Ghostbusters: Regeneration

Chapter Six

Melissa had experienced a few bad work days in her time, but this must have been the absolute worst - not to mention the shortest - of them all.

As planned, she had gone to her boss' office first thing in the morning to present her interview piece. However, warning bells were quickly ringing in her mind when Meredith opened their conversation by stating she had already planned to talk with her. With a faint smirk upon her face, she told Melissa to take a seat before she began to recount a series of events.

It turns out that late yesterday afternoon, Cameron had casually asked Meredith about the 'pretty blonde' video intern named Melissa who had been helping out with the dock attack story. Realising that MNN had no female video interns at present and that there was only one Melissa on the office staff, Meredith quickly figured out what had happened that morning. At that point in her recounting of her story, she actually seemed impressed that Melissa would take the time outside her standard work hours to gain some extra experience.

If the situation had ended there Melissa may have, against all odds, ended up on her boss' good side. Meredith, however, perhaps suspicious about the 'pretty blonde's' secret work with the video team, chose to do a little digging. She decided to Google Melissa's name to see if she had been putting any amateur work online since she had been denied a shot at the video journalist role several months back. She quickly found Melissa's YouTube channel, and again intimated that she was impressed with her efforts.

Any glimmers of positivity soon fell away as Meredith then recalled how she had laid eyes on the appeal video and noticed the MNN-owned footage. Melissa eventually got a moment to explain everything she had done, saying that it had all been to create a quality report that would convince Meredith that she deserved another chance at being a reporter. However, her miserable boss cared nothing for her reasoning, nor that the final report had been completed and was on a USB stick in Melissa's hand. Not only had the copywriter carried out unauthorised work at the station, used MNN-owned footage on her personal vlog without permission, but she had also posted said footage online before the station even published it itself. It turns out that an escaped rhino from the Bronx Zoo had pushed many other news stories back several hours that day, especially ones with few concrete details and considered of 'little public interest'. By posting her video at around midday, Melissa had inadvertently scooped the station's own piece on the attack, using its own footage.

Meredith, instead of being reasonable and able to see what Melissa had done was ultimately for MNN, decided instead to fire her right there. Melissa was stunned, admitting that she had probably broken some rules but argued that this was not an offence that warranted instant dismissal. Meredith paid no mind to the young woman's point, and even nonchalantly made some comment along the lines of how a copywriter was easy to replace. Though Melissa resented such a diminishing remark, she internally somewhat agreed with the basic sentiment. Most people with basic writing skills could probably do that job, no matter how punctual and wonderful a staff member they might be, which was partly why Melissa had wanted to move up to bigger and better things.

That dream of hers now appeared to be in tatters. In fact, her whole career could be. If she did not receive a good reference from MNN she might not even be able to attain a similar, decent copywriter role somewhere else.

At least Meredith let her leave the office quickly and quietly, though she wondered what her now-former colleagues would be told about her. She hoped Leon and maybe some of the other staff who knew her would defend her name from getting completely dragged through the mud, either by Meredith or office rumour-mongering. She also hoped that Leon would not get too much of a ticking off for his part in all this, but she suspected that the station's best cameraman and video editor would be safe from being fired.