inside the room and clears his throat. There might be four directors in total, but this company is his baby, and we all know it.
“I have some big news to share with you all today. The last year the company has struggled in what is, as you know, a volatile marketplace. We aren’t doing badly as such, but we are struggling to move ahead due to our size. There are many opportunities in the market that we simply can’t take advantage of because we don’t have the size or the capital. For those reasons, the board has come to the difficult decision to take advantage of a merger offer put to us a few months back.”
He pauses, takes a drink of water from the glass in front of him, and carries on.
“Silvanov Asset Management is one of the biggest players in the country when it comes to turning around, or boosting ailing organizations, and they are liquid enough to do what it takes. Now, you in this room, are a big part of the reason they want to get into bed with us at all. Silvanov doesn’t need our capital, but they want our talent. It’s a quid-pro-quo situation. We get capital and prestige, enough to move forward into a marketplace where we have, quite frankly, become stuck. Silvanov gets a highly trained team ready and able to hit the ground running from day one. The deal is, we retain control ultimately of the game design division, with input and capital from them, and they hive off the IT division and take total control of that. What this means for most of you in this room is there won’t be a danger of losing your job. There will, however, be some losses.”
He pauses as the room erupts. “Please, hear me out.” He holds his hands up, and the room falls quiet. “We won’t be losing any designers and hopefully no IT crew either; however, we are overstaffed when it comes to management. They like to run a leaner ship than us, and part of the deal is that the eight line managers we currently have become four.”
I glance at Tim automatically, and despite it all I feel a tiny pang of sympathy for him when his face pales.
“They are hoping, as I said, to keep all the IT crew, but worst-case scenario, two to three positions might go.”
I glance around at my nine colleagues, feeling sick. Crap, our team of ten might become seven. This is the worst Monday, it really is.
I must do all I can to ensure I’m one of the seven who stays.
“I wanted to tell you this to put to bed any rumors. For those of you in management positions, please rest assured that the severance packages are highly generous, and those of you who don’t end up staying with us will leave with excellent references. Of course, if anyone wants to take voluntary redundancy, they are welcome to discuss that with us.”
He shuts up, and we all begin to talk again.
“What a pile