Shadows & Whispers

New management could be a massive change depending on how much they wanted to change. I had some questions floating in my head, but they were all asked or answered in one way, shape or form by others. The meeting lasted just over an hour by the time all the questions had been answered. At the end of the question answering, the people who walked in behind the MD were introduced. They were a team of managers from the Yorkshire site who were not at risk and would help lead the Leicester team here once it was built. The meeting was concluded and people dissipated from the room and back to their desks. The afternoon was filled with a lot of office chatter between everyone regarding possibilities. We knew with the redundancies happening that it would be a good few months before things really started happening. "You know what I think, I think we should go out tomorrow night." Cleo exclaimed. "Really Cleo? Any particular reason?" I questioned. "To celebrate the fact that we could be

After a few drinks Cleo was up dancing and dragged me with her. Although, I had a few drinks in my system, I was nowhere near enough inebriated to enjoy being on the dance floor the same way Cleo did. Cleo headed to the bar for more drinks. We were in the fifth round of drinks and there was no sign of Cleo slowing down. I tried my best to convince her, but she was having too much fun to slow down. The guys who brought us drinks had arrived about an hour after we did. Cleo spotted them on round 4 of the drinks and asked them to dance. They were more than happy to oblige. I ensured that I was the one getting the drinks for each round so that I could make mine nonalcoholic. I needed to make sure that I was in a fit state to meet my mum for lunch the following day, even if we got in at silly o’clock in the morning. I was fetching round number 8 of drinks when there was someone next to me at the bar. “Hey, pretty lady. Wanna dance.” The voice was creepy, and his hand was around me.

I saw my mum rushing through the door and over to me. “I’m so sorry I'm late, Erin.” She puffed. “It’s alright. Are you alright?” I asked concerned by the look on her face. “Yes, yes. I am alright, my neighbour had a fall this morning. We had to call the ambulance; she’s broken her hip.” “Oh no. Is that the older lady?” “Yes, I think she’s 82.” The waitress came over and took my mums order. We spoke a while longer about the lady next door, before she decided she was hungry. We knew the menu like the back of our hand as it was our regular meet up place, but each time we still picked up the menu and perused it over. I settled on the tuna melt while mum chose the club sandwich. She insisted on paying against all my protests. The food was delicious as always, but once again I found myself distracted by the events of the night previous. “Earth to Erin.” Victoria called.I was still away with the fairies until my mum waved her hand in front of my face. I shook my head and brough

There was a wave of shock in the room. Questions started flying left, right, and center. Our boss wasn’t the worst we’ve had. He had room for improvement as he was quite laid back that he wouldn’t bring people to task with their mistakes. That made it difficult to improve processes when we needed to. As we left, I could see Cleo talking but not what she was saying. There were a million things running around in my head.The day was a slow one. By the time our shift was complete, Cleo was asking if I wanted to go for a drink after work. I agreed, in need of a distraction from my own thoughts. I was mainly worried about the person that would be coming in and taking the place of our boss. Cleo was happy to do most of the talking for the evening. The following week followed a similar pattern; the office had a strange air of caution in it. I was as upbeat as normal, which helped lift the mood of the office. On Friday, I decided to treat the office and headed into the local bakery and grab

It has been almost 8 weeks since our manager left. Prue was on the Monday morning drink run. As she entered with the office drinks, there was a look on her face that was one of excitement. Once the drinks had been dished out, she rolled her chair between mine and Cleo’s.“Guess what.” She tried to keep her voice quiet.We both looked at her, waiting for her to continue.“I heard the cleaners talking in reception when I came in. Apparently, the new boss is here.”“Did you see them?” I asked.“Nope, but they were talking about how hot and young he is.” She tried to contain her excitement, but her slightly high-pitched voice caught the attention of a couple of others in the office. They soon came over or around from their tables, and we were all having an office talk over the morning drinks. As things settled down, Prue jumped on a morning update call with the clients, one by one. It was something new that I had introduced to ensure everyone was getting the level of service they req