Brian held the door open for the company director, a much older man who looked like his eye sockets were receding and his cheeks were about to start hanging, but still wore a striped blazer and drove an open top Porsche. The director stopped in his tracks as he remembered something.
“Ah, I’ve just remembered something,” he said.
Brian braced himself. He was constantly waiting for bad news. Being the head of Meletab had not been easy, as he constantly had to fight against public opinion that online gaming on a tablet was just not viable, amongst other things. After having worked in various companies, this was his most well paid yet most challenging job yet. He kept wondering if the pains in the side of his chest were a sign of stress or a heart attack and all his hair had left him, along with his wife and kids. But he had cocaine, piles and piles of it. He was one of the best talkers in the business. “Say hello to my little friend!” he would say, as he invited party goers to have a line, and strangely, during these industry parties, he could chat to anyone, impress them all, and sell anything.
“Oh yeah, so, we’re cancelling Meletab.” The boss was quite nonchalant about it, while Brian’s already-shattered world fell apart, as it seemed all his attempts to impress with his endless thunder on stage, for example, as he didn’t wear a black poloneck like the others, but an innovative T-shirt and tie combination-
“Good work on that, by the way,” the boss interrupted his meltdown and gave him an old fashioned chop to the side of Brian’s arm. “We’ll be relying on you for the next product launch.”
“But sir,” said Brian, “we’ve still got hundreds of software titles and apps and devices to launch!” The potential cost of cancelling these dumbfounded him.
The boss chuckled. “Cancel them. If there are any parties bound to finish a product, let them, or just release them. The meletab has done its job. We’re moving on.”
Brian didn’t get it. He had never failed, or at least, had jumped ship before anything sank. The boss noticed his glazed over look.
“Brian, don’t give this any more energy, the job was simply to get our name into each market, and there’s plenty more to do. Sad about it? Buy an iPad, it’s way better. OK? Are we clear? Good, Mary will keep you posted about a new dazzling potentially bullshit thing that you’re going to launch, or we can whip up a severance package, no problem. Ok? Now fuck off.”