Basic Trope: A character learns of some kind of disaster that affects them personally (e.g. the death of a loved one, a layoff, a loved one gone missing or in critical condition, etc.) through a news program, website, or newspaper.
- Straight: Early one morning, Bob is getting ready for work. As he's adjusting his tie, the news program talks about how the CEO of the company he works for has been arrested for fraud, and the company is going under.
- Exaggerated: Bob hears about the End of the World as We Know It on the morning news.
- Downplayed: Bob hears that there will be some traffic on his way to work.
- Justified:
- The CEO of the company knew that it was in trouble, and that he was being investigated for fraud, but he didn't alert any of the employees, because he was hoping he'd be able to fix the situation, or because he didn't want them to lose faith in the company.
- The company is so large that they're bound to overlook a few of their sites when making these kinds of announcements. (maybe part of why it is going under)
- Bob's department is among the few that are largely unaffected by the restructuring.
- Inverted: Many months before anything hits the news, a company-wide meeting is held to let the employees know what's going on.
- Subverted:
- Bob has been seeing signs at work that something was amiss for months. Several high-level executives left the company (two went elsewhere and took much lower-level jobs, one decided to become a stay-at-home parent, one retired, and one went on sabbatical and never came back.) Lots of new and silly rules started popping up out of nowhere, and several members of Bob's team were fired for bullshit reasons, the company stopped providing coffee cups (so employees had to bring mugs from home or go on a coffee run), and basic office supplies like pens seemed to be in short supply. So when he heard that he was being laid off, it wasn't exactly a surprise, and he'd been sprucing up his resumé just in case.
- The company going under was merely the news program speculating on how it would affect said company.
- The article is traced back to The Onion.
- Double Subverted:
- He didn't hear about the layoff when he got to work, he heard about it on the news, and wondered why there was no "heads up" meeting or memo.
- The speculation turns out to be dead on.
- The Onion didn't expect their article to be so close to the truth.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted:
- Bob doesn't get laid off.
- Alternatively, he does, but he's told about it by his supervisor when he gets to work.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: "In local news, Trope Co. is announcing that its CEO will be stepping down, and several hundred employees are expected to be laid off. It is unknown whether they have been informed of this directly..."
- Invoked: The CEO tried to cover up what was going on, and acted like everything was fine, until he couldn't anymore.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Trope Co. has meetings long before any layoffs occur, or before the company itself goes completely under, to keep all of its employees (from the janitor to the vice president) informed of what's going on with the company.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
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