Layoffs

**Hello my loves. Finally a long awaited post - and i'm so sorry that it's so short. I can't make any promises for Friday but I'll do my best to post. The family member I mentioned passed away, and my new job starts Monday. For now I'm going to promise to post as often as I can but I need to deviate from my Weds/Fri schedule. After the holidays and everything has settled down again, I hope to return to normal posting. Between now and then I'll post as much as I can, and just follow me on twitter for any updates. **

A few minutes after leaving Noah, I entered Platform's offices a complete bundle of nerves. Elena's texts had left me on edge and I had no idea what I was about to walk into. 

I dumped my bag and coat on my desk, scanning the space for my intern before heading into the meeting. No sign of Alice. Rolling my eyes, I grabbed a notebook and headed into the conference room that Elena had instructed. 

As I grew closer, I saw more than 30 people crowded in the glass-walled room. My heart sped up - this had to have something to do with what I heard Colleen discussing on the phone last week. During the last few strides between myself and the heavy glass door to my fate, all I could hear was Colleen's voice repeating in my head "that's a huge cutback Scott."

I pulled the door open slowly, in an attempt to draw as little attention to myself as possible. I spotted Elena seated in the corner nearest the door and, relieved, I slunk into a chair she had saved next to her. We exchanged a few of those knowing facial expressions that you can only master when you really know someone before I turned my attention to Colleen, who was addressing the group.

"--we expected the third quarter sales to jump, especially with the talent we had on our covers. But that just wasn't the case. We've all known that print sales have been down for years, but it's really starting to hit Platform hard now."

She made a dramatic pause and even though I had been in the meeting all of 30 seconds, I felt my stomach drop. 

Finally, Colleen spoke. "I'm not saying that layoffs are imminent, but I just wanted you all to prepare yourselves."

"Oh my god," Becca, a previous intern, said. "That is what you say when someone is about to die."

I bit my lip, trying to stifle a laugh. 

"Becca," Colleen addressed her, clearly frustrated. "I'm just giving a warning, which anyone who pays any attention to our sales figures wouldn't be surprised by."

I glanced at Elena, who was simultaneously side-eyeing me. I knew, realistically, I was in one of the safer departments. If anything digital would get more of the budget in the long run. But Elena was in Editorial, she did a lot of the copy writing and editing for pieces that went in print.  

Colleen ended the meeting and people began filtering out, gossiping loudly as they did so. Having missed the first half of the meeting, I kept my mouth shut until we reached our desks. 

"Fill me in," I said, following Elena to her desk and perching on the side of it.

She took a deep breath. "Basically, Colleen called an emergency meeting for all senior staff and editorial. She told us a bunch of numbers and said that our parent company wasn't happy, then that is about when you walked in."

I could tell she was worried about her job, and I didn't blame her. 

"Why would she even tell everyone? Now the whole staff is going to start looking for other jobs," Elena continued, and I felt a warmth creep up my neck remembering where I had been just 30 minutes before.

"Yeah," I said, before slinking off to my desk.