A Monday Meeting

 

Grim faces surrounded the conference room table.  One wall of the room held an array of charts and graphs, showing areas of bad judgements and mistakes, and a steady decline of profits.  No one spoke as they waited for the big boss to come in.

A lazy coil of smoke danced up from the glass ashtray on the table.  The remnant of a cigar lay dying.  One end had been nervously chewed, while the other end gasped for its final breath.

Which one of us would be the one to go?  History says last in, first out.  Then again, maybe more than one of us would see their career go up in smoke.  The waiting was horrendous.  There would be no Calvary coming over the hill to save us, no life ring tossed to us as we drowned in our own sea of dreadful anticipation.

The hum from the overhead lights grew louder and someone clearing a paper jam at the copier in the hallway could be heard.  Was any of this worth a four year degree? Why did I even keep sitting here?  Clearly not the career choice I had envisioned.  As I began to mentally calculate the possibility of surviving on unemployment, the conference room door opened.