After Being Laid Off
Chapter 1
The company–wide management meeting was
a real buzzkill. Ashley, Veronica’s assistant,
was checking IDs at the door.
She was all smiles for everyone else, but
when I showed up, she just scoffed.
I frowned and held up my badge, showing I
was the head of Cybersecurity, but she didn’t
even glance at it.
“Oh, come on, Kyle,” Ashley snickered.
“Veronica felt bad for you, giving you that
title. Don’t go thinking you’re hot stuff now.”
I ignored her and just dialed the CEO’s direct
M:
<
“Hey, someone’s saying my position here is
some charity case thing. True?”
“Seriously? That’s all this is? Okay, I’m pretty swamped now, gotta run.” Veronica’s tone
was cold, and I could tell she was already on
her way over.
Ashley clearly heard that too, and rolled her
eyes so hard I thought they might pop out of
her head before she finally let me in.
I thought the initial hazing was over, but as
soon as I stepped into the conference room, everyone started avoiding me like I had the
plague.
Wherever I sat, someone would quickly move
Г
within seconds.
I raised an eyebrow, not really caring.
I’ve never really fit in here, and people are
always whispering about me anyway. I tuned
it out for the most part.
“Alright, everyone, thanks for coming to this
management meeting. Veronica’s running a
little late, so I’ll just kick things off for her.”
Ashley, the same one who tried to block me
at the door, started leading the meeting. It
was all pretty standard stuff at first –
department adjustments, personnel changes,
blah, blah, blah.
I was bored out of my mind and kept
checking my phone.
Г
“…And since the company’s profits are down
3% this quarter, the board thinks some cost-
cutting is in order.”
When Ashley said that, I noticed everyone
was grinning at me like they knew something I
didn’t. Super weird.
Then Ashley looked right at me. “Kyle, we’re
dissolving the Cybersecurity department. You
haven’t exactly brought in any profit these
last few years, and it’s just you in the whole
department. Is it not boring hanging onto a
title and not really doing anything? It’s not a
great look for the company!”
So, that’s why everyone’s been acting so
strange today. This is ridiculous.
“Are you sure about that? Dissolving my
く
“Are you sure about that? Dissolving my
department?” I asked, trying to keep my voice
even.
Ashley just scoffed, like I couldn’t understand
plain English.
That’s when some of my coworkers started
piling on.
“Come on, Kyle, is it not clear by now?”
“If you can’t handle it, maybe you should
reflect on yourself. You’ve been glued to your
phone since this meeting started!”
“Disrespecting Ashley is like disrespecting
Veronica, you know?”
L
Hearing that, I just shook my head.
“I’m on my phone monitoring the firewall
data, in case some virus tries to breach our
core systems when I’m not looking. How does
that translate to disrespecting Veronica?”
They really have no idea what I do.
Everyone just scoffed again.
“Monitoring? What’s the point? There aren’t
even that many threats to begin with.”
“Yeah, you’re probably just goofing off in your
office all day, and now you’re acting like
some kind of workaholic to gain some
points.
“You’re just putting on a show because
Veronica’s almost here.”
ཁལ་
Looking at the way everyone was coming at
me, I realized I never knew so many people
disliked me.
I’m getting roasted because our company has
never been hacked!
In that moment, I thought of a meme I saw
online, about this programmer who’d sneakily
create bugs, just so he could get called in to
fix them and look useful.
This is exactly the same!
Keeping my head down and actually doing my
job? Turns out it gets you nowhere!
If that’s how it is Lam dropping the pics set
Г
I slowly stood up, looked each of them in the
eye.
“If it weren’t for me, you guys would be
screwed. You wouldn’t even be here. Let me
be blunt: Cybersecurity is the most critical
department in this company, got it?”
Ashley laughed even harder.
“Who gave you the right to act like you’re so
important? Veronica? Don’t be naive, Kyle!”
I was about to say more, but the conference
room door flew open, and someone barked,
“Shut it!”
