No one left in the office

There has been trouble at my sister's company again. At the annual shareholders' meeting last week, the board was sharply asked to improve efficiency.

The CEO, a young chap called Bob, then decided to lay off the entire work force to employ new people, who better would fit into the company culture. The problem was that the CFO, a vile bloke called Pete, discovered this was going on, so he laid off the CEO. As the CEO laid off everyone except himself and the CFO laid off the CEO, there was no one left.

Apparently Bob and Pete met at a pub to discuss the issue, each bringing the few legal papers they had managed to get from the office, before it was sealed off. It turned out that all their actions had been legally valid. There really was no one left working at the company - not even themselves.

An additional difficulty was that special regulations forbid the owners from meddling into the business of the company between the annual meetings, so no new board can be appointed before next year, and no one can be employed before then.

However, it seems to be no big problem for the company. It will continue to receive licensing fees from its customers for a long time.

There will not be any problem for my sister either. She anyhow wanted to take some months off to try to understand my blog.

It may be more difficult for Bob and Pete. It turned out that their severance packages consisted entirely in the right to additional unpaid holidays.