She shakes her head, her blond hair ruffling against her shoulders. “I tried that already. It didn’t work. However, I may have a solution.”
She turns back toward the computer, clicking open the Careers page on the company website. I shift impatiently while she scrolls.
“When the business does layoffs like this,” she explains, turning back to me, “they always freeze hiring. It’s against employment laws, or something.”
“Isn’t it, like, literally in your job description to know this stuff?”
“Zip it,” she orders. “The particulars don’t matter. Bottom line, they can’t make any external hires for a while, so any open job listings need to be filled internally. The only thing is, if I reassign you, you won’t get your redundancy package.”
I hesitate. “What’s the package?”
“One month’s pay.”
Come again? “You just said it was generous.”
“It is, compared withnopackage.”
“I’ll take the job with the paying salary, thanks.”
“OK, well then, beggars can’t be choosers.”
“I’ll do anything,” I tell her. “Just please don’t send me back to Canada without a job.”
“Senior software engineer?”
“Anything but that.”
“Junior legal counsel?”
“The ‘no law degree thing’ might be a problem.”
She looks at me like:you should have thought of that before you got fired.
I squint toward the screen. “Is there nothing else in Product?”
“Oh, no way. Product got absolutely decimated.”
“Figures,” I mutter.
“Unless you want to take the designer intern placement,unpaid,” she says, clicking around the job listings, “your only other option is Data Strategy.”
I pause. “Am I supposed to know what thatis?”
“The department head is Naomi Evans, if that helps.”
“It doesn’t,” I tell her. “But whatever. I’ll do that.”
“Hmm,” she says, scrolling through the job description. “I’m not sure you’re qualified for this, you know.”
“Carrie! Whose side are youon?”
“Yours! I’m justsaying,they might give you a hard time. I can assign it to you, but it’s still up to the department head to decide. If multiple people apply for the role, you’re screwed.”
“It’ll be fine,” I insist. “I will be very charming, and they will be desperate to have me on their team.”
I mean, really. How hard can itbe?
“Not sure that’s how it works.” Carrie drums her fingers against her lips, then types something, clicks around and says, “The thing is…I’m not very tech-savvy.”
