Dear People in the Newsroom Team,
I hope all is well with you and your dependents families. This is just a quick note to let you know that fifty-nine of you are fired will be pursing new opportunities elsewhere. The four of you who are not fired staying with Crock, the world’s media leader, will be responsible for running the newsroom, including covering the news, writing the news, taking pictures of the news, and editing the news.
Hoffman came into the conference room and put his iPad down. He looked around at the team sitting at the shiny conference table, careful to make eye contact with each one of us. The mood went from the jovial, pointless pre-meeting small talk to tenseness. Something was going on. Something big.
Wilson from marketing looked downright awful when I bumped into him coming out of the company gym. His right eye was puffy, black and blue, and swollen half-shut. His hair was a mess. The man looked like he was on the verge of collapse.
“I’m sure you’re not hearing this for the first time today,” I said, “but you look like crap. You take up mixed martial arts or something?”
Mahoney sat at the bar, staring at the screen of the laptop. On it was a story about the Kildare that Hartman had arranged through one of his media contacts.
Battling Barkeeps Open Watering Hole
They’ve battled each other for almost a decade, one a gruff big-time newspaper columnist, the other a PR whiz for one of the most controversial mayors New York had ever known. But now, Phil Mahoney and Jerry Mills have put old grudges aside to go into business together.