Bring Out Your Dead
10 Minute Series
10:52, Thursday, July 27
They laid off fifteen people at work last Monday. So today, there are two large tables in the office stacked with boxes of multicolored donuts and bagels. I should say thanks to someone for this “moral raising” breakfast— but until they officially confirm their cease fire, I don’t want to call attention to the wage-collection target on my back. I drop a rose-frosted donut onto a flimsy plastic plate and slink back to my desk.
It’s a beautiful sight: thick containers of whipped cheeses, pots of coffee with cream or milk to serve, and something that’s clearly just cake but referred to as “breakfast babka”. Before today, I was against merges that resulted in a sudden blood-letting of staff— people with mortgages and bills and children and years of experience —all without warning. But, so long as I can nurse my anxiety with jam fillings and schmear, I guess it’s not all bad.
I didn’t even realize that people were being fired until the nervous energy of the building started to vibrate, and the hairs on my neck tickled as our maintenance guy wheeled around the office with his metal trolley. I’m losing my mind, something doesn’t feel right. His trolley, usually stuffed with packages and stationery supplies for desk delivery, was empty: making rounds of the office like a wooden cart during a plague.
Is it just me, or is it weird here today? I ask a colleague. “They’re consolidating resources” he replied, “It’s like balloon darts, but with people’s lives.”
The rickety trolley squeaked past our desks again, this time loaded with desktop computers, small potted-plants, and yellowing manila folders stuffed with years of someone’s efforts. It rolled out the glass doors and down the hall, leaving an awkward silence in its wake. Bring out your dead — or recently downsized.
11:02
