The drive seemed like it took forever as Grace arrived back in Dublin in the late afternoon. She was glad to be home, and took a deep breath as she put the key in the door of her flat. She pushed the door open and dragged in her bags along with some of the groceries she brought back with her. The flat smelled like it had been closed up for a bit, slightly musty, and stale. First things first, Grace thought to herself and immediately walked to the windows to open them up and let the fresh air in.
In the back of her mind came the thought that letting in the fresh air here was just not as nice as opening the windows at the cottage. The smell of the morning dew and fragrant flowers from the cottage garden was missing. She shrugged and went about getting the groceries into the small fridge and taking her clothes to the bedroom. Things here seemed so closed in. In the two weeks she had been gone, she had gotten used to the openness of the cottage.
Trying to push all the thoughts of the cottage out of her mind for the time being Grace busied herself with getting things in order for the coming work week. She was sure with being gone, things would have piled up on her desk and she'd be spending late hours this next week just to catch up. The company had divided up her accounts for when she would be gone so that assignments would not go past their due dates, but that didn't mean with new assignments coming in that there would not be a ton to get done.
Grace made a small cheese plate for herself for dinner with some cheese she brought back from Swatragh, and sat down with that along with bread she had packed up and a glass of wine. Not much room for any real cooking was a thought that crept into her mind as she sipped the wine.
Monday mornings were always a flurry of greetings and quick times to catch up at the office. Grace was quite surprised when she saw her desk and it was not piled up with assignments. The morning board showed a department meeting almost as soon as everyone arrived, so she grabbed her cup of tea and headed to the conference room. The mood turned somber as soon as everyone arrived. She seemed to be very out of the loop and took a seat next to Keith, who had been up to Swatragh to visit with his wife Anna.
He smiled as he asked, “So you decided to make it back here? Might have been better if you had stayed at the cottage. This is not going to be pretty.”
“What does that mean, Keith?” Grace was suddenly confused.
“It's a tough economy Grace. I don't think we've been getting enough work coming in,” Keith was somber in his response.
Just as Keith finished their boss entered the room apologizing for the early Monday morning meeting. Keith had been right. The firm was struggling, and some changes had to be made. They all needed to consider how to cut costs and still stay afloat. This was to be a planning meeting and some tough decisions would need to be made. Grace was panicked to say the least. Her first thought was she needed to be the one staying full time to be able to support herself. At this point, that was the general consensus for each of the members of the group.
Their boss made it clear that any creative ideas would be welcome so that no one had to be let go. He understood the need to keep everyone employed during this tough economy, but still needed to keep his business from going under. Ideas to bring in more business were also suggested. But at this point the one thing that was clear was that the salary overhead had to be cut. They would meet again on Wednesday morning to see what ideas everyone had come up with to cut overhead. This was not something that could be done in one day. The cheerful Monday morning office mood changed to very quiet as everyone headed back to their assignments.
Grace left the meeting disheartened. She had come back from her two week vacation rested and ready to dig in with her assignments. There were only three on her desk and they would all be done by the end of the week. She usually had ten or more assignments going at once with varying deadlines. It always seemed as she finished one or two, more would show up on her desk.
As Grace was sitting at home that night she started to crunch numbers for herself. She was a planner, as always, and needed to be able to prepare for any cut in job or pay as this week went forward. If only she had been able to sell the cottage, she'd have a reasonable slush fund to lean on during this time.
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