difficult.
Pierre was always the stronger of the two when it came to this kind of stuff. He used to do all of the hiring and firing. Peter was always the creative driving force of Stratagem, and Pierre was the businessman.
‘I have some . . . some news I need to impart to you.’ Peter takes a deep breath, and unconsciously pulls at the front of his tailored powder-blue shirt.
This is like watching a small boy confess that he’s just smashed the greenhouse window with his football.
‘If you could all gather in the conference room at ten a.m., I’ll tell you about it then.’
Oh, great. He’s prolonging the agony.
Why not just throw our P45s at us now, and let us get out of here before lunchtime?
‘What’s this about, Peter?’ asks Nadia from her desk next to mine, a distraught look on her face. My heart instantly goes out to her. I only have myself to worry about, but Nadia has a daughter, a husband and a mortgage. She’s not been the same since Kate left Stratagem last year, and everything that’s gone on since has probably hit her harder than it has the rest of us.
‘It’s . . . it’s about the future of the company, Nadia,’ Peter replies, in a very shaky voice.
‘Are we losing our jobs?’ Terry pipes up from his desk at the other end of the office.
Terry McClellan is in his late forties, and is probably dreading the prospect of having to find new work even more than I am. The marketing and PR business is cruel enough to people like me, in their early thirties – it’s an absolute horror show for anyone around the age of fifty. The chances of Terry finding another job easily are slim to none.
Peter looks anguished. ‘Please, Terry. Let’s just all meet in the conference room shortly. I’ve been asked to wait until then to say anything more.’
‘Asked?’ Terry replies, confused. ‘Asked by who?’
‘Everything will be made clear shortly, Terry. Please just wait.’
Well, this is slightly bizarre. There’s obviously someone else calling the shots here. Is it Pierre? Has he come back? Are things nowhere near as bad as they seem?
If that were the case, I doubt Peter would look so distraught.
As we all watch him slump back through the tinted glass door to his office, I start to chew on one fingernail, and wonder what’s in store for us when we go into our small conference room in a few minutes.
I have to fight down another swell of panic when I realise that the most likely outcome is still the loss of my job – regardless of who is pulling the strings.
Oh God.
I don’t want to lose my job. I love my fucking job!
Well . . . I did, up until the last few months anyway. Stratagem was a fun, exciting place to work. We had some great clients (with the large and obnoxious exception of my aforementioned ex-boyfriend, Robert Ainslie Blake), a strong portfolio and a happy work environment. My colleagues and I used to go out together for drinks on a Friday night, and we’d generally have a whale of a time. We got along so well that it was always something I really looked forward to.
I want that back again! I don’t want it to all fall apart!
I don’t want to have to update my bloody CV, and try to prove that I’m worthy of employment to anyone else. I want to stay here!
. . . I’m aware that I’m starting to sound like a spoiled little girl who doesn’t want to go to Grandma’s for tea, but fear and stress always tend to make me regress a bit. Sometimes the unfairness of the world just makes you want to retreat back to a time when things were simpler and easier to understand.
Also, little girls don’t have to go out and find new jobs, do they? The lucky little sods.
At 9.59 a.m., my mouth goes incredibly dry. This always tends to happen to me when I’m extremely nervous. As the clock strikes ten, I take a big swig of water from my Evian bottle, and go to join my colleagues as we troop into the conference room.
If you’ve ever watched an episode of The Walking Dead, you’ll recognise the short line of people that shamble their way in. Or possibly, a more accurate analogy would be a herd of particularly depressed cows going to slaughter.
I take a seat around the circular boardroom table with the other