American Shutdown - Chapter 1: 10 AM in the Cafeteria

A piercing sleet had built up under his SUV’s wiper blades making the final leg of Sam’s commute to work visually impaired. He was running late and his Starbucks mug was empty. Thank goodness it was Friday.

The plant parking lot was filled with imprecisely parked cars whose drivers had tried to avoid the many pools of slush pock-marking the macadam. He saw an open spot in a remote corner that appeared to be on higher ground, pulled into it and then realized an icy pool was awaiting him below the driver-side door. He tried to leap over the water and felt the frigid melt seep into his loafers. What a way to start the day. His favorite dress loafers made a sloshing sound as he ran to the front door of plant offices. Once inside he made a bee line to the coffee area.

“Hey, Sam. Did you see the notice on the board?” The voice was that of his golfing buddy, Bernie Soloff, who was speaking to him over a raised paper coffee cup.

“Nope, I just got in and I’m running late. What’s it about?” Sam asked.

“You have your coffee yet? If not, you might want to get some, first,” Bernie quipped back.

Recognizing Bernie’s heads-up tone of voice, Sam pushed him, “Yeah, I had my daily dose of Starbucks ten dollar latte on the way in. Why? Just tell me what it says.”

Bernie sauntered over to a space near Sam by the coffee table and whispered to him, “We’ve all been invited this morning to a 10 o’clock meeting in the cafeteria called by the muckety-mucks.”

Sam looked at his watch. It was 8:15AM. “Oh, crap, not another cafeteria meeting,” he said over his shoulder to Bernie.

The elevator doors closed in front of Sam to take him to his second floor office.

There was a time at his micro-medical device plant when a meeting in the cafeteria was good news. Most often they would be about expansion plans, new product lines, annual stock options, bonus programs or how early you could leave the office on seasonal holidays.

The Great Recession of 2008, green card technical labor and outsourcing to Pacific Rim markets changed all that. The executives, managers and technical staff at Micro-MedTek had grown numb to cafeteria meetings. The dark corporate humor surrounding these meetings pointed out that if the cafeteria kitchens were closed when you went to one, it might be time to worry about your future at M-Mtek.

Sam felt the slippery dampness inside his loafers as the elevator lifted him to the second floor engineering group where his toasted almond office awaited him. The mood was somber. Small groups of employees with environmentally smart paper coffee cups lounged around chatting about their awful ride to work. Occasionally they glanced at their watches and waited for the appointed hour of doom.

Sliding into his swivel chair, Sam booted his laptop and waited for his password prompt to appear on the golf course green screensaver. His coffee was still very hot. His feet very cold.

Sam sat staring at the screen with the corporate logo superimposed on his golf course scene. It was a multi-colored blue and grey M-Mtek in a thick triangular frame. He never liked it, thinking it looked more like a logo for a machine shop than a high tech medical device manufacturing outfit.

There had been other dog and pony shows in the cafeteria put on by higher-ups brought in from corporate headquarters. This one would probably be no different. The suits would be sitting at adjoining lunch tables next to the district plant manager at a podium. At 10 o’clock sharp, they would get right to it.

The reigning regional plant manager would look up from his notes at his audience and flatly state that the company needed to cut costs if it were to survive in a growing, competitive world marketplace for lower cost micro-medical devices.

Was it going to be his turn this time? Would he be belittled by having to train his replacements during a downsizing? Would he be called on to supervise the crating and shipping of the plants equipment to an offshore factory in the Pacific Rim? Perhaps it would simply be out the door by close of business that day.

He felt a slight dampness under his arms. There were 57 notices in his company email box. The record was 260 at a previous layoff one year ago. Now there were fewer employees available to tap them out.

Sam’s cell phone buzzed. It was his wife. “Hey, Peg. What’s up? You at work?” he asked.

“Yep. I just heard from Bernie’s wife that you’re having another one of those cafeteria meetings at 10 today.” She added, “I told you should have gotten out of that place after you made it through the last one.”

Quickly, Sam shot back, “Maybe I’ll get lucky, again.”

Peg confided to him, “Mimi says Bernie is hearing this could be the big one. Maybe a shutdown of the whole place.”

“Well, if that’s so, don’t expect me to get home at the regular time. I’ll be scouting bridges to jump off from,” he chuckled. “Or, drowning my sorrows with Bernie at the club.”

“OK, I got to go now. The new boss doesn’t like us making personal calls on company time. There’s so many moles around here. Can’t trust anyone. Don’t forget to text me if you find a good bridge. Love ya,” Peg said and hung up.

The laptop clock registered 9:20 AM. Sam thought he should call Bernie to check out where he was getting his information about the meeting. He saw that he didn’t need to. Bernie was standing at his door with a fresh cup of coffee in hand. He slide over into the chair next to Sam‘s desk.

“I was just going to call you. Peg said your wife called her at the office and said you think this might be the big one. What do you know about it, bud?”

Bernie pulled his chair closer to Sam’s desk, hunched over and whispered, “For weeks now, they’ve been inventorying and photo documenting all the plant equipment. They do it at night and weekends when no one’s around. I heard that movers and riggers have been scoping the plant for estimates.”

Bernie looked almost gleeful that he was first to give Sam his inside information. He jokingly added that it was time to update the old resumes.

“Well, there won’t be time for that if we’re all gone by close of business today,” Sam said.

Bernie turned grim. “They wouldn’t do that, would they, Sam?”

Sam stood up still feeling the dampness around his feet. He said to his friend, “Let’s wander over to the cafeteria. Like lambs to the slaughter, right?”

10AM Sharp in the cafeteria
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American Shutdown by Benjamin F. Campanelli
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