“ATTENDANCE IS COMPULSORY” the invitation said. 

I didn’t recognise the sender’s name, but since the meeting place was in my building, I figured it was less risky than accompanying an attacker to a second location. And it was… marginally. 

At 11am, I stepped out of the elevator into a throng of people I didn’t know. There was a hubbub. Was I in the right place? The drove started moving. I followed. We entered the boardroom, blue and dimly lit, equipped with plasma screens and projector. I sat at the shiny white table and looked at the projector screen, displaying a title with the word ”restructure” in it. 

A man I’d never seen before stood at the podium just to the left of the projection screen. Without introducing himself, he began by saying there was ”a lot to take in”. 

For the first 10 minutes, all I could think was, “So, who are you?” 

He clicked through a PowerPoint presentation about the aforementioned ”restructure”. He talked a lot about revenue and percentages. None of us were business or sales people, so a haze of “What’s all this about?” hung in the air. 

The dude mentioned some changes but, for my part at this point, there was no sign of a change for me, except for a different job title.  Admittedly, that was a bit of a red flag, but I held my horses to see what happened next. 

After a good half hour of corporate speak, they said it. 

“As a result of this restructure, there’ll be X new jobs…” 

More corporate speak ensued, aka: “blah, blah, blah, blah, blah”. 

And then the whammy. 

“When you apply for these jobs…” 

WHEN… we… WHAT now?! 

ie: When we apply for repackaged versions of our own jobs.  

I nearly guffawed, but my tainted mirth was muted by a vacuum of shellshock. In the boardroom, no one can hear you laugh – that is, unless you sit in a leather swivel chair with a hairless cat on your lap. 

It was only when we were allowed to ask questions that we got an explicit statement of our fate. 

“So you’re saying that we’re all redundant as of this date?” an employee asked. 

“What we’re doing is we’re restructuring [insert more corporate speak here, aka: "blah, blah, blah, blah, blah"]… …yes.” 

It felt like an awkward break-up – where the dumper doesn’t want to say anything directly for fear of reproach, and kind of hopes the dumpee works it out on their own. 

The “When you apply” spiel was akin to saying: 

“When you beg me to take you back, I might… but on different terms and only if I feel like it and nobody better has come along.” 

Because, oh yes, while we were free and encouraged to apply for these roles, so was the rest of the company. And while there was a theoretical 1:1 jobs-to-people ratio, several of these jobs have new and different requirements and demands that many of us wouldn’t be qualified for. 

“There’s no agenda here,” they said. 

Uh-huh.

Allow me to check the information you’ve recorded on my file… Ah, here it is:

Name: Keira Daley
DOB: Yesterday

That explains it!