“Did anyone send the email for the staff meeting?” I ask.
“Yep. It’s in ten minutes,” Marlina says.
I am standing withDean, Lance, and Mason in front of all of our staff. They know I am here and waiting for them to quiet down, but they continue to talk. I’m trying to be patient, but the guys are quickly losing their patience. I knew this would happen. I knew they would be the ones to give me the hardest time. I take a deep breath and step forward a half step.
“Guys, I need everyone to quiet down so we can start our meeting.” Once again, everyone ignores me.
“She asked several times for y’all to stop talking, so stop talking,” Dean says calmly.
“Why are we listening to this slut open her mouth? She needs to stick to what she’s good at,” a male voice says, brimming with humor.
“Who said that?” Mason shouts angrily at the group of nearly three hundred. Everyone goes silent almost immediately.
“Mason,” I say softly. He ignores me and flips shit anyway.
“I don’t know who in the hell you all think you are coming into our business and acting like imbeciles,” Mason says. I sigh and lean against the table. Everyone is wide-eyed because Mason never gets upset. I don’t even see him as anything but calm most of the time.
“Do you all realize that Sadie is the one who works tirelessly to help you all meet deadlines and make your lives easier? She goes above and beyond every fucking day for you people, and this is what she gets?” he says, still yelling.
“Mason,” I say again. “It’s fine.”
“No. It’s not fine,” he says to me.
“Yes. It’s fine. They can have their opinion of me,” I argue.
“Hell no,” Marlina barks. “No. You have done nothing to deserve this disrespect. You are kind to everyone. You truly care about everyone in this room, but you let them walk all over you. No. Absolutely not.”
“Who said it?” Mason asks. “Don’t make me ask again.”
“It was Rob,” Amanda says cautiously. Amanda is a sweet woman, but painfully shy.
“Is this true?” Mason asks.
“Yes,” Rob says after a moment of silence.
“You’re fired. Leave your badge and get out,” Mason says simply.
“Are you kidding me? All because I called her a slut?” he asks, frowning deeply.
“No, you aren’t being fired for calling your boss a slut. You are being fired for insubordination. You were asked by a founding owner of the company to be quiet, and instead, you started throwing insults,” Mason says. “Leave your badge and get out of our building.”
Rob doesn’t say anything else as he takes his badge off and tosses it on a desk before turning and walking out of the building. Mason turns and smiles at me.
“Anyway,” I say. “Guys… I know a lot is going on, and I know you are probably curious about a lot. Understand that the only reason we are getting into this is because we want you all to have confidence that, despite all of the drama, we can still provide you with a stable job. Although the media is reporting that we will see a negative impact from the… video, we won’t. No one has any reason to think that their job is in danger. We will continueas normal, only we will be adding to the security that we already have at the front due to the overwhelming amount of media personnel out front. We are working on getting them pushed back some, so at a minimum, they are out of y’all’s way. Does anyone have anyappropriatequestions about the situation?”
“Are you guys dating or something?” Charlie, the marketing manager, asks.
“Yes,” I say. “I’ve said this all a few times, but if you didn’t know, we all grew up together. We’ve been inseparable for more than twenty years. Anything else?”
“I know you said this won’t impact anyone’s jobs. But how can you be so sure?” Amanda asks.
“Because technology is forever growing,” I say. “Most of all, people are morbidly curious about the situation. It brings us, more so me, a lot of hate. Personally, it is a nightmare, but for this company, it’s not affecting anything. The money we lost from the one investor pulling out was made up for by the others. If any of that changes, y’all will be the first ones to know.”
“What do you mean it is ‘personally a nightmare?’” a man asks.
“I’ve received everything from praise to death threats,” I say. “We are battling a lot of societal norms right now, so it’s drawing out a lot of sexism that is all being aimed at me.”
“Do you know who did this?” a woman asks.
