The Office

It's Monday morning and the office slowly starts to fill up. Computers starting up and queues at the coffee machine. Some people discuss their weekends, but the only real sound is that of computers humming and the coffee machine ticking and slurping. It feels like a regular Monday morning.

While most people haven't even finished booting up their computers, a noise slowly starts to build up throughout the office. It's people talking and the noise becomes louder. Finally everybody knows: they all received a mail from management. Everybody is to gather in the reception area at 10:00 AM. That can't be good. Such a thing never happened before. Not before long, rumours start: it's something big, the company has been sold, people will be fired, lots of people, all the people! It's all just rumours, but the company results haven't been good. Could they be bad, really bad? It has happened at other companies. It's all over the news. Could this be happening to them? Nobody wants to loose their job. Especially now, with the recession still going strong.

At 10:00 AM most people have gathered in the reception area. One of the managers steps onto a chair and all goes quiet. "Thank you all for coming on such short notice." the manager started. "There are some things that I need to share with you all. Please hear me out first. I will try and answer all your questions afterwards."