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?”
“This hearing of the Senate Committee on Hearings to Get to the Bottom of Things, will now begin. I’m Senator Jeffrey Boone. To my left is the committee’s co-chair, Senator Richard Doggle. Our first witness is Mr. Herbert B. Evasive. Mr. Evasive is the chief executive officer of URConnected. Mr. Evasive, before we get to questions from committee members, do you have an opening statement?”
“Welcome back to the Big News Show. Tonight’s top story, industry heavyweight Gargantua picks Central City as the site for its new corporate headquarters. The company is receiving $4 trillion in incentives, including a 15% ownership stake in the state, as part of the package to relocate to Central. I’m joined by Gargantua’s founder and CEO, Ben Grabalot.”
(Grabalot nods and smiles)
“Ben, explain to our viewers why Gargantua is worth $4 trillion in incentives to relocate here to Central City.”
“Good morning, class, and welcome to the graduate business school at Corrupt University. It’s great to see so many smiling, young faces, eager to learn the tricks to success in the corporate boardroom. Oh look, a question already.”
“Your website says we’ll get a one of a kind MBA.”
“Yes, our degree in Misleading Business Administration is a surefire ticket to a fat-cat corporate position. A full seventy-percent of our grads are busy right now deceiving investors, and earning big money doing so.”