And Tomorrow, Oblivion

We’re driving along Broadway, “we” being myself and the two other members of my carpool: Francois, and Michael. Cruising to the mellow sounds of MC Solar (a Francophone rapper, whose alliterative lyrics are only mildly more misunderstandable than those of his Anglophone colleagues), life is good; the sun is shining, we’re hitting green at every intersection, and we’re off to our high-paying software jobs at local wireless company Infowave.

Or at least we hope we are.

An email the previous afternoon told us to be at work at 9, with a special “company meeting” to commence at 9:45. Translation: heads will roll tomorrow at 9, and those left standing will huddle at 9:45 to examine the bodies, before beginning the ritual pilfering of monitors and chairs. Punch and pie.

The drive to work reminded me of my orientation in first year university: look to the student on your left, then the student on your right; only one of you is going to make it. So, who would it be of our travellers three?

Personally, I was ready to go. My desk may have looked identical to the previous day, but in truth it was entirely different; the sum total of my desk contents:

• one stapler,
• one package of staples for said stapler,
• one package of paper clips, and
• one unopened roll of Scotch tape.

In a similar fashion, my computer hard disk was squeaky clean, freshly uploaded to my home machine about twenty seconds after receiving the email.

I wasn’t afraid of being laid off. I was afraid of having to waste my time cleaning out my desk before beginning The Hunt.