Thursday, February 5, 2009

Fired! (Or, Laid Off, as Mama G Is Making Me Say -- Semantics)


For all the naysayers out there, it happened. The above man was me, yesterday. I got the axe. I was lopped off and placed into the Land of Unemployment. Just two dear days after I was offered a DVD/movie column.

The treatment was quite classic. I walked in to the building, ready to hobble over to my little perch on the third floor. My daily dungeon. Boxes and hugs abounded, but I breathed deep and put one foot in front of another (with a little crippled swagger, sure).

"There's so much carnage, sorry for the weird face I made at you when you came in," said the first message I read in my work inbox.

The next message was a stately communique that read: "Employees: Watch this video before you do anything else."

Eerie in its coldness, eerier in its candor. The video was a little man who was hired some months ago -- round, balding and crude-looking -- telling us of the Restructuring. Some would be affected, but don't worry, They will be taken care of.

I was part of the They.

I wanted to post some great movie clip of someone walking the plank or getting their head chopped off; alas, I'm on the bus to Boston and they've blocked YouTube. JERKS!

Sooooooo, anyway, I cried some thankless tears as the HR lady told us of our fate; blubbered a bit, hugged my big coworker Ken, who made the days bearable, then shoved my hand in the face of my boss when he came over and said: "Really??! I DON'T want to talk to you right now." ME! It was a shock to the ol' system.

I even cut off the Bossman's Bosslady by saying, "You know what!?? You know WHAT!? I've been f*cking [no star in the actual convo] doing TWO jobs for this company. I should've spoken up sooner. I f*cking [see above] went to Harvard -- I don't know what I've been doing here."

Whoa, who knew this little Grice had the gall to say something like that -- or the arrogance.

C'est la vie.

PS: I think it's time for LA, though Brother Grice is now pushing for Austin. Hmmm, times, they're a-changing.

2 comments:

KarenSampsonHudson said...

Oh, so sorry to hear. If you do go to LA, you probably have friends there already? My daughter Annie and her husband David are settling into their new house in Burbank. David's a graphic artist who knows a lot of people in the "industry". Let us know if we can help in any way. Good luck!

Paramendra Kumar Bhagat said...

""You know what!?? You know WHAT!? I've been f*cking [no star in the actual convo] doing TWO jobs for this company. I should've spoken up sooner. I f*cking [see above] went to Harvard -- I don't know what I've been doing here.""

That's the spirit. Time to start anew. You are designed to do your own thing. You are too creative, too original. The seeds of the biggest fortunes are planted in times like this.