Rumour on layoffs becomes true as I am sworn to secrecy

One of the things that I have learnt in my working life is not to ignore rumours because there always seems to be some fire even when the smoke seems harmless.

A few weeks ago, I attended some cross–functional training on records keeping. I was very skeptical about going, after all there is no rocket science to keeping records, or so I thought.  It would appear that there is quite a lot of method in the madness of records.

The facilitator was quite interesting as he took us through various ways of making sure that documents are properly classified and filed.

Listening to him made me feel like a retard because it seems like I have been doing the wrong things all this time. For a skeptic, I ended up quite impressed with the content and when I got home, I told Shiro about the exciting learnings from the session.

She stole my thunder by saying, “kwani what kind of company do you work for? Us guys have been doing these for ages?”

The way Shiro talks about her company sometimes makes me feel like I work for a third rate company. After  her comments, I dared not share with her the  rest of the learnings because I did not want to have my spirit crushed.

On the last day of our training, we were all invited to a cocktail. 

Ordinarily, I skip office cocktails because they are just for idle gossip. However, this time our training was in a part of town that gets crazy traffic jams from 5pm to 8pm. It therefore made more sense to wait out the jam at the cocktail.

As expected, after a few drinks people started getting louder and congregating around tables. That is how I found myself with a group of my colleagues once again from different departments. 

One of the ladies who clearly had consumed a bit too much alcohol said, “Can we all stop pretending that life is good while we all know what is going to happen next month?” 

I noticed the knowing glances exchanged by those in the group so I said, “what are you talking about? Another young lady who has been in the company for less than six months said, “Josephat, either you are acting or you live on a different planet.”

I replied , “Frankly, I have no idea what you guys are talking about?” someone else said, “surely! How can you work so closely with the CEO yet you know nothing about what is happening?”

This back and forth went on and to be honest, I was getting rather peeved with my colleagues. I just wished they would come out and say what they were talking about instead of playing mysterious games. I was tempted to walk away but I knew that if I did that, I would lose out on the story.

After what seemed like an eternity the lady who had started it all said, “I hear that they are going to send people home.”  This was news to me and my face must have showed my shock for she gasped and covered her mouth and said, “you did not know! And yet you are one of them!”

I said, “one of whom?” I think the alcohol had opened the inhibitions and she said, “but surely you are one of them. You are the CEO’s right hand guy.” 

I did not know what to say so I just kept quiet and let them continue.

Based on the conversation, the company has decided to lay off people because in the words of the know-it-all lady, “we are not doing well and the bosses cannot give up their fat salaries.” The rest of the evening was a blur as I got to learn more about the rumour.

So you can imagine my shock when a few days later the CEO called me into a meeting and said, “Before we start you need to sign this confidentiality agreement.” I pretended to read it before I signed.”

I was taken aback by the presence of the HR manager. I was surprised by the calm way in which the CEO said, “we are planning to rightsize our company. You will be the numbers guy for this project.”

And just like that a rumour became reality.