Chapter 5
Chapter Five
I snapped my head towards Brooke. “What’s wrong?”
She didn’t say anything, but her bottom lip trembled.
The office buzzed with murmurs to full-on exclamations, and I quickly caught on to what was happening.
The restructure results had been announced.
I frantically opened my email inbox, scanning the list of messages for any sign of the announcement. Nothing stood out.
“Come on, come on,” I muttered as I mashed the refresh button.
Finally, a new message appeared at the top of the list. My heart pounded as I read the subject line: “Outcome of Proposed Restructure.”
My hand quivered on the mouse as I opened the email. I read it through scrunched eyes like I was watching a scary scene in a horror movie. The message contained a vague preamble and an instruction to open the PDF attachment.
My nerves ratcheted up a level when the PDF loaded—a document in the company’s official letterhead with “PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL” printed across the top.
My heart hammered a drumbeat in my ears as I read the letter.
Dear Amelia Cross,
We refer to your meeting with the CEO on 9 March and the follow-up letter in which we notified you of the company’s proposal to disestablish and merge several existing positions within the organisation.
This correspondence is to advise you of the decision we have reached.
To summarise the process followed by the company…
Paragraph after paragraph of background information ensued until I reached the part that mattered most. I held my breath.
We are pleased to announce that you will remain in your position in its current form.
I reread the sentence several times to make sure I had my facts straight, then another few times until it sank in.
My position would remain.
I was safe.
I let out my breath and threw my head back in relief, thanking the heavens.
But poor Brooke…
She snuffled beside me, her shoulders shaking.
“Bad news?” I asked.
She nodded.
I placed a hand on her arm. “I’m so sorry.”
She brushed me off. “What about you? Are you keeping your job?”
It felt cruel to tell her, but what else could I say? “Yes. My job is staying.”
“He made the right decision.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Everyone knows you’re the hardest working person in this department, and the smartest too. You’ve been here three months and you’ve already surpassed what I can do.”
“Even if that were true—which it’s not—how would Neil Kingston know? He only just got here. It could have gone either way. It was luck of the draw. That’s all.”
“I’m not so sure, but thanks anyway.” She pulled her bag off the floor and stood up. “I’m off.”
“Where are you going?”
“Home. Where else?”
The work day was far from over, but it was clear that Brooke had already reached her “fuck it” phase.
“Wait. Is there anything I can do? Do you want to hang out and chat for a bit? Go for another coffee or a glass of wine or something? I’ll buy you a drink?—”
“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll be fine.” She pulled her shoulders back and puffed out her chest. “The shock is wearing off already. I don’t need this job, anyway.”
I admired her tenacity. If I had lost my job, I’d be freaking out right now. Brooke left with her head held high.
Slumped in my chair, I reflected that I didn’t feel as relieved as I thought I would. Sympathy tainted the triumph. How could I be one hundred percent happy when so many other workers were suffering? Looking around the room, it was obvious who had lost their job and who hadn’t just from their body language. Brendon appeared to be safe. So did Ellen. But Dylan and Olivia and Caroline… I tallied up the final number in my head, a pang of guilt for each unfortunate coworker.
Then the guilt turned to a strange sense of unease. Something was off. There were fewer redundancies than I thought there were going to be. What had Neil said?
“I would like to cut the communications department by half. At least.”
If my calculations were correct, he had cut less than half. One person less. He must have changed his mind, or else I had miscounted. I shrugged it off and thought nothing more of it.
Four weeks had passed since the restructure results came out. Now, a palpable sense of emptiness filled the office. Everyone who had lost their job had left. The room was quiet, nothing but the sound of mouse clicks, keyboard taps, and the odd phone ring to fill the void. Empty desks lined the floor. I left my old desk and moved to a secluded corner spot, with a wall behind my back, where I could work in peace and privacy.
Trying to re-establish a sense of normalcy, I began my usual morning routine. I set up my desk, placing my diary, pens, phone, and notepad in their designated positions, and turned my computer on. With that done, I strolled to the break room to make a strong cup of coffee. These days I was okay with going into the break room, as long as I avoided looking at the window.
Only two other staff members occupied the room, one playing a game on his phone while waiting for tea to brew, and the other stashing her Tupperware-stored lunch in the fridge. I used the coffee machine.
When I returned to my desk, hot coffee mug in hand, I tried to open my emails, but a pop-up sign-in form blocked me from further action.
I frowned at the screen, wondering why it didn’t log me in automatically like it usually did. Something to do with the restructure? Maybe the system had been reset. I typed in my email address and password, thinking that would be the end of it. But it wasn’t. An error sound played, and a message appeared under the email address field. “Email ID not found.”
I tried again. Same error message.
No big deal. I’ll just flick a note to IT.
I opened the work chat, certain there would be a quick and easy fix to my dilemma. But there it was again—a bloody sign-in form. I had a funny feeling I wouldn’t be able to log in to this one either, and I was correct.
Now what do I do?
I scanned the room, hoping to see someone else who was having the same issue as me, but everyone seemed fine.
I asked around the office. “Is anyone else having trouble logging in to their accounts?”
No response except for a few people shaking their heads.
“No? I guess it’s only me then.”
A trip to the IT department was in order.
I took the stairs one floor down. Emerging through the glass fire-exit door, I arrived in the corridor between IT and HR and took the left passage.
In the office, rows of white cubicles stood on blue carpet with identical black, ergonomic chairs at each one. A large proportion of seats were empty. Most of the remaining workers wore headphones, and no one gave me so much as a glance.
A sign directed me to the help desk—a long counter at the side of the room, where a surly-looking man stared at the computer in front of him. I approached. “Hello,” I said, trying to get his attention.
He ignored me and continued whatever he was doing on the computer.
“Uh, excuse me.” I looked for a name tag, but he wasn’t wearing one.
He looked up. “How can I help you?” His bored voice was evidence that he had no actual interest in assisting me.
“I’m having trouble logging into my accounts.”
“Which accounts?”
“Email and chat. Probably others too, but that’s all I’ve checked.”
“We switched off the accounts of everyone who got made redundant last night.”
I gaped. “But I didn’t get made redundant.”
“Obviously. Or else you wouldn’t be here, would you? We must have shut yours down by mistake. What’s your name?”
“Amelia Cross.”
“Let’s see…” He typed away. “Everything looks fine on my end. Let’s try resetting your password.”
He typed some more, then wrote something down on a square of blue paper he pulled from the top of a memo cube. He passed it to me. “Here. This should work.”
The note read “Turkey_Lozenge_Dynamite_23.”
“Is that the new password?”
“Obviously.”
That seemed to be his favourite word.
“Well, thanks.”
I had already lost his attention.
Back at my desk, I couldn’t wait to show that vexing sign-in form who was boss. I threaded my fingers together and cracked my knuckles before typing the new password in. I pressed enter, and…
The same error message.
No. This isn’t happening.
I tried the chat. Same thing again.
I stood up, ready to march straight back to the IT department, when a thought struck me. The guy at the help desk never asked for my email address, just my name. That wouldn’t normally be an issue—the email addresses followed a strict naming convention: first name dot last initial at Luxmore dot com. But there was more than one Amelia C in the company, and the other Amelia had that email address, not me. With this in mind, I tried the password with the Amelia dot C email address.
Bingo.
The other Amelia’s emails filled up my inbox.
I realised with a sinking feeling that this did nothing to remedy the situation. All I had accomplished was locking Amelia Crook out of her emails by changing her password. I wanted to bang my head against the wall in frustration.
I would have to go back to the help desk to sort it out, but first, I decided to call Amelia Crook and explain what was going on. She worked in the marketing department. I didn’t have her direct line, but I had a laminated list of the main numbers for each department taped in the corner of my desk. I made the call. After a few rings, a man picked up. “Hello, Luxmore marketing department, Harry speaking.”
“Hi, Harry. Can I speak to Amelia Crook please?”
“Sorry. Amelia doesn’t work here anymore. Would you like me to put you through to someone else who can help you?”
She doesn’t work here anymore…
“No. That’s okay. Did Amelia get made redundant in the restructure?” I asked.
“Yes, I’m afraid she did.”
“I see. Well, thanks for letting me know. Bye.”
I hung up.
So, Amelia Crook had lost her job. That meant IT must have made a mistake. Yeah. They got our names mixed up and closed my account instead of hers.
Or…
With a creeping sense of dread, I realised there was a second possible explanation.