The first thing I noticed in the office lobby was the huge window that doubled up as south-side wall. I admired the view outside: the gleaming expanse of the river not so far away, with sailboats and ships and bridge across it gleaming in the afternoon sun.

It was the first day of Startenburrey summer, & I was there for a short onsite assignment. “You are so lucky to be here at this time of the year,” said Steve. He was showing me around the office, the HQ of my company’s client. I smiled, yes I sure was lucky. I had managed to be there just before the “shut-down.”

Steve proceeded to introduce me to the rest of the team - the people I’d be working with for a month. They turned out to be a bunch of tall, mostly oversized bunch of men (not a woman in sight!), with more than two decades of experience and tenure with the client. But they turned out to be gentle giants, quickly accepted me in the fold, helping me settle down. Within an hour I was taking part in their jargon-laden conversation.

There was Mark, who was to be my SME. Imagine a panda-fied Shane Warne with spectacles & sarcastic sense of humor, & you’d get Mark. Jim and Fred, both senior troubleshooters, and my cube-mates. Steve himself, a project manager with the client, a reed-thin guy forever attending conference calls in a cube close by.  More guys, with booming voices and different stages of baldness & graying, made up the rest of the team I was to work with. And I, a tiny millennial girl, felt quite “at-home” with them around.

Though at first glance, all seemed hunky-dory. But I could feel that the “shut-down” hung like a dark cloud on everyone, including Steve. The client had decided to shut-down operations at Startenburrey and lay off all its workforce at the month-end. I knew that when I was looking out of that window. Sigh!

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The names and places are imaginary, to protect the identities of people and to protect me from law suits. But the story is real.